Gentleman.’ He played Harry Dornton in the ‘Road to Ruin,’ Count Frederick Friberg in the ‘Miller and his Men’ (21 Oct. 1813, as one of the original cast, every member of which he survived), Frederick in ‘The Jew,’ and other parts. Re-engaged at Bath, he appeared on 7 Nov. 1821 as Benedick, and played during the season, among other rôles, one or two original parts, including Tressilian in ‘Kenilworth.’ At the Haymarket he opened, 16 June 1823, as Young Rapid in ‘A Cure for the Heartache,’ playing also Dick Dowlas in ‘Heir-at-Law,’ Almaviva in ‘Marriage of Figaro,’ Charles Franklin—an original part—in ‘Sweethearts and Wives’ (7 July), Flexible in ‘Love, Law, and Physic,’ and many more characters in comedy. After acting as stage manager at the Haymarket for a short period and reappearing at the Olympic, his faculties became clouded. His last years were spent in retirement, and he died on 2 June 1871. In his best days he was a good comedian; he is depicted as Petruchio in the ‘Theatrical Times’ (iii. 423). He married a Miss Bew, who was also on the stage. His daughter, Fanny Vining (Mrs. C. Gill), played with Kean and with Macready, and was with Mrs. Warner at the Marylebone.
Mrs. Vining, who on 8 March 1821 was at Covent Garden the first Amy Robsart in ‘Kenilworth,’ and on the 12th Lady Anne to Macready's Richard III, was the wife of William Vining. She became celebrated in Meg Merrilies and Helen Macgregor, and was a favourite at Bath in 1813–14.
Many other Vinings, masculine and feminine, have been on the stage during the last two centuries. A daughter of H. Vining long enjoyed high repute as a comedian under the name of Mrs. John Wood.
[Genest's Account of the English Stage; Oxberry's Dramatic Biography, vol. vi.; Theatrical Times; Tallis's Dramatic Magazine; Dramatic Magazine, 1829; Macready's Reminiscences; Scott and Howard's Life of Blanchard; Era, 3 July 1870, 11 June 1871, 26 Dec. 1875; Era Almanack, various years; Dramatic and Musical Review.]
VINSAUF, GEOFFREY de (fl. 1200), poet, called also ‘Anglicus,’ is said to have derived his name, ‘de Vino Salvo,’ from a treatise extant in manuscript at Caius College, Cambridge, on the keeping of the vine and other plants, which was attributed to him (Pits, De Illustr. Angl. Scriptt. p. 262). He was a loyal subject of Richard I, but of his personal history nothing is known, except from his book on the ‘Art of Poetry.’ He is thought to have travelled in Gaul and Italy, and is known to have visited Rome and enjoyed the favour of Innocent III. He certainly survived Richard I, and is mentioned by Trivet (Annales, p. 175, Engl. Hist. Soc.) in 1204; but after that, though one or two writers place him later, nothing more is known of him.
His chief and possibly his only known work is the ‘Art of Poetry,’ which has been multiplied into half a dozen different books, but is well known under three titles, namely, ‘Poetria Novella,’ ‘Nova Poetria,’ and ‘Ars Poetica.’ It was extremely popular during the middle ages, as the number of manuscript copies extant in the various libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, and London sufficiently attests (for a list of these cf. Tanner, Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 737; Cat. Bodl. MSS. passim). Until the revival of letters it was esteemed more highly than Horace's epistle on the same subject, and its influence may be seen in much of the Latin-verse writing of the thirteenth century. The book is itself a metrical treatise, opening with a high-flown panegyric upon Innocent III, to whom it is dedicated. As its title suggests, the work treats of the rules of poetical composition, of which it gives numerous illustrations. As an illustration or example of style suitable to the expression of grief, Vinsauf inserts the lament on King Richard containing the lines beginning ‘O Veneris lacrimosa dies’ (Leyser, Hist. Poet. et Poem. Med. Ævi, p. 882), which Chaucer satirises in the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (Aldine Poets: Chaucer, iii. 245) for its exaggerated affectation of grief (cf. Wright, Biogr. Brit. Lit. ii. 400, who quotes the two passages side by side). The work contains also (Hist. Poett. et Poemm. Med. Ævi, p. 976), as one of its three epilogues, the so-called ‘Carmen ad Imperatorem pro Liberatione Regis Angliæ Ricardi,’ which is printed separately by Martene and Durand (Amplissima Collectio, i. col. 1000), and is by them, and indeed generally, supposed to be a petition to the emperor, Henry VI, for the release of Richard I. Bishop Stubbs, however, gives good reason for supposing it to be a petition to Innocent III to be reconciled with John (Memorials of Richard I, vol. i. p. xlix, Rolls Ser.). Two poems on Richard I, of which Vinsauf also makes use in the book, are transcribed (with some differences) at the end of the manuscript copy of the ‘Itinerarium … Regis Ricardi’ contained in the public library at Cambridge, and are printed by Gale with the ‘Itinerarium’ (Hist. Angl. Scriptt. ii. 247 seq., 430 seq.). Bishop Stubbs thinks that it was from this juxtaposition of the poems with the ‘Itinerarium’ that there arose the mistake which Gale makes of
