Simonides, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth, and that he lost himself in the thought. Addis. WADING (Peter), a learned Irish Jesuit, born at Waterford in 1586. He joined the Society at Tournay, in 1601. He was made chancellor of the universities of Prague and Gratz. He wrote Tractatus Adversus Hæreticos, and Carmina Varia. He lived long in Bohemia, and died at Gratz, in 1644. WADSWORTH (Thomas), a nonconformist divine, born in Southwark, in the seventeenth century, and educated at Christ's college Cambridge. He became minister of Newington Butts, and of Laurence Pountney church London; and from his Diary, printed at the end of his Life, appears to have been a good man, and an exemplary pastor: yet he was deprived of his living in 1662. He published several Sermons, and a work On the Immortality of the Soul. WA'FER, n. s. Belg. wafel. A thin cake. Wife, make us a dinner; spare flesh, neither corn; Make wafers and cakes, for our sheepe must be shorne. ATION. WAFERS, or SEALING WAFERS, are made thus: --Take very fine flour, mix it with glair of eggs; isinglass, and a little yeast; mingle the materials, beat them well together; spread the batter, being made thin with gum-water, on even tin plates, and dry them on a stove; then cut them out for use. They may be made of any color, by tinging the paste with brazil or vermilion for red; indigo or verditer, &c., for blue; saffron, turmerics, or gamboge, &c., for yellow. WAFT', v. a., v. n., & Pret. wafted, or per- bly from wave. To carry or float through the air or on water; to buoy: to float: also a floating body waftage is carriage by water or in the air: vafture the act of waving. That what before she but surmised, was true. Dryden, Prier. Thomson. WAG, v. a., v. n., &】 Sax. pagian; Teutonic | WAG'GLE, v. n. [n. s. wagen; Belg. waggen. To WAG'GERY, n. s. move lightly, or shake WAG'GISH, adj. slightly be in quick va WAG'GISHLY, adv. cillating motion; be moved WAG'GISHNESS, n. s. in this way: a wag is a droll or merry fellow to waggle is to waddle; move from side to side: waggery and waggishness, trick; drollery; mischievous merriment: the adjec tive and adverb correspond. All that pass hiss and wag their heads at thee. Lamentations, ii. 15. The sport Basilius would shew to Zelmane, was the mounting of his hawk at a heron, which, getting up on his waggling wings with pain, was now grown to dimnish the sight of himself. Sidney. Cupid the wag, that lately conquered had Wise counsellors, stout captains puissant; And tied them fast to lead his triumphs bad, Glutted with them, now plays with meanest things. 1. I will provoke him to 't, or let him wag. Shakap. Was not my lord the verier wag o' th' two? Id. A Christian boy in Constantinople had like to have been stoned for gagging, in a waggishness, a long bied fowl. This new conceit is the waggish suggestion of some sly and skulking atheists. More's Divine Dial Thou can'st not wag thy finger, or begin The least light motion, but it tends to sin. Dryden. We wink at wags when they offend And spare the boy, in hopes the man may mend. Why do you go nodding and waggling so, as if hipshot? says the goose to her gosseling. L'Estrange. 'Tis not the waggeries or cheats practised among school-boys, that make an able man; but the princi ples of justice, generosity, and sobriety. Locks A counsellor never pleaded without a piece of packthread in his hand, which he used to twist about a finger, all the while he was speaking: the wags used to call it the thread of his discourse. Addison. We must not think the Turk is so unskilful, Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain, To wake and wage a danger profitless. All friends shall taste The wages of their virtue, and all foes Shakspeare. Id. 'Twas merry when you wagered on your angling. Id. The officers of the admiralty having places of so good benefit, it is their parts, being well waged and rewarded, exactly to look into the sound building of ships. Raleigh. The sonnes of Greece waged war at Troy. Chapman, He with a mighty wage, Won such, themselves by oath as deeply durst engage. Drayton. This great lord came not over with any great number of waged soldiers. Davies's Ireland. Multiplication of actions upon the case were rare formerly, and there by wager of law ousted; which discouraged many suits. Factious, and fav'ring this or t' other side, Their wagers back their wishes. Hale. Dryden. Id. He pondered which of all his sons was fit To reign, and wage immortal war with wit. The thing itself is not only our duty, but our glory: and he who hath done this work has in the very work partly received his wages. South. If any atheist can stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of credulity. Bentley. WAGENSEIL (John Christopher), LL. D., a learned German, born at Nuremberg, in 1633. He graduated at Orleans, after which he became professor of law and history at Altorf, and next of Oriental languages. He wrote, 1. De urbe Norimbergæ; 4to. 2. Pera Librorum Juvenilium, 12mo. 3. Tela ignea Satanæ : 2. tom. 4to. He died in 1705. WAGER OF BATTLE. See BATTEL. By stat. 59 Geo. III. c. 46, this mode of trial is abolished in writs of right: the same act abolishes all appeals of murder, treason, felony, or other offences; and, consequently, the trial by battel in those cases: which is therefore thus completely put an end to, after much ingenious research and controversy on the subject. WAGER OF LAW (Vadiatio Legis), so called, because the defendant puts in sureties, vadios, that at such a day he will make his law, that is, take the benefit which the law has allowed him.-3 Comm. c. 22; 1 Inst. 295. This takes place where an action of debt is brought against a man upon a simple contract between the parties, without deed or record: and the defendant swears in court, in the presence of eleven compurgators, that he oweth the plaintiff nothing, in manner and form as he hath declared; the reason of this waging of law is, because the defendant might have paid the plaintiff his debt in private, or before witnesses who may be all dead, and therefore the law allows him to wage his law in his discharge; and his oath shall rather be accepted to discharge himself, than the law will suffer him to be charged upon the bare allegation of the plaintiff.-2 Inst. 45. Wager of law is used in actions of debt without specialty; and also in action of detinue, for goods or chattels lent or left with the defendant, who may swear on a book that he detaineth not the goods in manner as the plaintiff has declared; and his compurgators (who must, in all cases, as it seems now, be eleven in number), swear that they believe his oath to be true.-3 Comm. c. 22. WAGERS. A wager is frequently the disguise of an illegal transaction: and all wagers are void, if they are of such a nature that they might have an illegal tendency, although they are not accompanied by an illegal intention in the particular instance: as a wager between two voters respecting the event of an election. In general, a wager may be considered as legal, if it be not an incitement to a breach of the peace, or to immorality; or if it do not affect the feelings or interest of a third person, or expose him to ridicule; or if it be not against sound policy. But as wagers, though admitted to be legal in general under the restrictions before alluded to, are yet much discountenanced by the courts of justice, the cases decided respecting them will not always furnish a ground of analogy for the exposition of other subjects. WAGGON, n. s. Į Sax. pœzen; Belgic and WAG'GONER. Teut. Islandic wagen; vagn. A heavy carriage for burdens; a chariot: one who drives a waggon. Now fair Phoebus 'gan decline in haste His weary waggon to the western vale. Spenser. His sevenfold team behind the stedfast star, A waggoner took notice, upon the creaking of a wheel, that it was the worst wheel that made most noise. L'Estrange. A WAGGON is a wheel carriage, of which there are various forms, accommodated to the different uses they are intended for. The common waggon consists of the shafts or rods, being the two pieces which the hind horse bears up; the welds; the slotes or cross pieces, which hold the shafts together; the bolster, being that part on which the forewheels and the axle-tree turn in wheeling the waggon across the road; the chest or body of the waggon, having the staves or rails fixed thereon; the bales, or hoops which compose the top; the tilt, the place covered with cloth, at the end of the waggon. WAGNER (John James), a physician of Switzerland, born in 1641. He wrote Historia Naturalis Helvetia curiosæ; 12mo. He became librarian of Zurich, and died in 1695, aged only fiftyfour. WAGSTAFFE (Thomas), M. A., a learned divine born in Warwickshire in 1645, and educated at the Charter-house in London, whence he removed to New Inn Hall, Oxford, where he graduated. He became chancellor of Lichfield cathedral, and rector of St. Margaret, London; but was ejected at the revolution for refusing the oaths. In 1693 he was made a nonjuring bishop. He practised physic, and published some Sermons, and an able defence of Charles I. as the author of Eikov Barikn. He died in 1702. WAHABEES, WAHABIES, or WEHHABIS, a formidable body of warlike sectaries, who sprung up in Arabia, about a century ago, commencing their career as reformers of the Mahometan religion. According to Niebuhr, the founder of this sect was Abd ul Wehhab (Abdoulwehhbah, or Ubdool Wahab), a native of Aijæne (Ujuna), a town in El A red (Ool Urud), one of the two districts of Nedsjed in Arabia. Those schiecks, who had before been in a state of hostility against one another, were reconciled by the mediation of Abd ul Wehhab, and agreed for the future to undertake no enterprise without the advice of their apostle. In process of time, Abd ul Webhab reduced great part of El Ared; and being afterwards joined by schieck Mecrami, of Nedsjeran, who was also the head of a particular sect, he, or rather his son Mahomet, as he succeeded his father, was enabled to reduce the Sunnite schiecks, and to subdue many of their neighbours. After the death of Abd ul Wehhab, his son retained the same authority, and prosecuted his father's views; and though the hereditary schiecks, who were more independent, still retain a nominal authority, yet he became in fact the sovereign of the whole, and exacts a tribute, under the name of sikka,' or aid, for the purpose of carrying on the war against the infidels. The Sunnites complain of his persecution; but, more probably, as Niebuhr says, this bigoted and superstitious sect hate and calumniate Mahomet for his innovations in religion. However this be, the inhabitants of Nedsjed, who demur against embracing the new religion, are retiring to other parts of the country. Zobaner, the ancient Basra, which had decayed to a condition little better than a hamlet, has been peopled by these refugees, and is now a large town. This new religion of Abd ul Wehhab, according to the account given of it by the schiecks, which, however, in some respects, differs from the statement of the Sunnites, may be regarded as a reformation of Mahometanism. Experience must decide whether a religion, so stripped of every thing that might serve to strike the senses, can long maintain its ground among a people so rude and ignorant as the Arabs. Abd ul Wehhab also thought it necessary to impose some religious observances on his followers; and interdicted the use of tobacco, opium, and coffee; he enacted likewise a variety of civil regulations, with regard to the collection and distribution of revenues. In 1801 the Wahabees had penetrated to, and destroyed by fire, the town of Imam Hossein, near Bagdad. The men and male children were all put to the sword; while a Wehhabite doctor, from the top of a tower, excited the massacre, by calling on the soldiers to kill all the infidels who gave companions to God.' In 1802 Mecca was taken, after a trifling opposition by Saaoud, the son of Abdelaaziz, who razed to the ground all the mosques and chapels consecrated to the prophet or his family. This young warrior succeeded to the command of the Wababees the following year, on the assassination of his father; and, in 1804, made himself master of Medina, which had before resisted his arms. The conquest of Arabia was now nearly completed and the sultan Saaoud became a formidable neighbour to the surrounding pachas of Bagdad, Damascus, and Egypt. The constitution of this new sovereignty is singular in its kind. The town of Draaiya, among the deserts, 390 miles to the east of Medina, long formed a sort of capital, or centre, of the governments of the Wahabees. The various tribes of Arabs, scattered widely in tents and barracks over this vast extent of country, yielded obedience, both civil and military, to the sultan Saaoud. The tenth of their flocks and fruits was paid in tribute; an order from the sultan rapidly assembled a multitude men of armed men, subsisting themselves at their own expense, totally unorganized as soldiers, but deriving force from their numbers-from their active spirit as sectaries-and from the large plunder they obtained in their military expeditions. Descending frequently from their desert recesses upon the coast of the Red Sea, they arrested the caravans, and levied contributions upon the pilgrims journeying to Mecca and Medina. In 1807, when Ali Bey visited Mecca, the Wahabees were in their greatest power. Their army, which he saw encamped in the vicinity of the sacred mount of Arafat, he estimates at 45,000 men,—a large proportion of the number mounted on camels and dromedaries, and with a train of a thousand camels attached to the different chiefs of the army. He describes with some spirit the appearance of another body of Wahabees, whom he saw entering Mecca, to take possession of the city, and fulfil the duties of their own pilgrimage-a multitude of copper-colored who rushed impetuously into the place, their only covering a narrow girdle round their waist, to which was hung a khanjear, or large knife, each one carrying besides a firelock on his shoulder. Their devotions were of the most tumultuous kind; the lamps surrounding the sacred kaaba were broken by their guns; and the ropes and buckets of the well of Zemzem destroyed in their eagerness to reach the holy water. All the other pilgrims quitted their more decorous ceremonies, till the Wahabees having satisfied their zeal, and paid their alms to the well in gunpowder and coffee, betook themselves to the streets, where in conformity with the law of Abd ul Wehhab, their heads were all closely shaved by the barbers of Mecca. The sultan Saaoud, whom Ali Bey saw at Arafat, was almost as naked as his subjects, distinguished chiefly by the green standard carried before him, with the characters, 'La illahhà illa Allah,'-'there is no other God but God,' embroidered upon it. The campaign of the pacha of Egypt against the Wahabees had in 1812 been unsuccessful; and his army suffered very greatly in an engagement at Jedda, the port of Mecca on the adjoining coast. He redoubled, however, his exertions; organized new troops; and, early in the spring of 1813, brought the war to a triumphant termination. The Wahabees were driven with loss from the coast; Mecca, Medina, and Jedda, were all retaken, and restored again to the authority of the Porte, and to the worship of the true believers. Mohammed Ali sent his youngest son, Ismael-Pacha, to Constantinople, to lay the keys of Mecca at the feet of the grand seignior. The acquisition was rendered of the utmost importance, by the peculiar feeling of all Mussulmans towards the actual possessor of the holy city. The progress of this sect, says Mr. Kinneir, appears to be now at a stand; few proselytes have been made for a number of years past; and the most paltry fortifications have been found sufficient to arrest their career. VAID. For weighed. Crushed. WAIFS, bona waviata, are goods stolen, and waived or thrown away by the thief in his flight, for fear of being apprehended. These are given to the king by the law, as a punishment upon the owner for not himself pursuing the felon, and taking away his goods from him. And therefore if the party robbed do his diligence immediately to They seized, and with entangling folds embraced, His neck twice compassing, and twice his waist. She, as a veil, down to her tender waist Dishevelled. follow and apprehend the thief (which is called WAIL, v. a., v. N., & Italian guala; Arm. WAILING, n. s. [n.s. weala. To moan; to WAIL'FUL, adj. lament; bewail: to grieve audibly audible sorrow: wailing is lamentation; moan: wailful, sorrowful; mournful. Take up wailing for us, that our eyes may run down I will wail and howl. Denham. Milton. Sheets of water from the clouds are sent, Dutch wachten. To expect; stay for; attend; accompany to expect; attend (taking on); stay; lie in ambush; follow: an ambush: a waiter is an attendant: waiting, attending; serving: used in composition with man, maid, &c. If he hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die, he He made me mad I am to blame to be thus waited for. Shakspeare. Id. Id. It is a point of cunning to wait upon him, with whom you speak, with your eye, as the Jesuits give it in precept. Bacon. Let the drawers be ready with wine and fresh glasses; Let the waiters have eyes, though their tongues must be tied. Ben Jonson. It will import those men, who dwell careless, to enter into serious consultation how they may avert that ruin, which waits on such a supine temper. Gay. Pope. All the little lime twigs laid Decay of Piety. Cowley. Milton. Philips. Why sat'st thou like an enemy in wait? Waits luxury, and lawless eare of gain. Awed with these words, in camps they still abide, And wait with longing looks their promised guide. Dryden. Fortune and victory he did pursue, The waiting-maid hopes to ingratiate herself. Swift. We can now not only converse with, but gladly attend and wait upon, the poorest kind of people. Law. WAIVE, in law, a woman that is put out of the protection of the law. She is called waive, as being forsaken of the law, and not outlaw, as a man is; by reason women cannot be of the decenna, and are not sworn in leets to the king, nor to the law, as men are; whereas women are not, and so cannot be outlawed, since they never were within it. WAIVER, in law, the passing by of a thing, or a declining or refusal to accept it. Sometimes it is applied to an estate, or something conveyed to a man, and sometimes to a plea, &c. A waiver or disagreement as to goods and chattels, in case of a gift, will be effectual. If a jointure of lands be made to a woman after marriage, she may waive this after her husband's death 3 Rep. 27. An infant, or if he die, his heirs, may by waiver avoid an estate made to him during his minority. 1 Inst. 23. 348. But, where a particular estate is given with a remainder over, there regularly he that hath it may not waive it, to the damage of him in remainder: though it is otherwise where one hath a reversion; for that shall not be hurt by such waiver. 4 Shep. Abr. 192. After special issue joined in any action, the parties cannot waive it without motion in court. 1 Keb. 255. Assignment of error by attorney on an outlawry, ordered to be waived, and the party to assign in person, after demurrer for this cause. 2 Keb. 15. WAKE, v. n., v. a., & Saxon pacian; Goth. WAKEFUL, adj. [n. s. (wakan; Belg. waecken; WAKE FULNESS, n. s. Dan. wakke. To watch; WA'KEN, v. a. forbear sleeping; cease or be roused from sleep; be put in action: to wake, verb active, or waken, is to rouse from sleep or inactivity; bring to life again: the verb neuter waken is also synonymous with wake: a wake is a vigil; feast of the dedication of a church: wakeful and wakefulness correspond. Thou holdest mine eyes waking. coine up. Psalm lxxvii. 4. Joel iii. 9. A man that is wakened out of sleep. Tusser. The sisters awaked from dreams, which flattered them with more comfort than their waking would conSidney. sent to. All night she watched, ne once a-down would lay Spenser. Id. Before her gate high God did sweat ordain, All thy fears, Thy wakeful terrors, and affrighting dreams, Crashaw. Denham's Sophy. Thine, like Amphion's hand, had waked the stone, Prier. The WAKE was kept with feasting and rural diversions. The learned Whitaker, in his History of Manchester, has given a particular account of the origin of wakes and fairs. He observes that every church at its consecration received the name of some particular saint: this custom was practised among the Romans, Britons, and continued among the Saxons; and in the council of Cealchythe, in 816, the name of the denominating saint was erpressly required to be inscribed on the altars, and also on the walls of the church, or a tablet within it. The feast of this saint became of course the festival of the church. Thus Christian festivals were substituted in the room of the idolatrous anniversaries of heathenism. Accordingly, at the first introduction of Christianity among the Jutes of Kent, pope Gregory the Great advised what had been previously done among the Romans, viz. Christian festivals to be instituted in the room of the idolatrous, and the suffering day of the martyr whose relics were deposited in the church, or the Prepare war; wake up the mighty men, let them day on which the building was actually dedicated, to be the established feast of the parish. Both were appointed and observed; and they were clearly distinguished at first among the Saxons, as appears from the laws of the Confessor, where the dies defrom the propria festivitas sancti, or celebratio dicationis, or dedicatio, is repeatedly discriminated sancti. They remained equally distinct to the Reformation; the dedication day in 1536 being ordered for the future to be kept on the first Sunday in October, and the festival of the patron saint to be celebrated no longer. The latter was, by way of pre-eminence, denominated the church's holiday, or its peculiar festival: and, while this remains in many parishes at present, the other is so utterly annihilated in all, that bishop Kennet (says Mr. Whitaker) knew nothing of its distinct existence, and has attributed to the day of dedica tion what is true only concerning the saint's day. Thus instituted at first, the day of the tutelar saint was observed, most probably by the Britons, and certainly by the Saxons, with great devotion. And the evening before every saint's day, in the Saxon Jewish method of reckoning the hours, being an actual hour of the day, and therefore like that appropriated to the duties of public religion, as they reckoned Sunday from the first to commence at the sun-set of Saturday; the evening preceding the church's holiday would be observed with all the devotion of the festival. The people actually repaired to the church, and joined in the services of it; and they thus spent the evening of their greater festivities in the monasteries of the north, as early as the conclusion of the seventh century. services were naturally denominated, from their late hours, wæccan or wakes, and vigils or eves. That of the anniversary at Rippon, as early as the commencement of the eighth century, is expressly denominated the vigil. But that of the church's holiday was named cyric wæccan, or church-wake, the church-vigil, or church-eve. And it was this commencement of both with a wake which has now caused the days to be generally preceded with vigils, and the church holiday particularly to be denominated the church wake. So religiously was the eve and festival of the patron saint observed for By dimpled brook, and fountain brim, Their sacred song, and waken raptures high. We make no longer stay; go, waken Eve. Milton. Id. ld. |