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Rh regions of the northern hemisphere, generally growing in pastures or woods. V. album and the American species V. viride are commonly grown in gardens as ornamental perennials, but their poisonous qualities should be kept in mind, particularly as they bear a considerable resemblance in foliage to the harmless Gentiana lutea. Both contain the potent alkaloid veratrine. (See also .)

VERBENA. The genus Verbena (vervain) in botany gives its name to the natural order (Verbenaceae) of which it is a member. The species are herbaceous or somewhat shrubby, erect or procumbent, with opposite or whorled leaves, generally deeply cut. The sessile flowers are aggregated into close spikes. Each flower has a tubular, ribbed calyx, a more or less irregular tubular two-lipped corolla, with four (didynamous) stamens springing from the interior of the corolla-tube. The anthers are two-celled, with or without a gland-like appendage at the apex. The ovary is entire or four-lobed, and always four-celled, with a single ovule in each cell; the style is unequally two-lobed at the apex. The fruit consists of four hard nutlets within the persistent calyx. There are about eighty species known, mostly natives of tropical and subtropical America, a very few species occurring also in the Old World. The vervein, or vervain, V. officinalis, native of central and north Asia, Europe and North Africa, and common on dry waste ground in the south of England (rarer in the north), was the object of much superstitious veneration on the part of our pagan ancestors, who attributed marvellous properties to it, provided it were gathered in a particular manner and with much complex ceremonial. The plant is now but lightly esteemed, and its medicinal virtues are wholly discredited. The garden verbenas are derivatives from various South American species, such as V. teucrioides, a native of southern Brazil, and V. chamaedrifolia from Argentina and southern Brazil. The range of colours extends from pure white to rose-coloured, carmine, violet and purple. Striped forms also are cultivated. The lemon-scented verbena of gardens, so much valued for the fragrance of its leaves, was once referred to this genus under the name V. triphylla, subsequently called Aloysia, but is now referred to the genus Lippia as L. citriodora; it differs from Verbena in having two, not four, nutlets in the fruit.

The garden verbenas, although somewhat misprized for some years, have once more become popular as bedding plants, and also for pot culture. They are easily raised from seeds sown in heat in February or March, but choice varieties, like Miss Willmott and others, can only be kept true when raised from cuttings. These are best secured from old plants cut down in the autumn and started into growth in gentle heat and moisture the following spring. They root readily in a compost of sandy loam and leaf soil. Besides the garden varieties, V. venosa, a Brazilian species with bluish-violet flowers, is a popular plant for massing in beds during the summer months.

VERBÖCZY, ISTVAN [] (1465?–1541), Hungarian jurist and statesman, first became known as a scholar and theologian of such eminence that he was appointed to accompany the emperor Charles V. to Worms, to take up the cudgels against Luther. He began his political career as the deputy of the county of Ugocsa to the diet of 1498, where his eloquence and scholarship had a great effect in procuring the extension of the privileges of the gentry and the exclusion of all foreign competitors for the Hungarian throne in future elections. He was the spokesman and leader of the gentry against the magnates and prelates at the diets of 1500, 1501 and 1505. At the last diet he insisted, in his petition to the king, that the law should be binding upon all the gentry alike, and firmly established in the minds of the people the principle of a national monarchy. The most striking proof of his popularity at this time is the fact that the diet voted him two denarii per hearth for his services in 1505, a circumstance unexampled in Hungarian history. In 1517 Verböczy was appointed the guardian of the infant Louis II., and was sent on a foreign mission to solicit the aid of Christendom against the Turks. On his return he found the strife of parties fiercer than ever and the whole country in a state of anarchy. At the diet of Hatvan, on the 25th of June 1525, he delivered a reconciliatory oration which so affected the assembly that it elected him palatine. During the brief time he held that high office he unselfishly and courageously endeavoured to serve both king and people by humbling the pride of the magnates who were primarily responsible for the dilapidation of the realm. But he was deposed at the following diet, and retired from public life till the election of Janos Zapolya, who realized his theory of a national king and from whom he accepted the chancellorship. He now devoted himself entirely to the study of jurisprudence, and the result of his labours was the famous Opus tripartitum juris consuetudinarii inclyti regni hungariae, which was the law-book of Hungary till 1848.

VERBOECKHOVEN, EUGÈNE JOSEPH (1790–1881), Belgian painter, was born at Warneton in West Flanders, and received instruction in drawing and modelling from his father, the sculptor Barthelemy Verboeckhoven. Subsequently he settled in Brussels and devoted himself almost exclusively to animal subjects. His paintings of sheep, of horses and of cattle in landscape, somewhat after the manner of Potter, brought him universal fame, and were eagerly sought for by collectors. Precise and careful finish is the chief quality of his art, which is entirely objective and lacking in inspiration. Verboeckhoven visited England in 1826, Germany in 1828, and France and Italy in 1841, and died at Brussels in 1881. He was a member of the academies of Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, St Petersburg and Amsterdam. Examples of his art are to be found in nearly all the important galleries of Europe and the United States, notably in Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, New York, Boston and Washington. His long life and ceaseless industry account for the enormous number of his pictures in public and private collections and in the art market. In addition to his painted work he executed some fifty etched plates of similar subjects.

VERBRUGGEN, SUSANNA (c. 1667–1703), English actress, was the daughter of an actor named Percival, and her first recorded stage appearance was in 1681 in D’Urfey’s Sir Barnaby Whig. She played at Dorset Garden and the Theatre Royal, and in 1686 married (q.v.). By 1690 she was one of the leading actresses in Betterton’s company. About a year after Mountfort’s death, in 1692, she married John Verbruggen (fl. 1688–c. 1707), also an actor of considerable ability.

VERCELLI (anc. Vercellae), a town and archiepiscopal see of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Novara, 13 m. S.W. of that town by rail. Pop. (1901) 17,922 (town), 30,470 (commune). It is situated 430 ft. above sea-level on the river Sesia, at its junction with the Canterana. Vercelli is a point at which railways diverge for Novara, Mortara, Casale Monferrato and Santhia (for Turin). The walls by which Vercelli was formerly surrounded have been demolished, and their place is now occupied by boulevards, from which a fine view of the Alps (especially the Monte Rosa group) is obtained. The streets are for the most part tortuous and narrow; there is a large market-place (Piazza Cavour) with a statue of Cavour (1861), The cathedral is a large building dating from the 16th century; its library contains a number of rare ancient MSS., especially the Codex Vercellensis, one of the most important MSS. of the old Latin version of the Gospels, written in the 4th or 5th century by Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli. A museum close by contains Roman antiquities. The churches of S. Andrea (a large and fine Romanesque Gothic building dating from 1219–1224, with an interior in the French Gothic style), S. Paolo, S. Caterina and S. Cristoforo possess valuable examples of the work of Gaudenzio Ferrari (1471–1546) and of his follower Lanini. Silk-spinning is important, and Vercelli is one of the principal Italian centres of the exportation of cereals and especially of rice. There are corn and rice mills of large size,