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Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully.
He hoped not to escape, but shun
The present, fearing guilty what his wrath
Might suddenly inflict.

Milton.

Before his feet so sheep and lions lay,
Fearless and wrathless, while they heard him play.
Waller.

Achilles' mrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess! sing. Pope.
The true evangelical zeal should abound more in the
mild and good-natured affections, than the vehement
and wrathful passions.
Sprat's Sermons.

Bran

Dropped from his head, a wreath lay on the groun

For thee she feeds her hair,

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And with thy winding ivy wreathes her lance. Dr.
Let altars smoak,

And richest gums, and spice, and incense, roll
Their fragrant wreaths to heaven.

As snakes breed in dunghills not singly, but in
so in such base noisome hearts you shall ever see s
and ingratitude indivisibly wreathed and twisted
gether.
South
In the flowers that wreath the sparkling bowl
Fell adders hiss, and poisonous serpents rowl. Par.
Impatient of the wound,
He rolls and wreaths his shining body round;
Then headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide. Ge
WRECK, n. s., v. a., & v. n.
Saxon præcce

WRATH. See ANGER, RAGE, &c.
WREAK, v. a. & n. s. Old pret. and part. pass.
WREAK'FUL, adj. wroke and wroken, now
WREAK'LESS.
Swreaked. Sax.
miserable
præcan;
Belg. wrecken; Teut. recken. To revenge; execute
a violent design: used for reck, corruptly: revenge;
passion: the adjectives correspond.

Him all that while occasion did provoke
Against Pyrocles, and new matter framed
Upon the old, him stirring to be wroke
Of his late wrongs.

Fortune, mine avowed foe,

Spenser.

Id.

Her wrathful wreaks themselves do now allay.
So flies the wreakless shepherd from the wolf;
So first the harmless flock doth yield his fleece,
And next his throat unto the butcher's knife. Shaksp.
What and if

person; Belg. wracke. See WRAN Destruction by sea: hence by any violence; r to destroy by dashing on rocks or sands; suffer wreck corruptly used for wreak.

Fair be ye sure; but hard and obstinate,
As is a rock amidst the raging floods;
'Gainst which a ship, of succour desolate,
Doth suffer wreck both of herself and goods. Spr
Have there been any more such tempests, wi
she hath wretchedly been wrecked?
Whether he was

Combined with Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and 'vantage; or that with bet
He laboured in his country's wreck, I know not.
Shakspear

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His sorrows have so overwhelmed his wits,
Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,

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His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?

Id.

My master is of churlish disposition,

And little wreaks to find the way to heaven
By doing deeds of hospitality.

Id.

Like those that see their wreck
Even on the rocks of death; and yet they strain
That death may not them idly find t' attend
To their uncertain task, but work to meet their end

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Some ills behind, rude swaine, for thee to heare; That feared not to devour thy guests, and breake All laws of humanes; Jove sends therefore wreake.

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To wreak his vengeance, and to cure her love.
Think how you drove him hence, a wand'ring exile,
To distant climes; then think what certain vengear.ce
His rage may wreak on your unhappy orphan. Smith.
Her husband scoured away
To wreak his hunger on the destined prey.
WREATH, n. s., v. A., & Saxon preot. Any
1
WREATH'Y, adj. [v. n. thing curled or twisted;
a garland: to curl; involve; twist; interweave; en-
circle; writhe: to be interwoven or entwined:
wreathy is spiral.

Two chains of pure gold, of wreathen work, shalt thou make them, and fasten the wreathen chains to the ouches.

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O cruel, couldst thou find none other To wreck thy spleen on, parricide? Like Nero, thou hast slain thy mother. Think not that flying fame reports my fate; I present, I appear, and my own wreck relate. D WRECK, OF SHIPWRECK, in law. By the anc common law, where any ship was lost at sea, the goods or cargo were thrown upon the land, is goods, so wrecked, were judged to belong to king; for it was held that, by the loss of the s all property was gone out of the original own But this was undoubtedly neither consonant reason nor humanity. Wherefore it was first dained by king Henry I. that if any person caped alive out of the ship, it should be no w and afterwards king Henry II. declared that, if a ship should be distressed, and either man or bea should escape or be found therein alive, the go within three months: This was again confirmed should remain to the owners, if they claimed th improvements by king Richard I. And the law. laid down by Bracton in the reign of Henry seems still to have improved in its equity. E then, if not only a dog, for instance, escaped, which the owner might be discovered, but if a

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WREN, in ornithology. See MOTACILLA. WREN (Sir Christopher), was the son of Christopher Wren, dean of Windsor, and was born in 1632. He studied at Wadham College in Oxford; where he took the degree of A. M. in 1653, and was chosen fellow of All Souls College. In 1657 he was made professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London; which he resigned in 1669, on his being chosen to the Savilian professorship of astronomy in Oxford; he was in 1658 created LL. D., and in 1663 was elected F. R. S. He was one of the commissioners for the reparation of St. Paul's; and in 1665 travelled into France, to examine the most beautiful edifices there, when he made many curious observations. At his return to England, he drew a noble plan for rebuilding the city of London after the fire, which he presented to parliament; and upon the decease of Sir John Denham, in 1668, was made surveyor-general of the king's works; and from that time had the direction of a great number of public edifices, by which he acquired the highest reputation. He built the magnificent theatre at Oxford, St. Paul's cathedral, the churches of St. Stephen Walbrook, and St. Mary-le-Bow, the Monument, the modern part of the palace of Hampton Court, Chelsea College, one of the wings of Greenwich Hospital, and many other beautiful edifices. He was president of the Royal Society, one of the commissioners of Chelsea College, and twice M. P., first for Plymouth in Devonshire, and then for Melcomb Regis. He died in 1723, and was interred in the vault under St. Paul's. This great man also distinguished himself by many curious inventions and discoveries in natural philosophy. He contrived an instrument for measuring the quantity of rain that falls on any space of land for a year; he invented many ways of making astronomical observations more accurate and easy; and was the first author of the anatomical experiment of injecting liquors into the veins of animals, &c. He translated into Latin Mr. Oughtred's Horologiographica Geometrica; and wrote a Survey of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, and other pieces. After his death his posthumous works and draughts were published by his son.

certain mark were set on the goods, by which they might be known again, it was held to be no wreck. It is now held that not only if any live thing escape, but if proof can be made of the property of any of the goods or lading which come to shore, they shall not be forfeited as wreck. To constitute a legal wreck, the goods must come to land. If they continue at sea, the law distinguishes them by the barbarous and uncouth appellations of jetsam, or jetsom, flotsam or flotson, and ligan or lagan. These are also the king's, if no owner appears to claim them; but, if any owner appears, he is entitled to recover the possession. Wrecks, in their legal acceptation, are at present not very frequent; for if any goods come to land, it rarely happens, since the improvement of commerce, navigation, and correspondence, that the owner is not able to assert his property within the year and day limited by law. And in order to preserve this property entire for him, and if possible to prevent wrecks at all, our laws have made many very humane regulations. For by stat. 27 Edw. III. c. 13, if any ship be lost on the shore, and the goods come to land (which cannot, says the statute, be called wreck), they shall be presently delivered to the merchants, paying only a reasonable reward to those that saved and preserved them, which is entitled salvage. Also by the common law, if any person (other than the sheriff) take any goods so cast on shore, which are not legal wreck, the owners might have a commission to enquire and find them out, and compel them to make restitution. And by 12 Ann. stat. 2, c. 18, confirmed by 4 Geo. I. c. 12, to assist the distressed, and prevent the scandalous illegal practices on some of our sea-coasts, it is enacted that all head officers, and others of towns near the sea, shall, upon application made to them, summon as many hands as are necessary, and send them to the relief of any ship in distress, on forfeiture of £100; and, in case of assistance given, salvage shall be paid by the owners, to be assessed by three neighbouring justices. All persons that secrete any goods shall forfeit their treble value; and if they wilfully do any act whereby the ship is lost or destroyed, by making holes in her, stealing her pumps, or otherwise, they are guilty of felony without benefit of clergy. Lastly, by stat. 26 Geo. II. c. 19, plundering any vessel, either in distress or wrecked, and whether any living creature be on board or not (for, whether wreck or otherwise, it is clearly not the property of the populace), such plundering or preventing the escape of any person that endeavours to save his life, or wounding him with intent to destroy him, or putting out false lights in order to bring any vessel into danger, are all declared to be capital felonies; in like manner as the destroying of trees, steeples, or other stated sea marks, is punished by stat. 8 Eliz. c. 13, with a forfeiture of £100, or outlawry. Moreover, by stat. Geo. II., pilfering any goods cast ashore is declared to be petty larceny; and many other salutary regulations are made, for the more effectually preserving ships of any nation in distress. By the civil law, to destroy persons shipwrecked, or prevent their saving the ship, is capital. And to steal even a plank, from a vessel in distress or wrecked, makes the party liable to answer for the whole ship and cargo. The laws also of the Wisigoths, and the most early Neapolitan constitutions, punished with the utmost severity all those who neglected to assist any ship in distress, or plundered any goods cast on shore.

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To play or wrestle well, it should be used with those that do it better. Temple. Two wrestlers help to pull each other down. Dryden. O prince, I blush to think what I have said; But fate has wrested the confession from me. Addison. Another, by a fall in wrestling, started the end of the clavicle from the sternon. Wiseman.

None in the leap spring with so strong a bound, Or firmer in the wrestling press the ground. Pope. WRESTLING, a kind of combat or engagement between two persons unarmed, body to body, to prove their strength and dexterity, and try which can throw his opponent to the ground. Wrestling is an exercise of very great antiquity and fame. It was in use in the heroic age. It continued a long time in the highest repute, and had considerable rewards and honors assigned to it at the Olympic games. Lycurgus ordered the Spartan maids to wrestle in public quite naked, to break off their too much delicacy and niceness, to make them appear more robust, and to familiarise the people,

&c., to such nudities.

WRETCH, n. s.
WRETCHED, adj.

Saxon precca. A miserable mortal; a WRETCH EDLY, adv. worthless creature ; WRETCH EDNESS, n.s. used in pity and conWRETCH LESS, adj. tempt: the adjective, WRETCH LESSNESS, n. s. adverb, and noun substantive following correspond: wretchless was originally written for reckless, i. e. careless; heedless the noun substantive corresponds.

The devil drives them into desperation, or into wretchlessness of unclean living. Common Prayer. Base-minded wretches! are your thoughts so deeply bemired in the trade of ordinary worldlings, as, for respect of gain some paultry wool may yield you, to let so much time pass without knowing perfectly her Sidney.

estate?

An adventure worthy to be remembered for the unused examples therein, as well of true natural goodness as of wretched ungratefulness.

He 'gan enquire

Id.

What hard mishap him brought to such distress,
And made that caitif's thrall the thrall of wretchedness.
Spenser

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Affected noise is the most wretched thing That to contempt can empty scribblers bring.

Why dost thou drive me

Roscomm

To range all o'er a waste and barren place,
To find a friend? The wretched have no friends.

Dr

She joys to touch the captive in her net, And drags the little wretch in triumph home. When they are gone, a company of starved by wretches shall take their places. L'Estra

When such little shuffling arts come once & ripped up, and laid open, how poorly and w must that man sneak who finds himself guly baffled too!

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If persons of so circumspect a piety have been overtaken, what security can there be for our r Government of the To oscitancy? View not what heaven ordains with reason's eye Illustrious wretch! repine not, nor reply; For bright the object is, the distance is too high. Prz

WREXHAM, a market town in Wre hundred, Denbighshire, ten miles south of Ches and 188 north-west of London; it consists of townships, Wrexham-Abbots and Wrexham-p It is a very fertile and pleasant situation, ado the vale royal of Cheshire. The church is an gant structure, equal in point of beauty to some our cathedrals; it was collegiate before the re of Henry VII., when the present edifice erected on the site of the old one, which was Here are two large meet stroyed by fire. houses, in one of which the service is perforze in Welsh one part of the day, and in English

other. It has also a neat and convenient tow

Wrexham

and a well endowed free-school. great mart for flannel. In the vicinity are se manufactories of warlike instruments, partic a large cannon foundry. Near Wrexham are some remains of the famous dyke thrown up Offa, king of Mercia, to prevent the incursions the Welsh. Markets on Thursday and Monday WRIGGLE, v. n. & v. a. Į Sax. WRIGGLETAIL, N. S.

Be

Prizan; wriggelen. To me twist insinuste by shifts: a wriggletail is one to and fro with short motions; quaver awkward wriggles.

If sheep or thy lamb fall a wriggling with tail. Go by-and-by search it, whiles help may prevail.

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The verb To write has the same sound with wright a workman; right, or equity; and rite, or ceremony; Watts. but spelled very differently.

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Threatening cruel death, constrained the bride
To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret.
Didst thou taste but half the griefs

Milton.

WRIGHT (Abraham), a learned divine, born in 1611; who was public orator at Oxford. He pub- That wring my soul, thou couldst not talk thus coldly, lished Delicia Deliciarum, 1637; and a Commentary on the Psalms. He died in 1690.

WRIGHT (Edward), a celebrated English mathematician, who was educated at Cambridge, and accompanied the earl of Cumberland in his expedition to the Azores in 1589. In 1599 he published an excellent book, entitled The Errors of Navigation Corrected; in which he lays down the true method of making a sea chart, which now goes by the

name of Mercator. He also constructed a table of meridional parts, and tables of the sun's declination. He also published, 3. A Treatise on the Sphere; 4. Another on Dialling; and, 5. A work on Navigation, called the Haven-Finding Art. He also suggested the first idea of the new system of weights and measures, since adopted by the French. See MEASURES. He died in 1620.

WRIGHT (Edward), an English traveller, who accompanied the earl of Macclesfield in 1720, 1721, and 1722. His Observations were published in 1730, in 2 vols. 8vo.

WRIGHT (John), a brave officer, born in Edinburgh castle, who signalised himself highly at the defence of St. Jean de Acre, or Ptolemais, in Syria, under Sir Sidney Smith. The French under Buonaparte had a mine ready to spring, when Wright counter-wrought it, and, at the most imminent risk of his own life, blew up and destroyed their works. He was buried under the rubbish for about two hours, but was recovered. He was afterwards taken prisoner and carried to Paris, where he died, or, as is reported, was killed by Napoleon's order, who could never forgive the disappointment he had occasioned him.

WRING, v. a. & v. n. Į Preter. and part. pass. WRING ER, n. s. wringed and wrung. Sax. with violence; Pringan. To twist; turn force out; squeeze; press; writhe; harass; torture: to writhe with anguish a wringer is one who wrings: particularly who wrings water from clothes.

The priest shali wring off his head, and burn it on Leviticus i. 15. the altar. wringed the dew Judges vi. 38. To wring this sentence, to wrest thereby out of men's

He thrust the fleece together, and out of it, a bowl full of water.

Addison.

WRIN'KLE, n. s. & v. a. Sax. pɲincle: Belg wrinkel; Danish rinkle. Corrugation or furrow

of the skin or the face; rumple of cloth; any corrugation or roughness: to corrugate or contract into

furrows.

Shakspeare.

Give me that glass, and therein will I read :
No deeper wrinkles yet! Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine,
And made no deeper wounds?
Scorn makes us wrinkle up the nose, and stretch the
nostrils also, at the same time drawing up the upper
Jip.

Bacon.

She hath continued a virgin without any visible Howel. token, or least wrinkle, of old age.

A keen north wind, blowing dry,
Wrinkled the face of deluge, as decayed
To see a beggar's brat in riches flow,
Adds not a wrinkle to my even brow.
Here steams ascend,

Milton.

Dryden. Gay.

That in mixed fumes the wrinkled nose offend.
Here stood Ill-nature, like an ancient maid,
Her wrinkled form in black and white arrayed. Pope.
No bloom of youth can ever blind
Swift.
The cracks and wrinkles of your mind.
WRIST, n. s. Sax. pynre. The joint by which
the hand is joined to the arm.

He took me by the wrist, and held me hard.

Shakspeare. The brawn of the arm must appear full, shadowed on one side; then shew the wrist-bone thereof.

Peacham.

WRIST, in anatomy. See ANATOMY, Index. WRIT, in law, signifies, in general, the king's precept in writing under seal, issuing out of some court, directed to the sheriff or other officer, and commanding something to be done in relation to a suit or action, or giving commission to have the same done. And, according to Fitzherbert, a writ is said to be a formal letter of the king in parchment, sealed with his seal, and directed to some judge, officer, or minister, &c., at the suit of a subject, for the cause briefly expressed, which is to be determined in the proper court according to law.

WRITS, in civil actions, are either original or judicial; original are such as are issued out of the court of chancery for the summoning of a de

fendant to appear, and are granted before the suit curum, from the words of the writ, which directs. is commenced, in order to begin the same; and the sheriff to cause the defendant to appear in Judicial writs issue out of the court where the ori- court, without any option given him, provided the ginal is returned after the suit is begun. See PRO- plaintiff gives the sheriff security effectually to CESS. The original writ is the foundation of the prosecute his claim. The writ is in use where suit. See SUIT. When a person hath received an nothing is specifically demanded, but only a satis injury, he is to make application or suit to the faction in general; to obtain which, and minister crown, for that particular specific remedy which he complete redress, the intervention of some judicais determined to pursue. As for money due on ture is necessary. Such are writs of trespass, or in bond, an action of debt; for goods detained the case, wherein no debt or other specific thing is without force, an action of detinue or trover; or, sued for in certain, but only damages to be assessed if taken with force, an action of trespass vi et armis; by a jury. For this end the defendant is immeor to try the title of lands, a writ of entry or diately called upon to appear in court, provid action of trespass in ejectment; or for any conse- the plaintiff gives good security of prosecuting his quential injury received, a special action on the claim. Both species of writs are tested, or wit case. To this end he is to sue out, or purchase by nessed, in the king's own name; witness ourself paying the stated fees, an original or original writ, at Westminster,' or wherever the chancery may be from the court of chancery, which is the officina held. The security here spoken of, to be given by justitiæ, the shop or mint of justice, wherein all the plaintiff for prosecuting his claim, is commou the king's writs are framed. It is a mandatory to both writs, though it gives denomination only to letter from the king in parchment, sealed with his the latter. The whole of it is at present become a great seal, and directed to the sheriff of the county mere matter of form; and John Doe and Richard wherein the injury is committed, or supposed so Roe are always returned as the standing pledges to be, requiring him to command the wrong-doer, for this purpose. The ancient use of them was to or party accused, either to do justice to the com- answer for the plaintiff, who in case he brought an plainant, or else to appear in court, and answer the action without cause, or failed in the prosecution accusation against hit. Whatever the sheriff does of it when brought, was liable to an amercement in pursuance of this writ, he must return or certify from the crown for raising a false accusation; and to the court of common pleas, together with the so the form of the judgment still is. In like writ itself; which is the foundation of the jurisdic- manner, as by the Gothic constitutions no person tion of that court, being the king's warrant for the was permitted to lay a complaint against another judges to proceed to the determination of the nisi subscriptura aut specificatione trium testium, cause. For it was a maxim introduced by the quod actionem vellet persequi: and as, by the laws Normans that there should be no proceedings in of Sancho I. king of Portugal, damages were given common pleas before the king's justices without his against a plaintiff who prosecuted a groundless original writ; because they held it unfit that those action. The day on which the defendant is ordered justices, being only the substitutes of the crown, to appear in court, and on which the sheriff is to should take cognizance of any thing but what was thus bring in the writ, and report how far he has obeyed expressly referred to their judgment. However, in it, is called the return of the writ; it being then small actions below the value of 40s., which are returned by him to the king's justices at Westbrought in the court-baron or county-court, no royal minster. And it is always made returnable at the writ is necessary; but the foundation of such suits distance of at least fifteen days from the date or continues to be (as in the times of the Saxons), not test, that the defendant may have time to come up by original writ, but by plaint; that is, by a private to Westminster, even from the most remote parts memorial tendered in open court to the judge, of the kingdom; and upon some day in one of the wherein the party injured sets forth his cause of four terms, in which the court sits for the despatch action; and the judge is bound of common right of business. to administer justice therein, without any special mandate from the king. Now indeed even the royal writs are held to be demandable of common right, on paying the usual fees; for any delay in the granting them, or setting an unusual or exorbitant price upon them, would be a breach of magna charta; c. 29, nulli vendemus, nulli negabitnus, aut differemus justitiam vel rectum. Original writs are either optional or peremptory; or, in the language of our law, they are either a præcipe, or a si te fecerit securum. The præcipe is in the alternative, commanding the defendant to do the thing required, or show the reason wherefore he hath not done it. The use of this writ is where something certain is demanded by the plaintiff, which is in the power of the defendant himself to perform; as, to restore the possession of land, to pay a certain liquidated debt, to perform a specifice covenant, to render an account, and the like; in all which cases the writ is drawn up in the form of a præcipe or command, to do thus, or show cause to the contrary: giving the defendant his choice to redress the injury or stand the suit. The other species of original writs is called a si te fecerit se

WRITE, v. a. & v. n. Pret. writ or wrote; WRIT, n. s. part. pass. written, writ, WRITER. or wrote. Sax. pritan, appitan; Isl. and Swed. rita; Goth. rita, vrita. To express by means of letters: hence engrave; impress; produce as an author: to perform the act of writing; become an author; tell in letters; send letters; compose: writ is, any thing written; who writes. a process of law; legal instrument: a writer, he

David wrote a letter.

2 Sam. xi. He wrote for all the Jews concerning their freedom. 1 Esdras.

Divine Eliza, sacred empress,
Live she for ever, and her royal places
Be filled with praises of divinest wits,
That her eternize with their heavenly writs.

Spenser.

The church, as a witness, preacheth his mere re vealed truth, by reading publickly the sacred scripture; that a second kind of preaching is the reading of holy

writ.

Hooker.

Bagdat rises out of the ruins of the old city of Babylon, so much spoken of in holy writ. Knolles.

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