P. 430, c. 1—“Racine,” rä-seen´. (Born 1639, died 1699.) The most famous of French dramatists. He began his career in Paris in 1662, and for ten years achieved wonderful success; but at thirty-eight years of age he suddenly decided to abandon the stage and become a Carthusian monk. He was prevailed upon to modify his views and marry. Afterward Racine became historiographer to the king. “Esther” and “Athalie,” the only plays produced after his conversion, are deeply religious. P. 430, c. 2—“Iliad.” Homer’s finest epic, treating of the anger of Achilles, an episode in the Trojan war. P. 430, c. 2—“Odyssey,” ŏd´e-se. An epic poem relating to the adventures of Ulysses as he returned to Ithaca after the fall of Troy. P. 430, c. 2—“Virgil,” ver´jil, (70 B. C.-19 B. C.) After Homer, the greatest of epic poets. His life was mainly spent in Italy. At thirty-four he began his “Georgics,” and worked seven years at them. The rest of his life was given to his epic, the Æneid. In 19 B. C. he went to Greece to revise this, but meeting the Emperor Augustus, then on his triumphal march, he started back with him. On the voyage he contracted a fatal illness and died a few days after reaching Italy. P. 430, c. 2—“Ovid,” ŏv´id. (43 B. C.-18 A. D.) A Roman, educated for the law, but most famous as a poet. He was banished by the Emperor Augustus in 8 A. D., and died ten years later in the tower of Ovid, at the mouth of the Danube, where he is supposed to have been confined. P. 430, c. 2—“Mĕ-ta-mor´phō-ses.” One of Ovid’s best-known works, treating of the transformation, or changes of form, which were so often the subject of ancient stories and legends. P. 430, c. 2—“Lund.” A town in the extreme south of Sweden. There are two famous universities in Sweden, at Upsala and at Lund. The latter was founded in 1628, and has thirty professors, about five hundred students, and a library of fifty thousand volumes. In 1853 Lund erected a colossal statue to the memory of Tegnér. P. 430, c. 2—“Idyl,” ī´dyl. A short pastoral poem in a highly finished style. P. 430, c. 2—“Æsthetics,” ĕs-thet´ics. The theory of taste, or the science of the beautiful. P. 430, c. 2—“Dithyramb,” dĭth´e-rămb. The word comes from _Dithyrambus_, an ancient name of Bacchus, and afterward applied to lyric poetry of an enthusiastic and vehement style. P. 430, c. 2—“Phosphoristic.” An unusual word of about the same meaning as phosphorescent, but not as yet accepted by lexicographers. It is applied to that school of poetry which may be said to seek its source entirely from within, or from the spirit—a kind of transcendentalism. P. 430, c. 2—“Whitsun Idyl.” A story of White-Sunday-tide, or, contracted, Whitsuntide, the English name for the Pentecost. It is so called from the white garments which were prescribed for those to wear who were about to receive the Lord’s Supper for the first time.