Normandy, where he passed five years. At the age of fifteen he was placed in the grammar-school at Southampton, where he manifested a strong desire for a sea-faring life Though dissuaded from this course by his mother, the stirring naval events which occurred at various times during his career interested him to a degree that always betrayed his ruling passion. Obtaining one of the Morley scholarships for natives of Jersey, he went to Pembroke college, Oxford. In 1777 he was ordained, and on quitting the university he obtained a mastership in the school of Bury St. Edmunds. In 1781 he was elected head master of Henry VIII.'s school at Reading. Here he remained for more than fifty years, and raised the school from a very low condition to a high pitch of reputation and prosperity. His scholarship was not very deep, but he laboured hard to make the study of Latin and Greek popular, to which end he published various grammars and other educational books. In 1787 he was presented by Sir T. G. Cullum to the living of Stradishall in Suffolk. As he could seldom go to preach to his parishioners he wrote a book to give himself what he called an "imaginary presence" among them at all times. It is entitled "Address from a Clergyman to his Parishioners," and passed through many editions. He died at his son's house in Kensington, on the 28th March, 1836.—R. H.
VALSALVA, Antonio Maria, a celebrated anatomist, was born at Imola in the Romagna in 1666. Of good family, he received a liberal education under the Jesuits, and was then sent to the university of Bologna, where he studied medicine under Malpighi, and graduated in 1687. From a medical practitioner he became in 1697 professor of anatomy in the university of Bologna, of which he was one of the great lights. In 1705 he was chosen surgeon to the hospital for incurables. He was three times president of the Institute of Bologna, a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and a member of other scientific bodies. He died of apoplexy in 1723. To the Institute of Bologna he bequeathed his museum of anatomy, and his surgical collections to the hospital for incurables. By order of the senate of Bologna a statue of the great anatomist was placed in the hall of the Institute. Valsalva contributed much to the advance, not only of anatomy, but also of practical surgery and medicine. His description of the parts connected with the organ of hearing, of the pharynx, soft palate and aorta, have identified his name with the former science. The sinuses at the commencement of the aorta are named after him. He improved the practice of aural surgery; described the nature of steatomatous tumours, and the morbid anatomy and seat of cataract; and was the first who pointed out the fact of the connection of hemiplegia with mischief in the opposite side of the brain. It was he also who advocated the treatment of internal aneurisms by repeated bleedings and other lowering measures, on the principle of reducing the force of the circulation; and he acquired a high reputation for his success in cases supposed to be incurable. He was author of "De Aure Humana Tractatus," Bologna, 1704, and of three anatomical dissertations, read at the Bologna Institute in 1715, 1716, and 1719, and published at Venice in 1740.—F. C W.
VALTURIUS, Robert, an Italian author of the fifteenth century, was born at Rimini. He composed a treatise in twelve books on the art of war, printed by Beughem in 1473. Paul Ramusio the jurisconsult, happening to be at Vienna, fell in with this work, which he discovered to be inaccurately printed and full of other blunders. He accordingly published a new edition in 1483, carefully revised and corrected. M. Mattaire says that Ramusio also translated it into Italian, and published his translation on the 17th February of the same year in which his edition of the original appeared. Strange enough, another edition by Christian Wegel came out also in the same year.—R. M., A.
VALVERDE, Vincent de, a Spanish missionary, was a native of Oropeza. He entered the order of the Dominicans on the 23rd of April, 1524, and after completing his studies taught for some years in the college of Valladolid. In the beginning of the year 1530 he embarked, along with six other missionaries of his order, in the expedition led by Francesco Pizzaro. Valverde endeavoured to put an end to the dreadful cruelties which the Spaniards practised on the poor unarmed Peruvians; but all his efforts were in vain. In 1534, however, he made a voyage to Spain, and having been already appointed first bishop of Cusco in Peru, obtained power to protect the natives in his diocese from the European barbarity. He returned to Peru in 1538, and for a number of years laboured with incessant zeal for the temporal and spiritual welfare of his Indian flock. He afterwards went to the island of Puna, bent on the conversion of its cannibal inhabitants, who however, instead of receiving him peaceably, put him to a cruel death, and regaled themselves on his flesh. This event took place about 1543.—R. M., A.
VAN ARTEVELD. See Arteveld.
VANBRUGH, Sir John: this eminent architect and dramatic writer, was the grandson of a citizen of Antwerp, who left the Netherlands during the persecution of the protestants by the duke of Alva, and settled in England. He engaged in trade, and died in 1646, leaving considerable property to his son Giles, the father of Sir John. Giles Vanbrugh married the youngest daughter of the celebrated Sir Dudley Carleton, afterwards earl of Dorchester, by whom he had eight sons and six daughters. He was a merchant in Chester, where he is said to have died in 1689; but according to other accounts he gave up business, and was appointed comptroller of the treasury. John, his second son, was born in 1666, but whether in Chester or London is uncertain. He is supposed to have studied architecture in France. It has been suggested that his appointment in 1695 as commissioner for completing Greenwich hospital, was made in consequence of his architectural knowledge; but it is quite as likely that he got his appointment, as Sir Christopher Wren had some years before that of surveyor-general, through court interest, and made himself acquainted with its duties afterwards. Vanbrugh became first known to the public as a writer of comedies; his "Relapse, or Virtue in Danger," being acted for the first time, and with great applause, in 1697. It was followed by the "Provoked Wife," the "Confederacy," and seven or eight others. They are well planned plays; the characters are truer to life than in most contemporary comedies, and the wit, if less sparkling than Congreve's, is more flowing; but the situations and the sentiments are grossly licentious. Vanbrugh defended himself from the censure of Jeremy Collier in "A Short Vindication of the Relapse and the Provoked Wife;" but when some years later the latter play was revived on the stage, he erased the most objectionable scene and modified other parts. Sheridan altered the "Relapse," and reproduced it in 1777 under the title of a Trip to Scarborough; but the inherent indecency and immorality of Vanbrugh's plays render the task of adapting them to modern tastes impracticable. Vanbrugh's first great, and in many respects his most successful architectural effort, was Castle Howard, completed in 1703, for the earl of Carlisle. This magnificent pile, with many obvious faults of detail, is still one of the stateliest country palaces in England. It brought Vanbrugh abundant fame; and the earl, who was then lord-chamberlain, bestowed on the architect, as a mark of his satisfaction, the office of clarencieux king-at-arms. He retained the office, and received the salary from this time, 1703, till a month before his death; but he knew nothing of heraldry, and the only duty he ever performed was that of signing official documents. Blenheim, Vanbrugh's other great work, was on a still more magnificent scale than Castle Howard—the entire block of buildings, including the attached offices, covering an extent of eight hundred and thirty feet. It was commenced in 1705, and completed in 1722. In it Vanbrugh put forth all his powers, yet the building was a source of infinite vexation to him. Blenheim was a portion of the national reward for the victories of Marlborough, and whilst the duke lived the course of the architect was comparatively smooth. But after his death the government withheld the funds for carrying on the works; and what was worse, the duchess quarreled with the architect, and though she followed his designs, employed another to complete the building. Nor did the design experience much more gentle treatment. Architects and critics denounced the building as a "hollowed quarry," in which appeared the style of no age and no country; a stupendous pile which defied all rules, and yet might outlast all record. And the wits, among whom Swift and Pope were conspicuous, were even less measured in their sarcasms than the critics. It was not indeed till half a century later, when Sir Joshua Reynolds made Vanbrugh the subject of an elaborate eulogy in his Thirteenth Discourse, that any one ventured a word in his favour. Opinion has now pretty well settled down on the subject. The grandeur of conception, massiveness, solidity, and picturesqueness are admitted; but it is felt that at Blenheim still more than at Castle Howard the parts are out of all proportion, disconnected and confused, and that the whole is deficient in simplicity and repose. Vanbrugh erected a great many other country mansions—Eastbury, Dorsetshire; Grimsthorpe and Duncombe hall, Yorkshire; Seaton
