and set up as a portrait painter at Derby, but acquired his reputation by his candle or fire-light pieces. Wright visited Italy in 1773-75. In 1782 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, but finding what he considered his inferior elected to the full honours before him in 1784, he resigned his diploma in disgust. In 1785 he got up an exhibition of his own pictures in Covent Garden. Among them were "Vesuvius in Eruption," which attracted great notice, and the "Destruction of the Floating Batteries off Gibraltar." He first exhibited at the Academy in 1778, when he had six pictures hung, including the "Eruption of Vesuvius," and the "Girandola" at Rome. He exhibited a "Girandola" also in 1779. He occasionally exhibited at the Academy, notwithstanding his separation from it. His name appears for the last time in 1790. He died in 1797. The National gallery possesses his fine picture of the "Air-pump," engraved by Green.—(Edwards, Anecdotes of Painting.)—R. N. W.
* WRIGHT, Thomas, the literary antiquary and archæologist, was born in 1810, and received his later education at Trinity college, Cambridge. Beginning early a career of authorship by contributing to periodicals, he gradually concentrated himself on the archæology of English literature and history, with which he has been mainly occupied. He was one of the founders of the Camden, the Percy, and the Shakspeare Societies, and of the British Archæological Association. A mere list of the many works which he has written and edited would fill a column of our space. Of the many of which he is the author the best known is the "Biographia Britannica Literaria," biographical and critical sketches of British authors from the earliest period to the reign of King John, arranged in chronological order, in two volumes, one embracing the Anglo-Saxon, the other the Anglo-Norman period—a very valuable work of reference, published under the superintendence of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature. A simple mention must suffice for his "Queen Elizabeth and her Times," 1838; his "England under the House of Hanover," 1848; and "The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon," 1852; new edition, 1861. Of the numerous works which he has edited, his new text of the Canterbury Tales, 1847, for the Percy Society, and the Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman, 1856, afford but a scanty sample. Wright took an active part in the excavations which brought to light the remains of the ancient Roman town, in relation to which he published in 1859 his "Guide to the Ruins of the Roman city of Uriconium, at Wroxeter, near Shrewsbury." In 1861 he collected some of his scattered papers as "Essays on archæological subjects, and on various questions connected with the history of art, science, and literature in the middle ages." He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a member of the French Institute.—F. E.
WRIOTHESLEY, Thomas, fourth earl of, son of Shakspeare's earl, succeeded to the title in 1624. With Clarendon, then Mr. Hyde, he quitted the liberal opposition to Charles I. during Stratford's impeachment. Though loyal both to Charles I. and to Charles II., he did not leave England after the fall of the royal cause, "compounding" for his estates. After the Restoration he was made, in 1660, lord-treasurer; and with the duke of Ormonde and Clarendon, belonged to the old staid school of royal counsellors whose advice Charles II. listened to impatiently. With a high, and in those days a rare reputation for official probity, he died in 1667.—F. E.
* WROTTESLEY, John, second lord, a man of science, was born in 1798, and succeeded to the title in 1841. Having distinguished himself by his contributions to practical astronomy, so early as 1829 he began the erection of an observatory at Blackheath. He was elected in 1841 president of the Astronomical Society, having in 1839 received from it its gold medal for his catalogue of stars, embodying upwards of twelve thousand observations. In 1842 he erected an observatory at his seat of Wrottesley hall, with objects and results amply described in the memoir of his lordship in Mr. Charles Knight's Cyclopædia of Biography. Lord Wrottesley has been thrice elected president of the Royal Society, in 1854, 1855, and 1856. On the 26th of April, 1853, he delivered in the house of peers a speech (afterwards published in a separate form), on Lieutenant Murray's plan for improving navigation, which he wound up with an able exposition of the claims of science on the legislature of a great country. In 1853 he published a little work entitled "Thoughts on Government and Legislation," 1853.—F. E.
WURMSER, Dagobert Sigismund, Count, an eminent Austrian general, was born in Alsace on the 22nd of September, 1724. In his youth he served in the French army, but his father having resolved to settle in the Austrian states, the son accompanied him and proceeded to Vienna. Entering the Austrian service, Dagobert ere long rose to high military rank —after the battles of Prague, Lissau, and Hochkirchen, being made successively major, colonel, and major-general. In 1778 he became lieutenant-general; and in 1779 he defeated the Prussians at Kubelschwerd. With 1793 began the period of his European reputation. It was then that he was sent against the French, whom he worsted and compelled to retire in disorder into Upper Alsace. He then captured Hagenau and some other strong places; but being opposed by superior numbers he was obliged to abandon all that he had taken, and sustained a serious defeat at Frischweiler. The year following he commanded the army of the Upper Rhine, gained a victory over the French on the banks of the Neckar, and reduced Mannheim. This was in November, 1794. In 1796 he commanded in Italy, where at first he acquired some successes, but, obliged at last to yield to the genius of Bonaparte, he was constrained to throw himself into Mantua, which he defended till famine forced him to capitulate on 2nd February, 1797. The brave old soldier died at Vienna the same year in the month of June.—J. J.
WYATT, James, R.A., was born at Burton Constable, Staffordshire, in 1746. When about fourteen he was taken to Rome by Lord Bagot, then envoy to the pope. There, under the guidance of his patron, he devoted himself for about three years to the study of the ancient buildings. He then went to Venice, where he became the pupil of Vicentini, an architect and painter of reputation. He returned to England in 1766. The building by which he became known was the Pantheon, Oxford Street, erected 1769-72, and fitted up in a style of lavish splendour as a fashionable place of winter amusement. This building, which was greatly admired as the "purest" example of classic architecture of its time, was destroyed by fire in 1792. Wyatt was afterwards much employed in erecting country mansions, most of which were of the coldest pseudo-classic character, almost the only ornament being the inevitable portico. His principal work in this manner was Castle-Coote, Ireland, the seat of Viscount Belmore. He was also much employed at the universities, and there also he introduced his "classic" features, as in the Doric gatehouse at Christ church, Oxford, and the Ionic library at Oriel college. But Gothic architecture, as patronized by Walpole and practised by Essex, was becoming fashionable; and on the death of Essex in 1784, Wyatt prepared to succeed him as the leading architect in that style. His first attempt was at Lee Priory, Kent, and it was quickly succeeded by others on a more ambitious scale. The most famous of his Gothic mansions was Fonthill, begun in 1795, a work for its time of great merit and some eccentricity—due in a great measure no doubt to its owner, Beckford, the author of Vathek. The grand feature of the interior was the almost unrivalled suite of galleries, three hundred feet in length; of its exterior, the lofty tower. The tower fell down in 1825, and the rest of the building was then demolished. Another very spacious and picturesque mansion, on the whole his best Gothic building, was Ashridge, Herts, erected for the earl of Bridgewater. The royal palace at Kew, of castellated Gothic, was never finished, and has long since been pulled down. The Military college, Woolwich, another castellated pile, is still standing, but can hardly be said to add much to his renown. Wyatt achieved the position he coveted of being the leading Gothic architect of his day. But his Gothic harmonized neither in principle nor details with that of any period of the middle ages. Except a certain stately picturesqueness, his buildings have little in their general forms to recommend them, and the details are invariably meagre and impure. Mediaeval architecture had, however, been at that time only studied in the most superficial and imperfect manner, and Wyatt had literally to feel his way out of chaos. He was, moreover, far too busy a man to work out the subject for himself. For his buildings there might, therefore, be ample allowance made. But unfortunately he was employed on what is now called the "restoration" of many of the principal remains of Gothic architecture; and whatever be touched he irreparably injured. At Salisbury cathedral he pulled down several beautiful ancient chapels merely in order to produce what he regarded as a more symmetrical effect, and in other ways grievously injured that matchless example of the Early English period. At Lichfield, Hereford, and other cathedrals, and at Magdalen, Balliol, Merton, and other Oxford colleges, his inter-
