de regno hæreditario et electivo," 1640; "Disquisitio philosophica de dubiis quibusdam Græcanicis," 1648; "Dissertatio de linguæ Græcæ et Ægyptiacæ affinitate," 1660; "Dissertatio de linguæ Græcæ origine," 1661; "Hellen, seu antiquæ Græciæ populorum origines, migrationes, coloniæ, mutationes," &c.—a posthumous work, which has been inserted in the Thesaurus of Gronovius. Erasmus Vinding had a son of the name of Paul, who succeeded him in the Greek chair and also in the assessorship, and who was author of a great number of learned works, principally on classical subjects.—R. M., A.
VINER, Charles, a celebrated English jurist, of whose personal history few particulars are known, died at his house at Aldershot, Hants, June 5, 1756. He derives his fame from being the compiler of a "General and complete Abridgment of Law and Equity," 24 vols. folio, published between 1741 and 1751, and from having founded the Vinerian professorship of common law in the university of Oxford. Viner's Abridgment was printed under his inspection at his own house, and the paper upon which it was printed was, it appears, specially prepared for him. This work was the result, as Blackstone says, of half a century's labour, and has been since reprinted with emendations. Viner bequeathed by his will, dated 29th December, 1755, about £12,000 to the university of Oxford to establish a professorship, and endow such fellowships and scholarships of the common law in that university as should be adequate to the produce of his estate. Blackstone, author of the celebrated Commentaries, was the first of these professors. The Vinerian professor must read or lecture in the English language within a year of his being appointed, and afterwards deliver a course of lectures on the laws of England every year in full term, and each course is to consist of twenty-four lectures. Two fellowships, with £50 a year each, and two scholarships with £30 a year each, all lasting for ten years, form part of Viner's benefaction.—F.
VINERIUS or VINNERE, Arnold, an eminent jurist, was born in Holland in 1588, and was educated at Leyden, of which university he subsequently became professor of civil law. He was author of "Commentarius Academicus et Forensis in quatuor libros Institutionum Imperialium," published at Amsterdam in 1642, and frequently reprinted; "Introductio ad Praxim Bataviam;" "Jurisprudentia Contractata;" "Quæstiones juris selectæ;" "Tractatus de Pactis," &c. He died at Leyden about 1657, or, as some say, in 1668.—F.
VINET, Alexander Rodolph, was a native of Lausanne, where he was born of a respectable family, 17th June, 1797. He received the first rudiments of instruction from his father, who was a man of considerable attainments, and became afterwards a very proficient pupil of the academy of his native city, where he was educated for the service of the protestant church. In his twentieth year, and two years before the legal curriculum of his theological studies was completed, he was appointed professor of the French language and literature in the gymnasium of Basle. He had been early smitten with the love of elegant literature, and such an appointment at so early an age is a proof of the distinction which he had already reached in that department. He held this office at Basle for twenty years, to which was added in 1835 a professorship of French eloquence; and it was in connection with, and as arising out of these duties that he published his "Chrestomathie Française," in 3 vols; his "Histoire de la Littérature Française au xviiiᵉ siècle," 2 vols.; and his "Etudes sur la Littérature Française du xixᵉ siècle," in 3 vols. Having been ordained to the ministry in 1819, he distinguished himself by his earnestness, originality, and eloquence as a preacher, and by the influence which he exercised upon religious and ecclesiastical questions. In 1830 he published two sermons on the intolerance and the tolerance of the gospel, which were much admired; and as early as 1826 he gave to the world his "Memoire en faveur de la Liberté des Cultes," which revealed a tendency afterwards fully developed in the direction of what is well understood in this country under the name of voluntaryism. In 1831 he became a frequent contributor to the Semeur, and in 1837 he published a selection of his contributions to its pages under the title of "Essais de Philosophie Morale," a branch of speculation which had early attracted him very powerfully, and which naturally acquired, in a mind at once so philosophical and so humanitarian as his, an important influence upon his theological and religious views, and upon his whole method of elucidating, continuing, and applying them. What his views on religion and theology had meanwhile become he revealed to the world in 1836, when he published in Paris the best known of his works, the "Discours sur quelques su jets réligieux," followed up not long after by his "Nouveaux Discours," which soon attracted universal attention and admiration by the rare combination they exhibit of intellectual acumen and spiritual perception, of sound philosophy and sound faith, of devout feeling and fine taste, of evangelical conviction and moral sensibility. Of these discourses several were translated in America, and reproduced under the title of "Vital Christianity, or Essays and Discourses on the Religion of Man and the Religion of God." In 1837 he left Basle to occupy the chair of practical theology in the academy of Lausanne, and in this office he continued till his death in May, 1847. He would have resigned the chair in 1840, when he formally seceded from the national church of the canton, but the patrons and governors of the academy generously insisted on his retaining a position which he was so well qualified to adorn. The cause of his secession from the national church was his disapproval of a new constitution given to the church in 1840; and when as the result of that legislation the disruption of the church took place in 1845, Vinet became one of the leading men of the free church of Vaud. He was buried in the sequestered cemetery of the beautiful village of Clarens, not far from Vevay. His matured views on ecclesiastical questions are to be found in his "Essai sur la Manifestation des Convictions Réligieuses, et sur la Separation de l'Eglise et de l'Etat," which was published in 1842. His posthumous works are also of much value, including "Théologie Pastorale;" "Homilétique ou Théorie de la Predication;" "Études sur Blaise Pascal;" "Études Evangéliques;" and "Nouvelles Études Evangéliques;" all of which have been translated into English, in order to meet the wide-spread taste and demand for the fruits of his profound and elegant pen. Vinet has sometimes been called the Chalmers of Switzerland, and there must, of course, be some points of likeness and equality between them to account for such a comparison; but the points of difference, amounting even to contrast, are at least as numerous and striking; they rather complete than resemble each other.—P. L.
VINET or VINETTE (as Baillet calls him), Elie. an eminent scholar and critic of the sixteenth century, was born at a small market-town near Barbesieux in Saintonge. He was the son of a labouring man. Scaliger said that he possessed a more extensive knowledge of literature than any man of his time. Vinet was for many years rector of the college de Guienne at Bordeaux, where he died on the 14th May, 1587, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His editions, with emendations and elucidations of the following classical authors, are very valuable—Ausonius, Persius, Suetonius, Floras, Pomponius Mela, Theognis, Eutropius. Besides these editions, he was author of a "Traité des Antiquites de Bordeaux et Xaintes;" "Le Vie de l'Empereur Charlemagne," translated from the Latin of Eginhard; "C. S. Sidonii Apollinaris opera castigata et restituta;" "Censorinus de Die Natali, emendatus et annotationibus illustratus;" "La maniére de faire les Solaires ou Cadrans;" "L'Arpenterie, livre de Geometrie;" "Michaelis Pselli Syntagma in Arithmeticam, Musicam, et Geometriam, interprete Elia Vineto;" "Monumenta Antiqua Narbonensia," &c., &c.—R. M., A.
VINOT, Modeste, a French scholar and poet, was born at Nogent-sur-Aube in 1667. At twenty-two years of age he joined the congregation of the Oratory at Paris. For a considerable number of years he was engaged in teaching in institutions belonging to his society; latterly, however, he was made a canon of St. Gatien by M. d'Hervand, archbishop of Tours. He died at Tours on the 20th December, 1731. Vinot was author of some Latin poems, one of them on La Trappe's reform. He also published, in conjunction with Pierre Tissard, a Latin translation of some of the fables of La Fontaine—"Fabulæ selectæ è gallico domini de la Fontaine latinè redditæ ad usum studiosæ juventutis."—R. M., A.
VIOLANTE, Da Ceo, a learned Portuguese lady of the seventeenth century, was born at Lisbon. She was only fifteen years of age when she began her tragedy on the subject of Saint Engracia, which was represented before his catholic majesty in 1619. Her brilliant talents, however, did not prevent her from forsaking the gay world where they were so much admired. In 1630 she retired into a convent belonging to the Dominican order, and took the veil in the following year. She died on the 21st January, 1693, in her eighty-sixth year. A small volume of poems by Violante was published at Rouen in 1646.—R. M., A.
