=Vipont= (_Sir Ralph de_) a knight of St. John. He is one of the knights challengers.--Sir W. Scott, _Ivanhoe_ (time, Richard I.). =Virgil=, in the _Gesta Romanorum_, is represented as a mighty but benevolent enchanter, and this is the character that Italian romances give him. Similarly, Sir Walter Scott is called “The Great Wizard of the North.” _Virgil_, in Dantê, is the personification of human wisdom, Beatrice of the wisdom which comes of faith, and St. Bernard of spiritual wisdom. Virgil conducts Dantê through the Inferno and through Purgatory too, till the seven P’s (_peccata_ “sins”) are obliterated from his brow, when Beatrice becomes his guide. St. Bernard is his guide through a part of Paradise. Virgil says to Dantê: What _reason_ here discovers, _I_ have power To show thee; that which lies beyond, expect From Beatrice----_faith_ not reason’s task. Dantê, _Purgatory_, xviii. (1308). _Virgil._ The inscription on his tomb (said to have been written by himself) was: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces. In Mantua was I born; Calabria saw me die; Of sheep, fields, wars I sung; and now in Naples lie. _Virgil_ (_The Christian_), Giacomo Sannazaro (1458-1530). Marco Girolamo Vida, author of _Christias_ (in six books), is also called “The Christian Virgil” (1490-1566). ⁂ Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, of Spain, is called by Bentley “The Virgil and Horace of Christians” (348-*). =Virgil of our Dramatic Poets= (_The_). Ben Jonson is so called by Dryden (1574-1637). Shakespeare was the Homer or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, and pattern of elaborate writing. I admire rare Ben, but I love Shakespeare.--Dryden. =Virgil of the French Drama= (_The_). Jean Racine is so called by Sir Walter Scott (1639-1699). =Virgil’s Courtship.= Godfrey Gobilyve told Graunde Amoure that Virgil, the poet, once made proposals to a lady of high rank in the Roman court, who resolved to punish him for his presumption. She told him that if he would appear on a given night before her window, he should be drawn up in a basket. Accordingly he kept his appointment, got into the basket, and, being drawn some twenty feet from the ground, was left there dangling till noon the next day, the laugh and butt of the court and city.--Stephen Hawes, _The Passe-tyme of Plesure_, xxix. (1515).