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  to the continent. Recommended to the notice of Charles II by his relative Sir [q. v.], Veel received from him four blank commissions to raise troops, dated two from Bruges in November 1656, and two from Brussels in May 1659, and he assisted Massey in his unsuccessful attempt to raise Gloucestershire. For his ‘delinquency’ in the first civil war Veel was fined at the rate of one-sixth of the value of Alveston, and in September 1659 the family estates were ordered to be sequestered (Cal. of Comm. for Compounding, pp. 85, 2079, 3248). Clarendon in 1662 suggested a baronetcy as a reward to Veel for having ‘ruined his future in more than ordinary activity for the king’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1670, p. 668). In June 1662 he and his brother Nicholas obtained a grant of the office of making and registering assurances in the Royal Exchange (ib. 1661–2, pp. 386, 407). Colonel Thomas Veel died the next year at Alveston. He married Dorothy, daughter of John Winneat, and left several sons.

Robert Veel matriculated from St. Edmund Hall on 4 May 1664, where he resided ten terms, but left without a degree. Going to London, ‘he lived,’ says Wood, ‘after the manner of poets, in a debauched way,’ writing verses ‘to gain money and carry on the trade of folly,’ as well as to amuse himself and his idle companions. He died there obscurely about 1674. He published in 1672 a volume of tedious and somewhat freely conceived love songs and drinking catches, entitled ‘New Court Songs and Poems.’ Among these were songs from John Crowne's ‘Charles VIII of France,’ Ravenscroft's ‘Mamamouchi, or the Citizen turned Gentleman,’ and ‘The Fatal Jealousie,’ attributed to Nevil Payne. Others are described as having been sung to the king on his birthday. The dedication is to ‘Mr. T. D.,’ from whom the author professes to have drawn his inspiration. It is unlikely, for chronological reasons, that this was D'Urfey, as has been suggested. ‘New Court Songs’ have by some been attributed to one Robert Vine. Wood says that Veel published other tracts, and mentions ‘Poor Robin's Intelligence,’ which appeared in a half-sheet weekly in 1672–3, and contained an attack on the ‘misses of the town.’ A certain K.C. retorted with ‘Poor Robin's Elegy; or the Impostor Silenc'd,’ a half-sheet in verse and prose.



VEITCH. [See also .]

VEITCH, JAMES, (1712–1793), Scottish judge, son of William Veitch of Boigend and Eliock, writer to the signet, Edinburgh, was born on 25 Sept. 1712. After serving an apprenticeship with his father, he was called to the Scottish bar on 15 Feb. 1738. Shortly afterwards he visited the continent, where he became a favourite of Frederick the Great at his court. On returning to Scotland, he kept up a correspondence with his majesty. On 13 July 1747 he was appointed sheriff-depute of the county of Peebles, in 1755 was elected representative in parliament for Dumfriesshire, and continued member for the county till 1760. In 1761 he was elevated to the bench in the room of (lord Bankton) [q. v.], and took his seat on 6 March by the title of Lord Eliock. He died at Edinburgh on 1 July 1793. He was unmarried, and was succeeded by his nephew. ‘His lordship,’ say Brunton and Haig, ‘was endowed with mental abilities of the first order, and was generally allowed to be one of the most accomplished scholars of his time.’



VEITCH, JOHN (1829–1894), professor of philosophy and historian of the Scottish border, born at Peebles on 24 Oct. 1829, was son of Sergeant James Veitch, a Peninsular veteran, by his wife, Nancy Ritchie. Both parents, particularly the mother, evinced those high ideals of the value of education characteristic of some of the Scottish peasantry. Till sixteen years of age Veitch was educated successively at Mr. Smith's ‘adventure’ school and at the high school of Peebles. In 1845 he proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he at once gained a bursary or entrance scholarship.

Two years before, at the time of the disruption, Veitch, with his parents, had joined the free church, and, after one session's attendance at Edinburgh university, he entered the New College, just instituted for the benefit of free-church students. Here he first met Professor A. Campbell Fraser, who became his lifelong friend. The year 1848 found him back at the university, hearing the brilliant