and on this he expended the money he had obtained in his

Dalmatian campaign. To him Virgil dedicated his fourth Eclogue. The most important of his literary works was a history of the civil wars, in seventeen books, from 60 b.c. to the battle of Actium. Belonging as he did both to the Ciceronian and the Augustan age, his oratory and writings seem to have partaken of the characteristics of both periods, but nothing now remains of his compositions. Niebuhr compares him to Lessing, as forming a sort of connecting link between the writers of two generations. As a critic Pollio was severe, and is especially noted for condemning in the historian Livy a certain Patavinity, probably meaning an inelegant provincial idiom.—G. POLLOK, Robert, author of "The Course of Time," was the son of a small farmer, and was born in 1798 at Muirhouse, in the parish of Eaglesham, Renfrewshire. He received his elementary education at the parish school of Mearns, and from an early age he displayed an ardent love for learning, and a strong desire to become a literary man, and especially a poet. He spent some years in working on his father's farm; but at the age of seventeen he resolved to devote himself to the office of the ministry, and with the view of preparing himself for the university he commenced the study of the Latin language at the parish school of Fenwick. In November, 1817, when he had completed his nineteenth year, he enrolled himself as a student in the university of Glasgow; took the degree of master of arts on completing his classical and philosophical education; and in 1822 entered on the study of theology in the divinity hall of the United Secession Church. At this period he wrote his first published works, "The Tales of the Covenanters," and began to revolve in his mind the ambitious plan of a great poem. The work was carried on under very considerable difficulties, arising out of feeble health and the pressure of poverty, which produced great depression of mind, and at one period so completely overpowered him that he was obliged to discontinue his labours. His "Course of Time," a poem in blank verse, was at length completed in July, 1826, and was offered for publication to the late Mr. Blackwood. This acute judge of literary productions at once saw its merits, and was confirmed in his favourable judgment by the opinion of Professor Wilson and Mr. D. M. Moir. The book was accordingly published in March, 1827, and was at once welcomed as a poem of great merit. The author shortly after completed his professional studies, and was licensed to preach the gospel by the Secession presbytery of Edinburgh. The difficulties of Pollok were at length overcome, and his anxieties removed; his mind regained its tranquillity; fame, comparative wealth, and extensive usefulness seemed within his grasp. But he was now to pay the penalty of his previous privations and excessive mental toil, and his health soon gave evidence that in composing his celebrated work he had only erected a splendid monument to deck his tomb. A number of generous friends at once offered their assistance to promote his comfort and the restoration of his health. He received marked attention also from various distinguished literary persons in Edinburgh, among whom was the venerable author of the Man of Feeling, then in his eighty-fourth year. "I felt his attention," says the poet, "to be as if some literary patriarch had risen from the grave to do me honour." His disease, however, continued to gain ground, and as a last resource it was determined to send him to the mild climate of Italy. But his strength was so much reduced that he was unable to proceed further than the neighbourhood of Southampton, where he died on the 18th of September, 1827, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. He was buried in the churchyard of Millbrook, where a granite monument with an appropriate inscription tells of his untimely fate. Pollok was a strong-minded, courageous, determined, and earnest spirit; somewhat dogmatical and sarcastic His manners were easy, natural, unaffected, frank, and affable. "The Course of Time," on which Pollok's fame rests, is undoubtedly a very remarkable production, and has obtained a circulation scarcely reached by any other poem of the age. It is full of noble thoughts, graphic descriptions, and strokes of tender feeling, and though not without many touches of true genius, yet chiefly characterized by a vigorous and searching intellect. Every page of it bears the stamp of the author's personal character—his powerful thinking, his fearlessness, his bitter sarcasm, dogmatism, and earnestness. The execution is no doubt unequal, the images are frequently confused and indistinct, the diction turgid, and the descriptions both of character and of scenery are often overdone. But with all its faults and imperfections, "The Course of Time" is full of the purest poetry, and contains many fine passages which will bear comparison with most poems of the kind in English literature.—(Life of Robert Pollok, by his brother, Edinburgh, 1843.)—J. T. POLLUX, Julius, a Greek sophist and grammarian, who died at the age of fifty-eight during the reign of the Emperor Commodus. He was therefore probably born about 183. Having received some instruction from his father, he went to Athens and became the pupil of Adrian the sophist. Here he opened a school where grammar and rhetoric were taught, and the chair of rhetoric was afterwards bestowed on him by Commodus. His contemporaries it would appear did not estimate highly his rhetorical skill. In Suidas we find a catalogue of ten works attributed to him, but of these only one, his "Onomasticon," has descended to our times. It consists of ten books, each quite distinct from the rest, containing the principal words in use relating to a great variety of subjects, with explanations and illustrative quotations attached. Owing to the loss of the works to which Pollux was indebted, this compilation is now of great value. The first edition was published by Aldus at Venice in 1502.—Pollux, Julius, a Byzantine historian, whose Chronicon begins with the creation of the world, and extends, in the two editions that have been published, to the reign of Valens. It is a compilation from Simeon Logotheta, Theophanes, and the continuation of Constantinus. The Paris manuscript is said to extend to 963.—D. W. R. POLO, Gaspar Gil, a Spanish poet, a native of Valencia, and professor of Greek in the university of that city, who flourished about the middle of the sixteenth century. He wrote a continuation of Montemayor's Diana Enamorada, which, according to Don Quixote's curate, ought to be as much respected "as though Apollo himself had written it," but which to modern criticism seems to possess little merit except the perfect polish of style and the elegance of some of the sonnets interspersed throughout the work.—F. M. W. POLO, Marco, one of the earliest of eastern discoverers, was born at Venice about 1255. His father and uncle, Nicholas and Maffeo Polo, embarked on a voyage of discovery in about the same year; and in the city of Bokhara, where they resided three years, they met with a Tartar nobleman who was ambassador to the court of the grand khan, or Tartar emperor of China. This potentate (Cublai Khan, "king of kings") received them with distinction, inquired minutely into the government and customs of the western world, and requested that a hundred learned men might be sent to instruct his people in the christian faith. It is probable that this request was dictated quite as much by a politic desire to conciliate the pope, as by sincere conviction. The brothers, however, joyfully accepted the mission, and arrived at Acre in April, 1269, where they laid the request of the khan before the papal legate Tibaldo di Visconti, afterwards Gregory X. The papal chair being then vacant, they spent some time in visiting their family at Venice, and Nicholas Polo found his son Marco, born since his departure, grown to man's estate. Finding it useless to wait longer for the settlement of the disputes at Rome, the brothers departed in September, 1271, for the court of the grand khan (young Marco accompanying them), furnished with letters from the legate and a supply of oil from the holy sepulchre. Soon after their departure the legate was elected pope, and lost no time in sending messengers to overtake the travellers, who were furnished with more costly presents for the khan, and accompanied by two eloquent friars, with full ecclesiastical powers. After many difficulties, in the course of which the two reverend fathers lost courage and returned home, they reached the dominions of the grand khan, and were received at forty days' distance from the capital with great distinction. For seventeen years they resided at the court of the khan, and young Marco especially was employed in various missions of importance, some of them at six months' distance from the capital. In his account of his travels he gives magnificent descriptions of the emperor's winter residence, Kanbalu (Pekin); of the southern province, Mangi, and its capital Quinsai (probably Hangchen); and of the island of Cipango (Japan). At length the three Venetians began to long to return to their own country, and a favourable opportunity for this purpose occurred. They were commissioned to escort a granddaughter of the khan, the destined bride of a Mogul prince ruling in Persia, to her future home. They set sail with a splendid fleet, loaded with presents, accredited by the khan to the western