Page images
PDF
EPUB

are served by nuns. The lying-in hospitals are also on a liberal plan, and under good management. Vienna has manufactures of silks, ribbons, gloves, lace, paper, earthen-ware, instruments, philosophical and musical; maps, engravings, coaches, and carriages in general. In these, and a variety of other branches, a transfer of manufacture would be made to towns of greater salubrity and cheaper labor, did the country possess canal carriage, or even good roads. Those leading to Vienna are few compared to the approaches of London or Paris. Vienna is the emporium of all the commerce of the Austrian states; the place for exchange operations, for extensive sales and purchases, for loans and contracts; in short, it is the London of Austria, without any thing like an equal repartition of business to provincial towns. Yet the number of wholesale mercantile houses hardly exceeds 200. There is here an exchange, a bank chartered so lately as 1817, and an establishment on the plan of the Lombard or pawn bank of Hamburgh and other continental cities.

The university dates from 1237, and was under the management of the Jesuits, till the celebrated Von Swieten prevailed on the court, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to take it out of their hands. A botanical garden was now established; medical men were sent to the most celebrated seminaries in Europe, to observe the state of the science; a military hospital and an anatomical theatre were founded; and at a subsequent date a veterinary school. In consequence Vienna is by far the first medical school in Germany. The university of Vienna also has public classes for philosophy, classical languages, literature, law, theology, without, however, surpassing in these departments the seminaries of Gottingen, Leipsic, and Halle. The total number of professors is fifty-four; that of assistants eighteen. Vienna has likewise a seminary for the oriental languages, an academy of fine arts, and an institution formed in 1770 for the reception of specimens of manufacture. Greek literature is also cultivated here: books are printed in Romaic, and a correspondence kept up with several schools in Greece. The military institutions are a school of cadets; and, since 1816, a polytechnic school for engineers, civil and military. Vienna contains five schools or seminaries for training teachers for provincial towns and villages. The imperial library is very extensive; and is said to consist of 12,000 MSS., and 300,000 printed volumes. Next to this comes the library of the university, computed at 90,000 volumes; the imperial collection of medals and coins is reckoned the most complete in Europe.

The principal amusements of the people are the public walks and theatres. Of the latter, there are no less than five; two in the city, which belong to the court, and three in the suburbs; but all below mediocrity. The public walks are much better calculated to afford gratification. The Prater is an immense park on the east side of the town, belonging to the court, but thrown open to the public. A number of slightly built coffee-houses are erected along the walks; and parties are formed on the grass for taking coffee. The Augarten is another place of public resort to the north of the Prater, and separated from it only by an iron-railing. The Brigitten-Au is another agreeable walk; but both are much less frequented than the Prater.

Corn, meat, and wine, are supplied in a great

measure from Hungary; vegetables from the district around the capital. For fuel, the inhabitants use partly wood, partly coals and turf. The water drank in Vienna is not in general good; and is of ten found to disagree with strangers. Nor is the climate equally healthy with that of London or Paris. It is extremely variable, intense heat being not unfrequently followed by piercing cold. The population has been progressive for a century past; and the total number at present is not below 270,000.

in

Under the name of Vindobona, Vienna was long the head quarters of a Roman legion, and afterwards fell successively into the hands of the Goths and Huns. In 791 Charlemagne attached it to his dominions: at that time, and for more than two centuries after, it was of inconsiderable extent; the church of St. Stephen, which is now nearly in its centre, having been erected in 1144, outside of the walls. The town continued, however, to increase. The most remarkable incidents in its history are its capture in 1484 by the Hungarians, under their king Mathias, who resided in it till his death. In 1529 the Turks, supported by Hungarian insurgents, ventured to approach this capital, and destroyed the suburbs. In 1619 the insurgents, supported by a party in Austria, succeeded penetrating into the city; but a different result took place on an attempt made in 1625 by Torstenson, a Swedish general, commanding a mixed army of his countrymen and of German Protestants. The attack most generally known to the readers of history was that of 1683, made by a Turkish army, supported by disaffected chiefs in Hungary, but repulsed under the governor of Sobieski. In 1741, though pressed by the Bavarians on the west, and the French and Prussians on the north, Vienna was preserved; and an increase of the army, with financial supplies from England, soon changed the aspect of affairs. In the present age it was threatened by Buonaparte in 1797, and occupied by him in 1805 and 1809. On both occasions proper discipline was observed by the invaders, and little injury done. Vienna suffered from the ravages of the plague, first in 1679, and afterwards in 1713. 630 miles east of Paris, and 896 south-east of London.

VIENNE, a river of France, which rises in the Limousin, and, flowing northward, joins the Loire, in the department of the Indre and Loire, two miles above Saumur. It gives name to two departments, and is navigable at some distance above its influx into the Loire.

VIENNE, a department of France, formed of the ancient province of Upper Poitou, and bounded on the north by the department of the Indre and Loire, on the south by that of the Charente. It has a superficial extent of 2800 square miles, and a population of 252,000, all Catholics, with the exception of about 13,000 Protestants. The surface is for the most part level. The principal rivers are the Vienne, the Charente, the Dive, the Clain, and the Creuse. The principal productions are corn, pulse, potatoes, hemp, flax, and wine. Agriculture is very backward.

VIENNE, UPPER, a department in the west of France, including the greatest part of the Limousin, and traversed by the river Vienne, which flows northward to the Loire. It has a superficial extent of 2230 square miles, and a population of 240,000. This department is mountainous, produces comparatively little corn, but has extensive pasturages,

in which are reared quantities of horses, oxen, asses, and mules. Its forests are extensive, its game abundant. Its mineral products are marble, mines of coal, iron, lead, and antimony. The department is divided into the four arrondissements of Limoges (the capital), Bella, Roche-chouart, and St. Yriex. Limoges is the seat of a bishop, and of a provincial court of the first class.

VIENNE, a town in the south-east of France, on the right bank of the Rhone, eighteen miles south of Lyons; contains several public buildings, a cathedral, which is a fine Gothic edifice, erected on an eminence, and two good churches. The population is about 10,300; the manufactures, woollen, linen, hard-ware, leather, and colored paper. Vienne has various antiquities, among which are a square building, similar to that at Nimes, and supposed to have been a Roman temple; a pedestal and entablature, surmounted by a pyramidal top, probably the tomb of some distinguished Roman. There are here also the remains of a theatre and amphitheatre, and several traces of aqueducts; arcades supposed to have belonged to a triumphal arch; and, on the opposite bank of the Rhone, the piles of an ancient Roman bridge. It is mentioned by Cæsar as a place of consequence.

VIETA (Francis), a mathematician, born at Fontenay in 1540. He was the first who used letters in algebra to designate known quantities. He also made corrections on the calendar, and improvements in geometry. He died in 1603. His works were published, Paris, 1646, 1 vol. folio.

VIEW, v. a. & n. s. Į Fr. veu from veoir, or VIEW LESS, adj. Svoir. To survey; examine; perceive by the eye: a prospect; survey; examination by the eye; appearance; act or power of seeing; sight; mental survey; intention; design; hope: viewless is unseen, undiscernible. Go, and view the country.

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence about The pendant world.

Joshua.

Shakspeare.

Vast and indefinite views, which drown all apprehensions of the uttermost objects, are condemned by good authors.

Wotton.

Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood There always, but drawn up to heaven sometimes Viewless.

[blocks in formation]

Milton.

ld. Id.

Dryden.

Id.

With a view to commerce, in returning from his expedition against the Parthians, he passed through Egypt.

Arbuthnot.

Fisher, the Jesuit, in the year 1626, seconded the cardinal in the same plea, and upon the same views. Waterland.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

VIGIL, in church history, is the eve or next day before any solemn feast; because then Christians were wont to watch, fast, and pray, in their churches.

VIGILS OF PLANTS, a term under which some botanists comprehend the precise time of the day in which the flowers of different plants open, expand, and shut. A flower which opens in Senegal at six will not open at the same season in France and England till eight or nine, nor in Sweden till ten. Linné distinguishes by the general name of solar (flores solares), all those flowers which observe a determinate time in opening and shutting. These flowers are again divided from certain circumstances, into three species, or kinds : 1. Equinoctial flowers (flores equinoctiales) are such as open and shut, at all seasons, at a certain fixed or determinate hour. 2. Tropical flowers (flores tropici) are such whose hour of opening is not fixed at all seasons, but accelerated or retarded according as the length of the day is increased or diminished. 3. Meteorous flowers (flores meteorici) are such whose hour of expansion depends upon the dry or humid state of the air, and the greater or less pressure of the atmosphere. Of this kind is the Siberian sow thistle, which shuts at night if the ensuing day is to be clear and serene, and opens if it is to be cloudy and rainy. In like manner the African marigold, which in dry serene weather opens at six or seven in the morning, and shuts at four o'clock in the afternoon, is a sure indication that rain will fall during the course of the day, when it continues shut after seven.

His

VIGILIUS, an African prelate, and polemical writer, who flourished about A. D. 484. works were printed at Dijon, 1665, 4to.

VIGNOLE (James Baroggio), architect, was born at Vignola, in 1507. He died at Rome, 1573. He wrote a treatise on the five orders of architecture, 3 vols. 4to. VIG'OR, n. s. VIG'OROUS, adj. VIG'OROUSLY, adv. VIG'OROUSNESS, n.s. following correspond.

Latin vigor. Force; strength; energy; mental force: the adjective, adverb, and noun substantive

He hath given excellent sufferance and vigorousness to the sufferers, arming them with strange courage,

[blocks in formation]

Though the beginnings of confederacies have been always vigorous and successful, their progress has been generally feeble, and event unfortunate. Davenant. If the fire burns bright and vigorously, it is no matter by what means it was at first kindled. South. Their appetite is not dulled by being gratified, but returns always fresh and vigorous.

Atterbury.

VILE, adj. Fr. vil; Lat. vilis. Base; VILED, adj. mean; worthless; despicable; VILE'LY, adv. sordid: viled, abusive; defamaVILE'NESS, n. s. tory: vilely, basely; meanly: VIL'IFY, V. a. the noun substantive corresponding to vilify is to debase; degrade; defame. Our case were miserable, if that wherewith we most endeavour to please God were in his sight so vile and despicable as men's disdainful speech would make it. Hooker.

[blocks in formation]

Addison.

[blocks in formation]

Forget my Hector, treated with dishonour, Deprived of funeral rites, and vilely dragged, A bloody corse, about the walls of Troy. A. Philips. The displeasure of their friend those may expect who would put in practice all methods to vilify his person. UILKENS (James Albert), divine and naturalist, was born at Wierum, near Groningen, in 1772, and was passed through his academical studies at Groningen with reputation. In 1795 he took the degree of M. D. On proceeding doctor in philosophy, he supported an ingenious thesis On the Nature of the Atmosphere; and afterwards produced an Elementary Treatise on Physics, for which he obtained the prize offered by a learned society. This work became very popular. His Discourse on the Perfections of the Creator considered in the Crea

ture, 4 vols. 8vo., is another valuable piece, as also are his Memoir on the Utility of Insects.; and his Manual of Technology. In 1815 he was chosen to the newly established chair of Rural Economy at Groningen, and in 1819 published a treatise on that subject. He died in 1825, having written several other works.

VILL, n. s. Fr. ville; Lat. villa. A village; a small collection of houses. Little in use. This book gives an account of the manureable lands in every manor, town, or vill.

VILLA, n. s.

Hale.

Lat. villa. A country seat. The antient Romans lay the foundations of their villas and palaces within the borders of the sea. Addison.

At six hours distance from Bizantium's walls, Where Bosphorus into the Euxine falls, In a gay district, called the Elysian vale, A furnished villa stands, proposed for sale.

Harte.

VILLA FRANCA, an old town on the southern coast of the island of St. Michael, one of the Azores. It is founded on lava, and partly destroyed by earthquakes; prior to which it was the principal town of the Azores. It now contains only 2000 inhabitants; and the commerce has been transferred to Ponte del Jada.

the resort of consumptive invalids. VILLA FRANCA, a town of Italy, in Piedmont, It has a spacious and secure harbour, and a dock for the royal tion 2200. Two miles east of Nice. galleys. Its trade, however, is limited. Popula

VILLA FRANCA, another town of Piedmont, contains nearly 7000 inhabitants, and is situated in a fertile plain on the banks of the Po. Twenty miles south by west of Turin.

VILLA REAL, a town of Spain, in Valencia, on the Mijares, near the Mediterranean. It has 7000 inhabitants, who manufacture woollens and silks. The vicinity is favorable to the culture of the vine and mulberry tree. Thirty-five miles north by east of Valencia, and twenty east of Segorbe.

VILLA RICA, a town of Brasil, the capital of the province of Minas Geraes, is situated on the side of a large mountain. Most of the streets range in steps, as it were, from the base to the summit, and The town is divided into two parishes, and conare crossed by others which lead up the acclivity. tains about 20,000 inhabitants, white and black. The climate is delightful. The greatest heats prevail in January: thunder storms are common, but by no means violent, and the sun is sometimes clouded by dews and mist, so dense as not to subside until the forenoon is far advanced. As there is scarcely a piece of level ground, even ten yards square, on the whole side of the mountain, the defect has been remedied by cutting spaces one above another at regular distances, and supporting them by low walls, the top of one being on a level with the base of that next above it. An easy flight of steps leads from one to the other. These terraces flowers. The market of Villa Rica was, according are covered with a profusion of the most delicate to Mr. Mawe, but ill provided; pulse and vegetables for the table were scarce: even grass was an article in great demand, and milk was as dear as in London. Poultry sold at from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. per couple. Beef of a tolerable kind, but by no means good, might be had at 14d. per pound. Pork was very fine. Tallow was exceedingly dear; but English manufactures were in abundance. It owes its origin to the rage for discovering gold mines; and at present is much declined from its former consequence. VILLAGE, n. s. VILLAGER, VILLAGERY, VILLAT'IC, adj. district or collection ing to villages.

Fr. village. A small collection of houses in the country, less than a town: an inhabitant of a village: a of villages: villatic is belong

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Id. If there are conveniences of life, which common use reaches not, it is not reason to reject them because every villager doth not know them.

Locke.

VILLAIN, n. s. Fr. vilain; low Lat. vilVIL'LANAGE, lanus. One who held by a VILLANIZE, V. a. base tenure: hence, in VILLANOUS, adj. modern times, a low man VILLANOUSLY, adv. from whatever cause; a VILLANY, n. s. wicked wretch: villanage, the state or tenure of a villain; servitude; baseness; infamy: villanize, to debase; degrade; defame: villanous, base; vile; sorry; wicked: the adverb following corresponds: villany is wickedness; baseness; a wicked action.

We were prevented by a dozen armed knights, or rather villains, who, using this time of their extreme feebleness, all together set upon them.

Sidney.

They exercise most bitter tyranny Upon the parts brought into their bondage: No wretchedness is like to sinful villanage. Spenser. O villain! villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Shakspeare.

[blocks in formation]

No villany, no flagitious action, was ever yet committed, but a lie was first or last the principal engine to effect it. South.

Calm thinking villains, whom no faith could fix ; Of crooked counsels and dark politicks. Pope. VILLAIN, or VILLEIN, in our ancient customs, denotes a man of servile or base condition, viz. a bond-man or servant.

VILLALPANDUS (John Baptist), Jesuit, who died in 1608. He wrote a comment on Ezekiel, 3 vols. folio, 1596, and an Exposition of St. Paul's Epistles.

VILLARET (Claude), born at Paris 1715. He was first an actor, then became an author. He continued Velley's History of France, and wrote a treatise on Acting, and a tract On the Mind of Voltaire. He died in 1766.

VILLARS (Lewis Hector), peer and marshal of France, and grandee of Spain, was born at Moulins in 1653. After distinguishing himself on various occasions in the army, he was made marshalde-camp in 1690, and was sent against Marlborough, but was defeated at Malplaquet, and dangerously wounded. He was appointed plenipotentiary for concluding a peace at Rastadt in 1714.

In 1733 he was sent into Italy, where he took Pisighitone, and died at Turin 1734.

VILLENAGE, in law. The folk-land, or estates held in villenage, was a species of tenure not strictly feudal, Norman, or Saxon; but mixed and compounded of them all; and which also, on account of the heriots that usually attend it, may seem to have somewhat Danish in its composition. Under the Saxon government there were, as Sir William Temple speaks, a sort of people in a condition of downright servitude, used and employed in the most servile works, and belonging, both they, their children, and effects, to the lord of the soil, like the rest of the cattle or stock upon it. These seem to have been those who held what was called the folk-land, from which they were removeable at the lord's pleasure. On the arrival of the Normans here, it seems not improbable, that they, who were strangers to any other than a feudal state, might give some sparks of enfranchisement to such wretched persons as fell to their share, by admitting them, as well as others, to the oath of fealty; which conferred a right of protection, and raised the tenant to a kind of estate superior to downright slavery, but inferior to every other condition. This they called villenage, and the tenants villeins. These villeins, belonging principally to the lords of manors, were either villeins regardant, that is, annexed to the manor or land; or else they were in gross, or at large, that is, annexed to the person of the lord, and transferable by deed from one owner to another. They could not leave their lord without his permission; but if they ran away, or were purloined from him, might be claimed and recovered by action, like beasts or other chattels. They held indeed small portions of land by way of sustaining themselves and families; but it was at the mere will of the lord, who might dispossess them whenever he pleased; and it was upon villein services, that is to carry out dung, to hedge and ditch the lord's demesnes, and any other the meanest offices: and their services were not only base but uncertain both as to their time and quantity. A villein could acquire no property, either in lands or goods; if he purchased either, the lord might seize them to his own use; unless he contrived to dispose of them again before the lord had seized them. In many places also a fine was payable to the lord, if the villein presumed to marry his daughter to any one without leave from the lord, and, by the common law, the lord might also bring an action against the husband for damages for thus purloining his property. For the children of villeins were also in the same state of bondage with their parents; whence they were called in Latin nativi, which gave rise to the female appellation of a villein, who was called a neife. In case of a marriage between a freeman and a neife, or a villein and a free woman, the issue followed the condition of the father, being free if he was free, and villein if he was villein; contrary to the maxim of the civil law, that partus sequitur ventrem. But no bastard could be born a villein, because by another maxim of our law he is nullius filius; and as he can gain nothing by inheritance, it were hard that he should lose his natural freedom by it. The law, however, protected the persons of villeins against atrocious injuries of the lord: for he might not kill or maim his villein; though he might beat him with impunity. Villeins might be enfranchised by manumission. In process of time they gained

considerable ground on their lords; and in particular strengthened the tenure of their estates to that degree that they came to have in them an interest in many places full as good, in others better than their lords. For the good-nature and benevolence of many lords of manors having, time out of mind, permitted their villeins and their children to enjoy their possessions without interruption, in a regular course of descent, the common law, of which custom is the life, now gave them title to prescribe against their lords; and, on performance of the same services, to hold their lands, in spite of any determination of the lord's will. For though in general they are still said to hold their estates at the will of the lord, yet it is such a will as is agreeable to the custom of the manor; which customs are preserved and evidenced by the rolls of the several courts baron in which they are entered, or kept on foot by the constant immemorial usage of the several manors in which the lands lie. And as such tenants had nothing to show for their estates but these customs, and admissions in pursuance of them entered on these rolls, or the copies of such entries witnessed by the steward, they now began to be called tenants by copy of court roll, and their tenure itself a copyhold.

VILLENAGE, PRIVILEGED, a species of tenure otherwise called villein soccage. See TENURE. Ancient demesne consists of those lands or manors which, though now perhaps granted out to private subjects, were actually in the hands of the crown in the time of Edward the Confessor or William the Conqueror, and so appear to have been, by the great survey in the exchequer, called doomsday book. The tenants of these lands, under the crown, were not all of the same order or degree. Some of them, as Britton testifies, continued for a long time pure and absolute villeins, dependent on the will of the lord; and common copyholders in only a few points. Others were in a great measure enfranchised by the royal favor; being only bound in respect of their lands to perform some of the better sort of villein services; but those determinate and certain; as, to plough the king's land for so many days, to supply his court with such a quantity of provisions, and the like; all of which are now changed into pecuniary rents; and in consideration hereof they had many immunities and privileges granted to them; as, to try the right of their property in a peculiar court of their own, called a court of ancient demesne, by a peculiar process denominated a writ of right close; not to pay toll or taxes; not to contribute to the expenses of knights of the shire; not to be put on juries, and the like. These tenants, therefore, though their tenure be absolutely copyhold, yet have an interest equivalent to a freehold for though their services were of a base and villeinous original, yet the tenants were esteemed in all other respects to be highly privileged villeins; and especially for that their services were fixed and determinate, and that they could not be compelled (like pure villeins) to relinquish those tenements at the lord's will, or to hold them against their own: et ideo (says Bracton) dicuntur liberi. Lands holding by this tenure are therefore a species of copyhold, and as such preserved and exempted from the operation of the statute of Charles II. Yet they differ from common copyholds, principally in the privileges before mentioned as also they differ from free holders by one especial mark and tincture of

:

villenage, noted by Bracton, and remaining to this day, viz. that they cannot be conveyed from man to man by the general common law conveyances of feoffment, and the rest; but must pass by surrender to the lord or his steward, in the manner of common copyholds; yet with this difference, that, in the surrenders of these lands in ancient demesne, it is not used to say, 'to hold at the will of their lord,' in their copies; but only, 'to hold according to the custom of the manor.'

VILLENEUVE (Gabrielle Susannah Barbot, De), novel writer, was the widow of a French lieutenantcolonel. Her novels are numerous. She died in 1755. VILLERS (Charles François Dominique de), a modern French writer, was a native of Belchen in Lorraine, where he was born 1764. In the earlier part of his life he served as a lieutenant of artillery, but on the breaking out of the revolution emigrated, and joined the Royalist force under the prince de Condé. After this he retired to Lubec, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. Villers obtained the prize given by the institute for an Essay on the Influence of the Reformation; and was at length invited to fill the professor's chair in philosophy at Gottingen. This situation, when the French influence predominated, he was compelled to resign, but received a pension. During the occupation of Hanover by the troops of that nation, under Davoust, the excesses committed by the soldiery induced him to address a letter to Fanny Beauharnois, with the hope of procuring, through her interest, some mitigation of these evils; but the only effect was to draw on its author the personal hatred of the French commander. He also addressed to the Institute two reports on the state of ancient literature, and on the history of Germany. The Swedish government made him a chevalier of the order of the polar star. Villers died in the spring of 1815.

VILLIERS (George), duke of Buckingham, was born at Brookesby, 1592. He became a very great favorite of James I., who advanced him to his dignity of duke, and made him a knight of the garter, lord high admiral, and master of the horse, and gave him the disposal of all places in church and state. He retained the same place in the favor of Charles I., but the people detested him. He took the command of an expedition for the relief of Rochelle, instead of which he made a descent on the Isle of Rhé, and lost the greater part of his troops. A new expedition was planned, but he was stabbed by a lieutenant Fellon, when at Portsmouth ready to embark, 23d of August 1628.

VILLIERS (George), duke of Buckingham, son of the preceding, was born in 1627. He was educated at Cambridge, and, on the breaking out of the civil wars, served the king with great zeal, till the ruin of the royal cause, when he went abroad. He afterwards accompanied Charles II. to Scotland, and was with him at the battle of Worcester, when he had the good fortune to escape. By marrying the daughter of lord Fairfax, he recovered a principal part of his estate before the Restoration, when he was made a lord of the bed-chamber, member of the privy-council, and master of the horse. But, entering into a conspiracy against the king, he lost his places. He afterwards recovered the royal favor, and was sent ambassador to France. He died in 1688. He wrote the celebrated comedy of the Rehearsal, and some poems. His morals were very dissipated.

« PreviousContinue »