Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/299

Rh town, Ind., 17 Aug., 1862. lie was licensed as a Baptist minister in 1804, and in 1807, with his father, removed to the sparsely inhabited territory of Indiana, and settled in Madison, of which he was the first magistrate. He was soon afterward elected sheriff of Jefferson and Clarke counties, and in 1810 was appointed U. S. marshal for the state. He served as a frontier ranger during the Indian campaign of 1811— '13, was elected colonel of militia of Jennings county in 1817, and founded Vernon, the county-seat. He was pastor of the Baptist church in Vernon in 1821-'48, a member of the legislature in 1831-'5, and in 1836 of the senate, where he was instrumental in securing the adop- tion of a policy of internal improvement by the state. He removed to Morgan county in 1848, founded Morgantown, and presented a brick church to the Baptist congregation of that place.

VEATCH, James Clifford (veech), soldier, b. near Elizabethtown, Harrison co., Ind., 19 Dec, 1819. He was educated in common schools and under private tutors, was admitted to the bar, practised for many years, and was auditor of Spen- cer county, Ind., from 1841 till 1855. He was in the legislature in 1861-'2, became colonel of the 25th regiment of Indiana volunteers, 9 Aug., 1861, brigadier-general of volunteers, 28 April, 1862, and brevet major-general in August, 1865, at which time he retired from the army. He was engaged at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, the sieges of Corinth and Vicksburg, the Atlanta campaign, the siege and capture of Mobile, and many other actions during the civil war. He became adjutant-general of In- diana in 1869, and was collector of internal revenue from April, 1870. till August. 1883.

VEDDER, Elihu, artist, b. in New York city, 26 Feb., 1836. He had his first instruction in art in his native city, and later studied with Tompkins H. Matteson in Sherbourne, N. Y., and Francois Edouard Picot in Paris. In 1856 he went to Italy, and subsequently he opened a studio in New York. He was there elected an associate of the National academy in 1863, and an associate two years later. Subsequently he removed to Rome, Italy, where he still resides. His works, while naturalistic and vigorous in treatment, are ideal in motive, and bear witness to the fertility of imagination and versatility of the artist. In many of his pictures he aims, as one critic has said, " to give to the un- real and impossible an air of plausibility and real existence." One of the best known of his paint- ings is the " Lair of the Sea-Serpent," now in the Boston museum of fine arts, where are also " The Roc's Egg" (two paintings), "Fisherman and Djin," " Dominican Friars," and " An Italian Wom- an." His other works include " The Monk upon the Gloomy Path " ; " The Crucifixion " : " The Lost Mind " ; " Death of Abel " (1869) ; " A Scene on the Mediterranean " (1874) ; " Greek Actor's Daughter," exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876; " Old Madonna," " Cumean Sibyl," now belonging to Wellesley college, Mass., and " Young Marsyas," the three exhibited at the Paris exposition of 1878 ; " A Questioner of the Sphinx " ; " Sleeping Girl " ; " A Venetian Model " ; "A Pastoral," exhibited in Boston in 1878 ; " Nausicaa and her Companions " ; "Waves off Pier Head" (1882); and "Le Mistral " (1884). His ideal works have given rise to much criticism and discussion as to their conception and intent. He has also executed an " accompaniment of drawings" for Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the " Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam " (Boston, 1884).

VEGA, Feliciano de (vay'-gah), Peruvian R. C. bishop, b. in Lima in 1580; d. in Mazatlan, Mexico, in 1640. He was noted for his knowledge of canon and civil law, held the office of judge in Peru, and is said to have rendered more than 4,000 decisions, not one of which was rescinded on ap- peal to the higher courts. He was appointed bishop of Popayan in 1628, of La Paz in 1638, and arch- bishop of Mexico in 1639, but fell sick on his ar- rival at Acapulco in 1640, and was transported to Mazatlan. where he died of yellow fever He pub- lished several works on canon and civil law, among them " De adquirenda haereditate " (Lima, 1605) and "Relectiones Canonical in Secundum Decre- talium librum " (1633).

VEGA, Ventura de la, Argentine poet, b. in Buenos Ayres, 14 July, 1807 ; d. in Madrid, Spain, in 1865. His father, president of the royal treas- ury court, remained after the declaration of inde- pendence in Buenos Ayres, where his wife pos- sessed large property, but he died in 1812, and young Vega went to Spain in 1818 for his edu- cation. His paternal uncle sent him to study Latin in the Jesuit college of San Isidro, and he afterward entered the College of San Mateo. He founded the political society of Numantinos, which the government dissolved, notwithstanding the youth of its members, and imprisoned seven of the leaders from January till June, 1825, when they were sentenced to three months' seclusion in dif- ferent convents. After his release Vega finished his studies with Alberto Lista, and in 1826 pub- lished some of his poetry. For his support he be- gan in 1827 to translate French plays, which led him afterward to become a playwright. In Janu- ary, 1836, he was appointed chief clerk of the min- istry of the interior, and he soon afterward became secretary of Queen Maria Christina. In 1838 he was the teacher of the young queen and her sister, and in 1856 he was appointed director of the Royal conservatory. He is considered one of the best modern Spanish poets. Although he spent the greater part of his life in Spain, he is claimed by the Argentine Republic as a citizen, and it is pro- posed to erect a statue of him in Buenos Ayres. He wrote " El Cantar de los Cantares " (Madrid, 1826); "Cantata epitalamica" (1827); "Al Rio Pusa"(1830); "La Agitation," an ode (1834); "El 18 de Junio " (1837) ; " La Defensa de Sevilla," an ode (1838); "El Hombre de Mundo," a comedy (1840) ; and the tragedies " La muerte de Cesar " (1842) and " Don Fernando de Antequera " (1845).

VEIGL, Franz Xavier, missionary, b. in Gratz, Austria, 1 Dec, 1723 ; d. in Klagenfurt, in the same country, 19 April, 1798. He entered the Society of Jesus at Vienna in 1738, and for several years was professor in the Jesuit college there. He was sent to the American missions in 1753, and labored among the South American Indians until 1777, when he returned to Europe, and was appointed professor at Judenburg. He wrote " Reisen einiger Missionarien der Gesellschaft Jesu in Amerika" (Nuremberg, 1785) and "Franz Xav. Veigl's vor- maligen Missionars der Gesellschaft Jesu, grund- liche Nachrichten fiber die Verfassung der Land- schaft Maynas in Siid-Amerika bis zum Jahr 1768" (1798; in Latin, 1792). No. 773 and No. 774 of Stocklein's " Welt-Bote" (Gratz, 1727 et seq.) con- tain his "Summa epistolarum duarum ad cognatos suos in itinere scriptarum 1753 et 1755 quibus id ipsum et qua? in eo observavit describit " and "Epistola ad eosdem ex Quito 1 Septembris 1755 qua horribilem terra? in civitate hac, et statum missionum ad flumen Maragnon describit."

VEINTIMILLA, Ignacio de (vay-een-te-meel-yah), South American dictator, b. in Cuenca, Ecuador, about 1830. He entered the military service, rose to the rank of general, and as commander of