Macer, Æmilius

, an ancient Latin poet, was born at Verona, and flourished about the year 24 B. C. Eusebius relates, that he died a few years after Virgil. Ovid speaks of a poem by him, on the nature and quality of birds, serpents, and herbs; which, he says, Macer, being then very old, had often read to him, and he is said also to have written a supplement to Homer; but the work by | which his name is chiefly known, first printed at Naples in 1477, 4to, and often since under the title “De virtutibus Herbarum,” is unquestionably spurious, and the production of a much later writer. By some it is ascribed to Odo or Odobonus, a French physician of the ninth century. This barbarous poem is in Leonine verse, and various manuscripts of it are in our public libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, the British Museum, &c. It was, according to Dr. Pulteney, in common use in Enprland before the sera of printing, and was translated into English by John Lelamar, master of Hereford-school, who lived about 1473. Even Linacre did not disdain to employ himself on this work, as in “Macer’s Herbal practysed by Dr. Lin aero, translated out of Latin into English.” Lond. 1542, 12mo. This jejune performance, adds Dr. Pulteney, which is writ-r ten wholly on Galenical principles, treats on the virtues of not more than eighty eight simples. ¹