into the chamber of peers; but the revolution of 1830 rendered all the creations of peers, during the reign of Charles X, void, and M. de Villèle has accordingly lived in retirement since that period.

VILLEMAIN, Abel Francois, member of the academy, and, since the revolution of 1830, of the chamber of deputies, was born at Paris, in 1791, and studied with brilliant success. At the age of eighteen, before he had ceased to attend to lessons in rhetoric, he supplied, with high applause, the place of two of the most eminent professors of that art. Appointed, in 1810, professor of belles-lettres at the lyceum of Charlemagne, he discharged his new duties with the same superiority. The new university having restored the custom, which had been abandoned since the revolution, of using Latin harangues at the distribution of the prizes, M. Villemain was the first, in 1811, employed to deliver the discourse on this occasion. He was then a competitor for the prize to be given to the best eulogy on Montaigne, and obtained it. The public beheld with wonder a philosopher like Montaigne appreciated by a writer who had not attained the twenty-second year of his age. In 1814, M. Villemain was appointed professor of modern history in the academy of Paris. His introductory discourse, pronounced before a large and learned assembly, was loudly applauded. The orator presented, within very narrow limits, a faithful and animated picture of the general history of Europe in the fifteenth century. The same year, he bore off the prize of eloquence at the academy. The eulogium of Montesquieu, proposed for the prize of 1816, gained M. Villemain his third academic crown. In the same year, he passed from the chair of modern history to that of eloquence; and his celebrity attended him here also. His lectures were extremely popular; and, with other distinguished professors (Cousin, Guizot, &c.), he was silenced by government, on account of the freedom of his expressions, and the liberality of his views. In 1828, he was permitted to renew his lectures, five volumes of which have been published. Since the revolution of 1830, he has been an active member of the chamber of deputies. The principal publications of Villemain are his Discours et Mélanges littéraires (1823); Vie de Cromwell (2 vols., 1819); Nouveaux Mélanges historiques et littéraires (1827); and his lectures above mentioned, under the title of Cours de Littérature Française.

VILLENAGE, VILLEINS, or SERFS. In

every age and country, until comparatively recent times, personal servitude seems to have been the lot of a large portion of mankind. The free citizens of Greece and Rome were absolute masters of the life and property of large numbers of their fellow-beings; and the Germans, in their primitive settlements, were accustomed to the notion of slavery, incurred not only by captivity in war, but by crimes and by debt. (See Slavery.) When they invaded the Roman empire, they found the same condition established in its provinces; and thus servitude, under various modifications, became common in modern Europe. There is much difficulty in ascertaining its varieties and stages. Villeins were not, properly speaking, slaves: the mere attachment to the soil, which was their characteristic distinction, might, indeed, be joined to so many privileges, that freedom might be more descriptive of their state than servitude. Thus we find the mere slaves (servi) among the AngloSaxons, known by the names of theow, esne, and thrall, distinguished in Domesday-book from the villeins. One source of villenage was indeed slavery, the proprietors of large landed estates being accustomed to grant land to their slaves, on condition of their performing certain services. At a later period, free peasants became the villeins of powerful lords, or of the church, for the sake of protection. The villein was not only precluded from selling the land upon which he dwelt, but his person was bound, and the lord might reclaim him if he attempted to stray. The villeins in England were incapable of property, and destitute of redress, except against the most outrageous injuries. The lord could seize whatever they acquired, and could convey them, separately from the land, to a stranger. Their tenure bound them to what were called villein services, ignoble in their nature and indeterminate in their degree (see Tenure)-the felling of timber, the carrying of manure, the repairing of roads, for their lords, who seem to have possessed an equally unbounded right over their labor and its fruits. This description of persons might, with more strict propriety, be called serfs, some of the villeins of France and Germany being bound only to fixed payments and duties towards their lord. The children of the villein could not, without permission of the lord, change the employment to which they were born: they could not marry without his consent, for which they were expected to pay. The children followed the mother's con

dition, except in England, where they followed the father's. Manumission was practised, as it ever is, where there is slavery, and, as society advanced in Europe, became frequent. It also became usual to allow the villeins to hold property, though this was rather by indulgence than as a matter of right. Some instances of predial servitude occur in England as late as the reign of Elizabeth; but there were no villeins remaining at the time of the abolition of villenage, in 1661. It was not entirely abolished in France until the revolution, though the villeins in the royal domains were emancipated in the fourteenth century. The greater part of the servile classes in some countries of Germany had acquired their liberty before the end of the thirteenth century; but, in other parts, villenage survived till the nineteenth century, and is not yet entirely extinct. It has been recently abolished in Livonia, but still exists in its most servile form in other parts of Russia.

VILLERS, Charles François Dominique de, a French writer, was a native of Belchen, in Lorraine, where he was born in 1764. In the earlier part of his life, he served in the French army as a lieutenant of artillery, but, on the breaking out of the revolution, emigrated, and joined the royalist force under the prince of Condé. On the failure of the hopes of the party to which he had attached himself, he went to Lübeck, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. Villers, who was a man of considerable talent, and some reading, soon acquired a rising reputation in the republic of letters, which was much increased by his obtaining 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 of philosophy at the university of Göttingen. This situation, when the French influence predominated, he was compelled to resign, but received a pension in lieu of it. During the occupation of Hanover by the troops of France, under Davoust, the excesses committed by the soldiery induced him to address a letter to Fanny Beauharnais, with the hope of procuring, through her interest, some mitigation of the evils under which the unhappy country of his adoption then labored. The work was printed; but the only effect it produced 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 honors which his own country deni

ed him were accorded by the Swedish government, which made him a chevalier of the order of the polar star. M. de Villers died in the spring of 1815.

VILLIERS. (See Buckingham.) VILLOISON, Jean Baptiste d'Ansse de, a distinguished Hellenist, born at Corbeilsur-Seine, in 1750, early acquired reputation for his talents and attainments. In the nineteenth year of his age, he had read all the ancient Latin and many Greek authors; and, in a short time, he acquired the Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew without any assistance from others. In the twenty-third year of his age, he was admitted into the academy of inscriptions. In 1778, the government sent him to Venice to examine the manuscripts in the library of St. Mark; and, while there, he enjoyed the society of the learned Morelli, to which intercourse we are indebted for Villoison's Anecdota Graca e regia Parisiensi et e Veneta S. Marci Bibliothe cis deprompta (Venice, 1781, 2 vols., 4to.). In the library of St. Mark, Villoison discovered an important codex, which contained the Iliad of Homer, with numerous scholia, and which was esteemed of great value by Wolf. This he published under the title Homeri Ilias ad veteris Codicis Veneti Fidem recensita (Venice, 1788, fol.). After his return from Italy, Villoison visited Germany, and, in 1785, accompanied the French ambassador Choiseul-Gouffier to Constantinople, and spent three years in travelling in Greece and the Grecian islands. This excursion, during which he became familiar with the Romaic, or modern Greek, led him to undertake the preparation of a complete description of Greece. For this purpose, he made excerpts from the Grecian authors, the church fathers, and the Byzantine writers; but the revolutionary agitations which ensued interrupted the execution of his plan, and he died in 1805, without having accomplished it. Besides the works already mentioned, Villoison published an excellent edition of Longus's Pastoralia de Daphnide et Chloe (2 vols., Paris, 1778), and contributed numerous valuable papers to the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions.

VIMEIRA; a town of Portuguese Estremadura, three miles from Torres Vedras (q. v.), and twenty-eight north-west of Lisbon. It is remarkable for the battle between the British and French (on the 21st of August, 1808), in which the French, under general Junot, were defeated by the English forces, under the command of sir Arthur Wellesley, now duke

of Wellington. This battle was followed by the famous convention of Cintra (Aug. 30), by the articles of which the French forces were to be transported to their own country, with their arms and property. VINALIA (from the Latin); wine feasts among the Romans. The Etruscans, it is said, after a victory gained over the Latins, had made the surrender of all their wine by the latter a condition of peace. The Latins, enraged at this demand, once more determined to try the chance of war; but they promised their wine to Jupiter, if they should be victorious. They conquered; and, to fulfil their vow, they offered him the first cup from every cask. This custom was continued, and the feast was celebrated annually on the 23d of April, on which day the wine-casks were opened. A second wine feast was celebrated on the 21st of August, to pray for Jupiter's favor on the approaching vintage. Till after this festival, the wine of the previous year could not be sold, that of the coming season being consecrated by these festivities, and committed to the protection of Jupiter. At this second festival, the flamen Dialis commenced the vintage by gathering the first grape.

VINCENNES, the capital of Knox county, Indiana, is situated on the Wabash, 150 miles from its mouth. It was settled in 1735, by the French. It contains the county buildings, an academy, two churches, and some other public buildings, which are erected in good style, and has a population of 1800. Vincennes is contiguous to a beautiful prairie, of which about 5000 acres are cultivated as one field. The houses are furnished with gardens well filled with fruit-trees. Steam-boats come to this place during most of the year.

VINCENNES; a town of France, department of the Seine, about three miles east of Paris. It is remarkable for its castle, built in a remote age. It continued a palace during three centuries, but has since been used as a state prison. It is still of considerable strength. It was here that the unfortunate duke d'Enghien was shot on the 21st of March, 1804. Adjoining to the castle is a fine park and forest. Population, 2600.

VINCENT, ST.; an island in the West Indies, about forty miles in length and ten in breadth. This island was only inhabited by native Caribs, till, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, a ship from Guinea, with a cargo of slaves, was either wrecked or run ashore upon the island of St. Vincent, into the woods and

mountains of which great numbers of the negroes escaped, whom the Indians suffered to remain. Partly by the accession of runaway slaves from Barbadoes, and partly by the children they had by the Indian women, the Africans were much strengthened, that, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, they constrained the Indians to retire into the north-west part of the island. The Indians applied to the French for assistance, and the consequence was a long war between them and the negroes. In 1763, the island being ceded to the English, the first measure of the English government was to dispose of the lands, without any regard to the claims of either race. A war took place, which ended in a compromise, by which the natives, after surrendering part of their lands, were permitted to enjoy the remainder unmolested. On the 19th of June, 1779, St. Vincent was captured by a French force from Martinico. It was restored to Britain at the peace of 1783. St. Vincent contains about 84,000 acres, which are well watered; but the country is generally mountainous and rugged. The valleys, however, are fertile in a high degree, the soil consisting chiefly of a fine mould, composed of sand and clay, well adapted for sugar. Its towns are Kingston, the capital, and Richmond: the others are villages or hamlets, at the several bays and landingplaces. Imports, in 1829, £99,891; exports, £414,548. In 1812, St. Vincent was almost desolated by a most dreadful eruption of the Souffrier mountain, which had continued quiet for nearly a century, but from which now issued such a torrent of lava, and such clouds of ashes, as nearly covered the island, and injured the soil in such a manner that it has never recovered. Population, whites, 1301; free people of color, 2824; slaves, 23,589; total, 27,714. Lon. 61° 15' W.; lat. 13° 17′ N.

VINCENT, CAPE ST.; the south-west point of Portugal, noted for the naval victory gained off it on the 14th of February, 1797, by sir John Jervis, afterwards earl of St. Vincent. (See Vincent, St.) Lon. 8° 58′ 39′′ W.; lat. 37° 2′ 54′′ N.

VINCENT, John Jervis, earl of St., a distinguished naval commander, descended of a respectable family in Staffordshire, was born in 1734, and, at the age of fourteen, entered the navy. 1760, he obtained the rank of post-captain, and commanded the Foudroyant, in the action between admiral Keppel and

In

the French fleet, in July, 1778. In 1782, he took the Pegase, of seventy-four guns; for which exploit he received the red riband. In 1794, he received the command of a squadron equipped for the West Indies, and reduced Martinico, Guadaloupe and St. Lucia. On the 14th of February, 1797, being in command of the Mediterranean fleet of fifteen sail, he defeated twenty-seven Spanish ships of the line off cape St. Vincent, the south-west point of Portugal, and was raised to the English peerage, by the titles of baron Jervis and earl of St. Vincent, with a pension of £3000 a year. In 1799, he was created admiral, and, in 1801, became first lord of the admiralty, and, in 1821, admiral of the fleet. Lord St. Vincent was a man of a strong mind, unbending in regard to discipline and reform, and of high gallantry and genius in his profession. He died in 1823, in his eightyninth year. His statue has been erected in St. Paul's cathedral, by vote of parlia

ment.

VINCENT, William, a distinguished critic and divine, born in London, in 1739, was educated at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship. In 1762, he became an usher at Westminster, and, nine years after, second master. He took the degree of doctor of divinity, and was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the king. In 1788, he became head master at Westminster, where he continued to preside till 1801, when he was made a prebend of Westminster; and, two years after, he succeeded to the deanery. Dean Vincent is principally known by his Commentary on Arrian's Voyage of Nearchus, and his Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, republished together, under the title of the Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean (1807, 2 vols., 4to.). He died in December, 1815. A volume of his Discourses, with his life, was published posthumously.

VINCENT DE PAUL. (See Paul.) VINCI, Leonardo da, the head of the Florentine school of painting, was born in the village of Vinci, near Florence, between 1444 and 1452. He was the natural son of a notary named Pietro. Even in his earliest youth, he devoted himself to a great variety of studies painting, sculpture, anatomy, architecture, geometry, mechanics, poetry and music. He soon surpassed his master, the painter and sculptor Andrea del Varrochio; and, in 1482, the duke of Milan, Ludovico Maria Sforza, took him into his service. Leonardo founded an academy of design,

which would have been still more beneficial in its results but for the fall of the house of Sforza. Amongst the paintings which he executed by order of the duke, the first was the Head of Medusa; and the most famous was the Lord's Supper, in the refectory of the Dominicans of Sta-Maria delle Grazie. It is to be regretted, that this beautiful fresco painting has been entirely destroyed by neglect; but several old copies remain, from which the beauty of the groups of the whole composition and of the separate parts can be estimated. There is an excellent engraving of this painting by Raphael Morghen. Besides his paintings, Leonardo's active spirit undertook many impor tant enterprises. He conducted the water of the Adda to Milan, and excavated a navigable canal from Mortesana to the valleys of Chiavenna and to the Valteline, a distance of 200 Italian miles. In 1499, he returned to Florence, where he was employed to paint one of the walls of the great council room. On this occasion, having Michael Angelo for a competitor, he made a cartoon-which is one of his most celebrated works-commemorating a victory of the Florentines, under their chief Niccolo Piccinio: a group of horsemen in the piece, struggling around a standard, was particularly admired. This cartoon also is known only by a copy. When Leo X ascended the papal throne, in 1513, Leonardo went, in the suite of Julian, duke of Medici, to Rome, but left this city in '1515, and went to France, whither he had been invited by Francis I. His reason for leaving Rome probably was, that the rivalry of Michael Angelo followed him even there, or that Raphael was already intrusted with the execution of the great works in the Vatican. On account of his advanced age, he did little or nothing in France, and, in 1519, he died in the arms of the king, when attempting to rise from his bed on the occasion of a visit from him. Leonardo da Vinci is distinguished as the man who strove to reduce the art of painting, which had been revived by Cimabue (1420), to principles. But few paintings are extant to which he had given the last touches. The reason of this was his restless striving for perfection, even in advanced age. Truth was his aim, and his motto Vogli sempre quel che tu debbi (Will always that which thou oughtest). So anxious was he at the beginning of a work, that he would tremble like a stripling. His dissatisfaction with his productions increased with the progress, so that he generally gave them

up before they were finished. Among his most distinguished works, besides those already mentioned, are the Lisa del Giocondo, in Paris; the lovely picture known by the name of La Vierge aux Rochers; a Leda, in the collection of prince Kaunitz, in Vienna; a picture, in the palace Pamfili, in Rome, representing the interview of the child Jesus with the doctors in the temple; John the Baptist, formerly in the French museum; the portrait of duke Ludovico Maria Sforza, in the Dresden gallery; and others. Almost of equal value with the pictures of this immortal artist are his writings, of which, however, part have unfortunately been lost, and others have remained in manuscript. His Trattato della Pittura appeared for the first time in 1651: the most complete edition of it was published by Manzi, in 1817. With a deep insight into nature, says Fiorillo, Leonardo has treated, in this book, of light, shades, reflections, and particularly of back-grounds. He perfectly understood, and has explained in the best way, that, natural bodies being mostly bounded by curved lines, which have a certain softness, it is important to give this softness to the outlines; that this can be done only by means of the ground on which the object is represented; that the inner line of the surrounding ground, and the outer line of the object, are one and the same; nay, that the figure of the latter becomes visible only by means of that which surrounds it; that even the colors are dependent on the surrounding objects, and mutually weaken and heighten each other; that when subjects of the same color are to be represented one before the other, different degrees of light must be used to separate them from each other, since the mass of air between the eye and the object lessens and softens the color in proportion to the distance. Besides this treatise, and a Fragment d'un Traité sur les Mouvements du Corp humain, nothing has been printed of his writings; but the Ambrosian library, at Milan, possesses sixteen volumes of his manuscripts. Seven other volumes are said to have come into the possession of king Philip of Spain; but not even the nature of their contents is known. Leonardo always carried a little book with him, in which he drew interesting forms and faces which he had an opportunity to observe. Caylus published a collection of beautiful sketches and studies of Leonardo, under the title Recueil de Têtes de Caractères et de Charges, &c. (1730), of which there is

also a German edition. We should mention, also, Desseins de Léonardo da Vinci, gravés par Ch. T. Gerli (Milan, 1784), and Osservazioni sopra i Disegni di Leonardo dall' Abbate Amoretti (Milan, 1784). Besides these, there appeared, in 1796, at London, engravings of the numerous sketches of Leonardo in the possession of the king of England, entitled Imitations of Original Designs by Leonardo da Vinci, published by J. Chamberlaine (1796, folio). See, also, the Life of Leonardo da Vinci (in German, Halle, 1819).

VINDELICIA; the country of the Vindelicians, a German tribe, which lived, in the time of Augustus, in the south of Germany. Hence Augsburg was called Augusta Vindelicorum. After their conquest by the Romans, Tiberius removed most of them from their country.

VINDICTA; revenge, punishment, complaint of injury received; also, with the Romans, the staff with which slaves were touched when they were set free. Hence, in the Pandects, the title De manumissis vindicta.

VINE (vitis). The common grape (V. vinifera) at present grows wild in many parts of the south of Europe, but its origin can be pretty clearly traced to Asia. Its culture has been known and practised from the most remote period of history, though it is certain that it had made little progress in Italy, at the time of the foundation of Rome. A temperate climate is most favorable to its growth. The extreme points at which it is successfully cultivated in the open air, are Schiras, in Persia, in lat. 25°, and Coblentz, in lat. 52°. In northern climates, a south exposure is preferable, unless the summer heats are too powerful; and the reverse in the south. It is not difficult as to the nature of the soil, but succeeds best if it be light, and rather dry than humid. Most of the vineyards in France are in a soil both clayey and calcareous; but excellent wines are produced in granitic and also in volcanic districts, though this does not hold good always. The varieties are innumerable, differing in form and size, color, taste, consistence, fragrance, the size of the seeds and bunches, &c. In planting the varieties known to produce the best wine, it is of importance to select such as arrive at maturity at the same period, otherwise much inconvenience will be experienced. The vine is universally propagated by cuttings, either a foot or more long, with a portion of two years old wood, or short, with only one bud, or one bud and half a joint, &c.