cathedral, with a view to restoring or rebuild- | On Windsor castle in 1684. The most authentic record of his life is to be found in the "Parentalia," begun by his son Christopher, and completed by his grandson Stephen Wren (1750). WRIGHT. I. A central county of Minnesota, bounded N. E. by the Mississippi and S. E. by Crow river and its S. fork; area, 708 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 9,457; in 1875, 13,775. The surface is undulating and diversified by prairies, forests, and numerous small lakes. The St. Paul and Pacific railroad traverses it. The chief productions in 1870 were 134,095 bushels of wheat, 69,572 of Indian corn, 97,282 of oats, 51,748 of potatoes, 115,675 lbs. of butter, 6,964 of wool, and 6,961 tons of hay. There were 1,082 horses, 2,050 milch cows, 3,987 other cattle, 2,612 sheep, and 2,946 swine. Capital, Buffalo. II. A N. central county of Iowa, intersected by the Boone and Iowa rivers; area, 625 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 2,592. The surface is generally undulating and the soil fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 72,558 bushels of wheat, 85,284 of Indian corn, 55,859 of oats, 8,852 of potatoes, 63,354 lbs. of butter, and 8,053 tons of hay. There were 947 horses, 998 milch cows, 1,454 other cattle, 785 sheep, and 1,229 swine. Capital, Clarion. III. A S. county of Missouri, drained by the Gasconade river and the head streams of White river; area, about 650 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 4,508, of whom 26 were colored. The surface is moderately hilly and the soil fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 42,816 bushels of wheat, 247,735 of Indian corn, 29,286 of oats, 13,109 of potatoes, 36,799 lbs. of butter, 11,726 of wool, and 37,551 of tobacco. There were 1,931 horses, 1,528 milch cows, 4,065 other cattle, 6,647 sheep, and 14,874 swine. Capital, Hartville. WRIGHT, Elizar, an American abolitionist, born in South Canaan, Litchfield co., Conn., Feb. 12, 1804. He graduated at Yale college in 1826, and for two years was a teacher at Groton, Mass. From 1829 to 1833 he was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Western Reserve college, Hudson, Ohio. Ile removed to New York in 1833, and was for five years secretary of the American antislavery society, editing in 1834-5 a paper called "Human Rights," and in 1835-'8 the "Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine.” He removed to Boston in 1838, and in April, 1839, became editor of the "Massachusetts Abolitionist." In 1846 he established the "Chronotype" newspaper, which he conducted till it was merged in the "Commonwealth " (1850), of which also he was for a time the editor. From 1858 to 1866 he was insurance commissioner of Massachusetts. Mr. Wright has published a translation in verse of La Fontaine's "Fables" (2 vols. 8vo, Boston, 1841), “A Curiosity of Law" (1866), and many pamphlets and reports. WRIGHT (D'Arusmont), Frances (commonly called FANNY), a Scottish reformer, born in Dundee, Sept. 6, 1795, died in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 14, 1852. She was left an orphan at the age of nine, and was indoctrinated by her guardian with ideas founded on the philosophy of the French materialists. She travelled in the United States in 1818-20, and published "Views on Society and Manners in America" (London, 1821). In 1825 she again came to America, and purchased 2,000 acres of land in Tennessee, including part of the present site of Memphis, where she established a colony of emancipated slaves, who were afterward sent to Hayti. In 1833-'6 her lectures upon negro slavery and other social institutions attracted large and enthusiastic audiences, and led to the establishment of what were called "Fanny Wright" societies. Her visits were subsequently extended to the principal cities of the Union, but the enunciation of views similar to these contained in her "Few Days in Athens" met with very decided opposition. About 1838 she married in France M. D'Arusmont, but soon separated from him, and resided in Cincinnati till her death. She published "Altorf," a tragedy (Philadelphia, 1819); "A Few Days in Athens," a defence of the philosophy of Epicurus (London, 1822); and "Lectures on Free Inquiry" (New York, 1829; 6th ed., 1836). WRIGHT, Silas, an American statesman, born in Amherst, Mass., May 24, 1795, died in Canton, St. Lawrence co., N. Y., Aug. 27, 1847. He graduated at Middlebury college in 1815, was admitted to the bar in 1819, and settled at Canton. In 1820 he was appointed surrogate. In 1823 he was elected a member of the state senate as a democrat. Early in 1827 he made a report to the senate, in which he developed the financial policy which he subsequently enforced as a political measure while governor. He was elected a member of the twentieth congress, and there advocated the protective tariff of 1828, although subsequently he became an advocate of a tariff for revenue only. He also voted for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the expediency of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. He was controller of New York from 1829 to 1833, when he was chosen as the successor of Mr. Marcy for four years in the United States senate, of which he remained a member by reelection for nearly 12 years. He supported Mr. Clay's compromise bill in 1833; defended President Jackson's removal of the deposits; opposed the recharter of the United States bank; voted against Mr. Calhoun's motion not to receive a petition for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, and in favor of excluding from the mails all "printed matter calculated to excite the prejudices of the southern states in regard to the question of slavery;" opposed the distribution among the states of the surplus federal revenues; supported the independent treasury scheme of President Van Buren; voted in 1838 against the resolution offered by Mr. Rives of Virginia, declaring that the citizens of the states had no right to interfere with the question of slavery in the federal territories, and that the people of those territories had the exclusive right to settle that question for themselves; opposed the bill requiring the states to choose members of congress by single districts; and voted for the tariff of 1842, and against the treaty for the annexation of Texas. In 1844 he was elected governor of New York. He opposed in 1845 the calling of a convention to revise the state constitution, preferring the adoption of amendments then proposed; vetoed a bill appropriating money for works on the canals; and recommended legislation against the anti-renters, and on occasion of disturbances produced by them in Delaware co. in 1845 proclaimed the county to be in a state of insurrection and called out a military force. He was renominated in 1846, but was defeated, and returned to his farm in Canton. He was plain in his speech and habits. WRIGHT, Thomas, an English antiquary, born in Wales, April 21, 1810. He graduated at Cambridge, and was one of the founders of the Camden society and of the British archæological association, and a member of the Percy society and the Shakespeare society. In 1842 he was chosen a corresponding member of the French academy of inscriptions. He made discoveries on the site of the ancient city of Uriconium (see WROXETER), and was selected by Napoleon III. to translate his history of Julius Cæsar (2 vols., 1865-'6). His works include "Political Songs of England from John to Edward II." (London, 1839); "Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Saxon and AngloNorman Periods" (2 vols. 8vo, 1842-'6); "England under the House of Hanover," illustrated from caricatures and satires (2 vols. 8vo, 1848; new ed., 1852); "History of Ireland" (3 vols., 1848-52, and 1857); The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, a History of the Early Inhabitants of Britain down to the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons" (12mo, 1852; 3d revised and enlarged ed., 1875); "Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English" (2 vols., 1857); "History of France" (2 vols., 1858-'60); "History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages" (small 4to, 1862); "History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art" (1865); "Womankind in Western Europe" (1869); and "Uriconium, a Historical Account of the ancient Roman City" (1872). 66 WRIGHT, William, a British orientalist, born in Bengal, India, Jan. 17, 1830. He was educated in Scotch universities and at Halle, became professor of Arabic in University_college, London, in 1855, in Trinity college, Dublin, in 1856, and in 1870 at Cambridge, after being in the interval connected with the department of manuscripts in the British museum. He has edited and translated into English many Arabic works, including the Kamil of El-Mubarrad, for the German oriental society (Leipsic, 1864-74), an Arabic grammar (2d 66 WRISBERG, Heinrich August, a German anatomist, born at Andreasberg, Hanover, June 20, 1739, died March 29, 1808. He graduated in medicine at Göttingen in 1763, became a professor, and taught midwifery and anatomy. His name is connected with the "cartilages of Wrisberg," or the "cuneiform cartilages," two small elongated bodies, included in the arytenoepiglottidean folds of mucous membrane in the larynx, first described by him, and with the "lesser internal cutaneous nerve," or "nerve of Wrisberg," a branch of the brachial plexus which is distributed to the integument of the inside of the arm above the elbow. He published treatises on respiration and animal heat, the anatomy of the embryo, the infusorial animalcules, the fifth pair of cranial nerves, the nerves of the abdominal viscera, the brachial nerves, the gravid uterus, Fallopian tubes, ovaries, and corpus luteum. ed., 1875), and Caspari's Arabic grammar, with | application of a symbolic signification to some numerous additions and emendations (2d ed., of these figures, so that the picture of two legs, revised and enlarged, 1875). His other works for example, represented not only two legs, comprise "Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts but also the act of walking. Pictures, abbrein the British Museum" (3 vols., 1870-'72); viated for convenience, gradually became conApocryphal Acts of the Apostles," Syriac ventional signs, and in time these characters and English (2 vols., 1871); and "Oriental were made to stand for the sounds of spoken Series of Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts" language. The various systems of writing of (1876 et seq.). the ancient world had probably at least three different sources, the Egyptian, the Assyrian, and the Chinese systems, all of which were originally hieroglyphic. The Egyptians practised four distinct styles of writing, the hieroglyphic, hieratic, demotic or enchorial, and Coptic. Hieroglyphic writing, which was in use much earlier than 3000 B. C., was probably at first entirely ideographic; its symbols became gradually used to represent abstract ideas, and in time some acquired a phonetic value. The phonetic characters are both syllabic and alphabetic. In the latter pictorial figures are used to express the initial letters of the words which they represent; for example, the figure of an eagle (akhom) stands for a, of an owl (mulag) for m, &c. The hieratic writing, which probably came into use before 2000 B. C., was a simplified form of the hieroglyphic style, in which the pictorial symbols developed through a stage of linear hieroglyphs into a kind of cursive hand. The demotic or enchorial writing was a still simpler form of the hieroglyphic, and a nearer approach to an alphabetic system. It was in use from about the 7th century B. C. till the 2d century A. D., when it was gradually superseded by the Coptic, which grew out of the hieratic and demotic under Greek influences. (See EGYPT, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF, and COPTIC LANGUAGE.) The Ethiopians also used hieroglyphs similar to those of the Egyptians, and their current written language resembled the Egyptian demotic, but its alphabet had fewer symbols. At a later period a third graphic system, somewhat analogous to the Coptic, came into use, which may be called Ethiopic Greek. For the present Ethiopic or Abyssinian system, see ETHIOPIA, LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE OF. With what people the Assyrian cuneiform or sphenographic system of writing originated is not known, but it was originally without doubt a hieroglyphic system, and became gradually modified by the different nations which occupied the Assyrian empire, until it assumed the form of the present known inscriptions. There are three classes of cuneiform characters, the Assyrian or Babylonian, the Scythian or Median, and the Persian. The first is the most complicated, containing from 600 to 700 symbols; the second is less complicated, but contains about 100 symbols, or three times as many as the third, which is almost purely alphabetic. (See CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.) For the Chinese graphic system, see CHINA, LANGUAGE AND LITERAture of. Of these three original systems, the Egyptian is by far the most important, for from its hieratic symbols was pro WRIT (in Norman French and law Latin, breve), a word used from very early times to designate any judicial process or precept, by which the sovereign, whether state or person, commands the proper executive officer, usually the sheriff, or in the courts of the United States the marshal, to do some act. It must be attested by a judge, usually the chief justice of the court to which it is returnable, who thus bears testimony to the fact that the command is lawful and issues from the sovereign; and this attestation of the court or judge is certified by the clerk of the court. Writs were formerly much more numerous than now. Those still in use may be divided into: 1, original writs, by which all suits at law are begun; 2, writs of mesne process, which issue in the intermediate proceedings; and 3, writs of execution, by which the final judgment or decree of the court is carried into operation. WRITERS' CRAMP. See SCRIVENERS' PALSY. WRITING, the art of expressing ideas by visible signs or characters inscribed on some material. It is either ideographic or phonetic. Ideographic writing may be either pictorial, representing objects by imitating their forms, or symbolic, by indicating their nature or proportions. Phonetic writing may be syllabic or alphabetic; in the former each character represents a syllable, in the latter a single letter. Of the origin of this art nothing is positively known. The Egyptians ascribed it to Thoth; the Greeks to Mercury or Cadmus; and the Scandinavians to Odin. The first step toward writing was probably the rude pictorial representation of objects, without any indication of the accessories of time or place; the next the |