Exhibition of 1851 he gained a medal for his invention of the graphic telescope. He died at Hampstead on the 2nd of October 1873.
VARLEY, JOHN (1778–1842), English water-colour painter, was born at Hackney, London, on the 17th of August 1778. His father, a man of scientific attainments and tutor in the family of Lord Stanhope, discouraged his leanings towards art, and placed him under a silversmith. But on his parent’s death Varley escaped from this uncongenial employment, and, after working with a portrait painter, engaged himself at the age of sixteen to an architectural draughtsman, who took him on a provincial tour to sketch the principal buildings in the towns they visited. His spare hours were employed in sketching from nature, and in the evenings he was permitted, like Turner and Girtin, to study in the house of Dr Munro. In 1798 he exhibited his first work, a “View of Peterborough Cathedral,” in the Royal Academy. In 1799 he visited North Wales, and in its wild mountain scenery found the subjects best suited to his brush. He returned to the same district in 1800, and again in 1802, and the impressions then received powerfully influenced the whole course of his art. In 1804 he became a foundation member of the Water-Colour Society, and contributed over forty works to its first exhibition. He had married in the previous year; and, in order to provide for the wants of an increasing family, he was obliged to produce for the dealers much work of a slight and commonplace character. He also taught drawing, and some of his pupils, such as John Linnell and William Hunt, afterwards became celebrated. He was a firm believer in astrology, skilful in casting horoscopes; and some curious instances were related of the truth of his predictions. It was at his house that his friend William Blake sketched his celebrated “Visionary Heads.” Varley died at London on the 17th of November 1842.
Varley’s landscapes are graceful and solemn in feeling, and simple and broad in treatment, being worked with a full brush and pure fresh transparent tints, usually without any admixture of body-colour. Though his works are rather mannered and conventional, they are well considered and excellent in composition. Some of his earlier water-colours, including his “Views of the Thames,” were painted upon the spot, and possess greater individuality than his later productions, which are mainly compositions of mountain and lake scenery, produced without direct reference to nature. Among his literary works are Zodiacal Physiology (1828); Observations on Colour and Sketching from Nature (1830); A Practical Treatise on Perspective, and Principles of Landscape Design for Young Artists.
VARNA, a fortress, seaport, departmental capital and episcopal city of Bulgaria; on the Bay of Varna, an inlet of the Black Sea, in 43 12′ N. and 27 56′ E. Pop. (1906) 37,155. Varna is built on the hilly north shore of the bay, overlooking the estuary of the river Devna or Pravadi, which flows seaward through a magnificent valley surrounded by mountains. It is the eastern terminus of the Varna-Rustchuk railway, opened in 1867, and is connected with all parts of the kingdom by branches of this line. The so-called “Varna quadrilateral,” which has played an important part in Bulgarian military history, consists of the fortresses of Varna, Shumla, Rustchuk and Silistria (q.v.). Varna is the third city of the kingdom in population, after Sofia and Philippopolis, and ranks with Burgas as one of the two principal seaports. Its deep and capacious bay is sheltered from northerly and north-easterly winds, and the construction of modern harbour works has greatly increased the facilities for trade. The principal exports are cattle and dairy produce, grain, lamb and goat skins, and cloth (shayak); the imports include coal, iron and machinery, textiles, petroleum and chemicals. In 1907 the port was entered by 869 ships of 926,449 tons, the largest number of vessels being Bulgarian and the greatest tonnage Austro-Hungarian. Wine is largely produced in the department, and in the city there are breweries, distilleries, tanneries and cloth factories; cotton-spinning was introduced by a British firm. There is a large and commercially important colony of Greeks; the Tews, Turks and gipsies are also numerous. Much of the city has been constructed since 1878, and the barracks, post office, college for'girls and National Bank are handsome modern buildings. Near Varna is the summer palace of the king of Bulgaria.
Varna has been identified with the ancient Milesian colony of Odessus on the coast of Moesia Inferior. It figures largely in the history of more recent times, and close by was fought in 1444 the battle in which Murad II. slew Wladislaus III. of Poland and Hungary, and routed his forces commanded by Hunyadi Janos. Varna was occupied in 1828 by the Russians, in 1854 by the allies, who here organized the invasion of the Crimea, and in 1877 by the Egyptian troops summoned to the defence of Turkey against the Russians. By the treaty of Berlin (1878) it was ceded to Bulgaria. It has long been the seat of a Greek metropolitan and since 1870 of a Bulgarian bishop.
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE, KARL AUGUST (1785–1858), German biographer, was born at Düsseldorf on the 21st of February 1785. He studied medicine at Berlin, but devoted more attention to philosophy and literature, which he afterwards studied more thoroughly at Halle and Tübingen. He began his literary career in 1804 as joint-editor with Adelbert von Chamisso (q.v.) of a Musenalmanach. In 1809 he joined the Austrian army, and was wounded at the battle of Wagram. Soon afterwards he accompanied his superior officer, Prince Bentheim, to Paris, where he carried on his studies. In 1812 he entered the Prussian civil service at Berlin, but in the following year resumed his military career, this time as a captain in the Russian army. He accompanied Tettenborn, as adjutant, to Hamburg and Paris, and his experiences were recorded in his Geschichte der Hamburger Ereignisse (London, 1813), and his Geschichte der Kriegszüge des Generals von Tettenborn (1815). At Paris he entered the diplomatic service of Prussia, and in 1814 acted under Hardenberg at the congress of Vienna. He also accompanied Hardenberg to Paris in 1815. He was resident minister for some time at Karlsruhe, but was recalled in 1819, after which, with the title of “Geheimer Legationsrat,” he lived chiefly at Berlin. He had no fixed official appointment, but was often employed in important political business. In 1814 he married Rahel Antonie Friederike, originally called Levin, afterwards Robert, and sister of the poet, Ludwig Robert (1778–1832). She was born in 1771 at Berlin, where she died in 1833. By birth she was a Jewess; but before her marriage she made profession of Christianity. Although she never wrote anything for publication, she was a woman of remarkable intellectual qualities, and exercised a powerful influence on many men of high ability. Her husband, who was devotedly attached to her, found in her sympathy and encouragement one of the chief sources of his inspiration as a writer. After her death he published a selection from her papers, and afterwards much of her correspondence was printed. Varnhagen von Ense never fully recovered from the shock caused by her death. He himself died suddenly in Berlin on the 10th of October 1858.
He made some reputation as an imaginative and critical writer, but he is famous chiefly as a biographer. He possessed a remarkable power of grouping facts so as to bring out their essential significance, and his style is distinguished for its strength, grace and purity. Among his principal works are Goethe in den Zeugnissen der Mitlebenden (1824); Biographische Denkmale (5 vols., 1824–30; 3rd ed., 1872); and biographies of General von Seydlitz (1834), Sophia Charlotte, queen of Prussia (1837), Field-Marshal Schwerin (1841), Field-Marshal Keith (1844), and General Bülow von Dennewitz (1853). His Denkwürdigkeiten und vermischte Schriften appeared in 9 vols. in 1843–59, the two last volumes appearing after his death. His niece, Ludmilla Assing, between 1860 and 1867, edited several volumes of his correspondence with eminent men, and his Tagebücher (14 vols., 1861–70). Blätter aus der preussischen Geschichte appeared in 5 vols. (1868–69); his correspondence with Rahel in 6 vols. (1874–75); and with Carlyle (1892). His selected writings appeared in 19 vols. in 1871–76. There is also an extensive literature dealing with Rahel Varnhagen von Ense; see especially her husband’s Rahel, ein Buch des Andenkens (3 vols., 1834); Aus Rahels Herzensleben (1877); E. Schmidt-Weissenfels, Rahel und ihre Zeit (1857); Briefwechsel zwischen Karoline von Humboldt, Rahel und Varnhagen von Ense (1896); O. Berdrow, Rahel Varnhagen (1900).
VARNISH, a liquid consisting of a gum or resin dissolved in alcohol (spirit varnish) or an oil (oil varnish), which on
