distinguished in the annals of Russia. There were boyards of that name who attained to celebrity in the wars with the Tartars in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The present house traces back, however, only to a Voronzoff who fell at the siege of Tchigirin in Little Russia in 1678. His son Hilarion had three sons—Roman, Michael, and John. The second became a favourite of the Empress Elizabeth, and afterwards married her cousin, a Countess Scavronsky. He was appointed chancellor of the empire and minister of foreign affairs. He maintained his influence with the heir to the throne, afterwards Peter III., by means of his niece Elizabeth, who was the grand duke's mistress. In the revolution of 1762 he made a feeble and vain attempt to dissuade Catherine from dethroning her husband. He nevertheless was kept in his office during a short period of her reign, but was at length forced to retire before the superior influence of the Orloffs. He died in 1767, leaving an only daughter.—Alexander Voronzoff, son of Roman, and nephew of the preceding, was minister of commerce under Catherine II., and chancellor of the empire and minister of foreign affairs in the reign of Alexander I. He was an able and accomplished man, and died in 1805.—His brother Simon was for many years the Russian ambassador in London, where his more celebrated son, Michael, was born in 1782. Michael, who was raised from the dignity of count to that of prince by the Emperor Nicolas, early distinguished himself in arms; was engaged in the Napoleonic wars; and commanded the Russian contingent of occupation from 1815 to 1818. He subsequently became governor of Bessarabia; a negotiator with Turkey; and, in 1828, commander of the forces engaged in the Turkish war. He was then appointed governor of the Circassian provinces, and gained several hardly won triumphs over the mountaineers. He retired from public life in 1855, and died the following year, leaving an only son, the present Prince Simon Voronzoff, who was sent in 1853 on a diplomatic mission to London, and who now commands a brigade of guards.—R. H.
* WORSAAE, Jens Jacob, an eminent Scandinavian archæologist, was born at Veile on 14th March, 1821. After studying first law and afterwards theology at the university of Copenhagen, he devoted himself exclusively to the favourite pursuit of his life, archæological researches. One of his earliest productions, "Runamo og Braavalleslaget" (Runamo and the battle of Bravalle), published in 1841, attracted general notice, and gave its author a high position in the antiquarian world. Worsaae has written a number of other works characterized by much learning and ability, such as "Danmarks Oldtid oplyst ved Oldsager" (Ancient Denmark illustrated by antiquities), which has been translated into English; and "Minder om de Danske og Normändene i England, Skotland, og Irland" (Memorials of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland). The latter treatise was the result of a visit of research which he paid to the British islands at the expense of the Danish government in 1846-47, and was published in English the year after it appeared at Copenhagen. His remaining works our space will not permit us to enumerate.—J. J.
WORSLEY, Sir Richard, the historian of the Isle of Wight, was born in 1751, and succeeded to the baronetcy and a fine estate when eighteen years old. He went the grand tour, and indulged his taste for collecting gems, antiques, and sculptures, until he had gathered enough to justify the title of Museum Worsleianum, which he applied to the published account of his treasures in two volumes, folio, 1794-1803. Two hundred copies of vol. i. and one hundred copies of vol. ii. were printed, none of which were sold during the life of the author. The expenses attending the publication, including Sir Richard's travels, amounted to £27,000. An analysis of the book is given in Savage's Librarian, vol. i. His "History of the Isle of Wight" was published, in 4to, in 1781. Sir Richard was M.P. for Newport, comptroller of the royal household, and governor of the Isle of Wight, where he died in 1805.—R. H.
WOTTON, Sir Henry, was born on the 9th of April, 1568, at Boughton hall in Kent, the seat of his old and honourable family. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and on leaving the university, a witty, accomplished, and studious young man, he spent several years on the continent, cultivating himself and the society of scholars, artists, and men of science, making the acquaintance of Beza, and forming an intimacy with Casaubon. On returning to England he gained the favour of the earl of Essex, one of whose secretaries he became, and on whose fall, fearing to be implicated in his fate, Wotton escaped to the continent. At Florence, he was informed by the grand-duke of a plot for the assassination of James VI of Scotland, and was sent on a secret mission, in the character of an Italian, to warn that monarch of his danger. He performed his mission successfully, and returned to Florence. James soon afterwards ascended the throne, and did not forget the service which Wotton had rendered, knighting him, and sending him ambassador to Venice. It was during this embassy that he wrote in the album of a German acquaintance his celebrated definition of an ambassador —"Legatus est vir bonus peregrè missus ad mentiendum reipublicæ causâ." "Which," says his biographer, Izaak Walton, "Sir Henry Wotton could have been content should have been thus Englished—'An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.'" Years afterwards Scioppius laid hold of this sentence, and represented it as a sample of James' political morality. Wotton wrote two "Apologies" on the subject, one of them addressed to the angry James, whom it pacified into pardon. He was afterwards employed by the king on several continental missions of importance. By James, apparently, he was appointed provost of Eton, to which office, however, he was not formally instituted until July, 1625, after the accession of Charles I. He held it until his death in December, 1639. In the year before his death he wrote to Milton, then about to travel on the continent, the well-known letter of advice, which contains, too, some graceful praise of the young poet's Comus. According to Walton, Wotton had planned and commenced a biography of Luther, but laid it aside to undertake, at the request of Charles I., a history of England. Death interrupted the execution of this project, before he had done more than compose the characters of some English kings, published in the Reliquiæ Wottonianæ. The last named interesting volume, edited, with a life of Wotton, by Izaak Walton in 1651, contains his principal writings, with the exception of his "State of Christendom," published in 1657, a sort of political survey of Europe at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The Reliquiæ include many of his letters—Lord Bacon was one of his correspondents—and his poems, among them the fine "character of a happy life," a gem of English ethical verse. The "Poems" have been separately edited for the Percy Society by Mr. Dyce.—F. E.
WOTTON, John, a literary divine, was born on the 13th of August, 1666, at Wrentham in Suffolk, his father being rector of the parish. He was a precocious boy, and by his father's training could read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew when little more than four years old; but as in many similar cases, he never fulfilled the promise of his youth; his memory was not equally balanced by his judgment. In 1676, when under ten, he entered Catherine hall, Cambridge, and maintained his extraordinary reputation. In 1679 he became A.B., and soon after obtained a fellowship in St. John's. In 1693 he got the living of Middleton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. In 1694 he published his "Reflections upon ancient and modern learning," an answer to Sir William Temple. Swift's Battle of the Books, a defence of his patron, was one of the fruits of the controversy, and Wotton replied by observations on the Tale of a Tub. Under Burnet's direction in 1701 Wotton published the "History of Rome, from the death of Antoninus Pius to the death of Alexander Severus," a brief treatise intended for the use of the young duke of Gloucester. In 1707 Archbishop Tenison gave him the degree of D.D., and he was presented by Burnet to a stall in Salisbury cathedral. But pecuniary difficulties pressed upon him, and he retired to South Wales, where he published several books, which added nothing to his early fame. He died in 1726.—J. E.
WOUVVERMAN, Philip, the son of a painter, Paul, was born at Haarlem in 1620, and is said to have studied his art under Wynants. He displayed great ability, yet was unsuccessful. He could not sell his pictures advantageously, and was, like our Wilson, obliged to dispose of them to the dealers. His subjects are commonly road-side scenes, hunts, or fights; and he often introduced a white horse in his pictures. He died at Haarlem on the 19th of May, 1668, disgusted with his profession. Wouvverman is said to have been so dissatisfied with his own career, that before he died he destroyed his studies and sketches, to prevent his son following the career of a painter, and meeting with the disappointment which had overwhelmed himself. It is quite clear that Wouvverman cannot in his comparatively short life have painted one-third of the nearly nine
