archer whose arrow pointed at the public fire kept it alive; his magic garden we first meet in Padre Giordano's contemporary Life of San Guglielmo of Vercelli. The old stories again occur in the French romance of the Renard Countrefait (c. 1319); his compacts with the devil, with much detail, in the 14th-century German poems Reinfrit von Braunschweig and the Wartburg-Krieg. The earliest attempt in Italy to weave all the varying legends into a collected form is the prose Cronica di Partenope of Bartolommeo Caracciolo (1382). In the Process of the Seven Sages (1330), the English form of the History thereof, the ninth tale is devoted to the 'nigramancie' of Virgil at Rome, and the same reappears in the Gesta Romanorum (No. 27). The latest stages of the legend may be seen in Le Myreur des Histors, written at Liége by Jean d'Outremeuse in the 14th century; the English Lyfe of Virgilius (1510; reprinted in W. J. Thoms's Early English Prose Romances); its French version, the Faicts Merveilleux; and in the Spanish Romance of Virgilius (1550). In the Faicts Virgil makes a statue the sight of which ensures the virtue of women. His own wife and other licentious Roman ladies try to break it, but in vain. He carries off the beautiful daughter of the Soldan of Babylon, baffles her father by sorcery, builds Naples, and establishes there a school of necromancy.

Professor Comparetti thinks these legends of popular and Neapolitan origin, but recognises in them two elements, the first exclusively Neapolitan connected with the notion of a special intimate affection of Virgil for the city; the second consisting of the distinct and not merely Neapolitan belief in certain public talismans attributed to Virgil, analogous accretions of legend being associated with most monuments of antiquity. Mr. J. S. Tunison, in his Master Virgil (Cincinnati, 1888), labours to prove that the legend is originally of northern not southern origin, and of literary rather than popular genesis, the first writers who related tales of Virgilian magic being Norman Latinists of England and France.

See Zappert, Virgil's Leben und Fortleben im Mittelalter (Vienna, 1851); Roth in Pfeiffer's Germania (vol. iv. 1859); Milberg, Mirabilia Vergiliana (Meiss. 1867); Professor Dom. Comparetti, Virgilio nel Medio Evo (2 vols. 1872; Ger. trans. 1875: see Quarterly Review, July 1875); and Professor A. Graf, Roma nella Memoria e nelle Immaginazioni del Medio Evo (2 vols. 1882–83). Virgil, POLYDORE. See VERGIL.

Virginal, or VIRGINALS. See HARPSICHORD. Virginia, a middle Atlantic state of the American Union, separated from Maryland by the Potomac River and Chesapeake Copyright 1892 in U.S. Bay, and also by an arbitrary line by J. B. Lippincott 25 miles in length across the Company. eastern shore; on the south it adjoins North Carolina for 326 miles and Tennessee for 114 miles; on the west and north-west are Kentucky (115 miles) and West Virginia (450 miles, in a very irregular line). The greatest length from east to west is 475 miles, and the greatest width from north to south 190 to 200 miles. It has a land area of 40,125 sq. m. and a water area of 2325 sq. m.

The surface of the state consists of a series of belts extending from north-east to south-west parallel to the trend of the coast on the east and the ranges of the Appalachian Mountains on the west. These divisions rise one above another from the coast westward, forming a stairway of ascending elevations. They differ in aspect, soil, climate, geological structure, and products. The tidewater region, penetrated by the waters of the ocean, of Chesapeake Bay and its inlets, and of the tributary streams, is divided into numerous peninsulas,

and has a coast-line of nearly 1500 miles. The peninsula of the eastern shore and the Norfolk peninsula are low, rising but 20 or 30 feet above sea-level, and form the first in the series of ascending steps. The other peninsulas rise higher, forming the second and third terraces. Westward from the head of tidewater lies the middle country, an undulating plain from 25 to 100 miles wide, broken in places into ridges by outliers of the Appalachian Mountains and by the transverse valleys of the streams. The fifth ascent is the Piedmont plateau, having an elevation of from 300 to 500 feet, and diversified by numerous valleys and coves' formed by the broken coast-ranges and projecting spurs of the Blue Ridge. This eastern range of the Appalachians form the next division, and for two-thirds of its length within the state simply constitutes the divide between the Piedmont country and the Great Valley to the west. In the south-west it expands into a broad plateau, which, extending into North Carolina, forms the culminating portion of this mountain-system. The range consists of a series of domes connected by long ridges with many side spurs. The height of the mountains increases toward the south-west, as does that of the surrounding country. The Great Valley lies between the Blue Ridge and the western Kittatinny or North Mountains. Though this valley is continuous it has four watersheds and contains the minor valleys of the Shenandoah, the James, the Roanoke, the Kanawha, and the Houlston or Tennessee rivers. The last of the belts belongs to the Appalachian mountain-region, and is styled Appalachia.' It may be described as a series of long narrow valleys 2000 feet or more above the sea, enclosed between the long parallel ranges of the Alleghany Mountains. About six-sevenths of the state is drained by the streams of the Atlantic system. The important rivers are the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, James, Blackwater, and Roanoke. The remaining seventh is drained mainly by the Kanawha or New River, the Houlston, and the Clinch, which are tributary to the Ohio. Virginia is famous for the number and value of its mineral springs. The Natural Bridge, in Rockbridge county, and the many caverns are among the objects of interest to tourists.

With its diversified surface and its position near the sea Virginia has a climate which varies with the locality. Except in the swampy portions of the tidewater district it is remarkably pleasant and healthful. The mean annual rainfall is from 40 to 45 inches, and is well distributed throughout the year. The soils are mostly fertile, and the state contains extensive forests. Along the shores of the tidewater region and in the marshes waterfowl of various kinds are abundant, and elsewhere partridges or quails, pigeons, grouse, wild turkeys, and other game birds are found. Deer are numerous in many sections. The fisheries are important, and supply large quantities of fish, which are shipped to other states. Oyster-culture is engaged in. Indian corn, oats, and barley are extensively grown. The products of marketgardens and orchards are especially valuable on account of the facility with which they may be carried to the great Atlantic seaports. Tobacco has always been a staple crop in this state, and the Virginia leaf' is noted throughout the world for its excellence. Among the mineral products are marls, choice sands and clays, granites, limestones, marbles, and other building stones, iron, lead, and zinc ores in abundance, gold in the middle region, at one time worked quite extensively, and bituminous and anthracite coal. The coal-field which occurs in the Triassic sandstones in the vicinity of Richmond yields, besides a bright, black, bituminous coal, a remarkable natural coke; but the most