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Rh the works written during the next ten years only Un Ballo in Maschera (1859) has maintained a fitful hold upon public attention. La Forza del Destino (1862) and Don Carlos, the latter of which was written for the Paris Exhibition of 1867, have the faults incident to works written during a period of transition. At this point in his career Verdi was preparing to emancipate himself from the fetters of conventionality which had hitherto hindered his development. In these two works there are indications of an aspiration towards a freer method of expression, which harmonize ill with the more conventional style of the composer's earlier years. In Aida, an opera upon an Egyptian subject, written in response to an invitation from Ismail Pasha, and produced at Cairo in 1871, Verdi entered upon the third period of his career. In this work he broke definitely with the operatic tradition which he had inherited from Donizetti, in favour of a method of utterance, which, though perhaps affected in some degree by the influence of Wagner, still retains the main characteristics of Italian music. In Aida the treatment of the orchestra is throughout masterly, and shows a richness of resource which those who knew only Verdi's earlier works scarcely suspected him of possessing; nevertheless, the human voice was still the centre of Verdi's system. Verdi kept thoroughly abreast of modern musical development, but his artistic sense prevented him from falling into the excesses of the German school. In the Requiem, which was written in 1874 to commemorate the death of Manzoni, Verdi applied his newly found system to sacred music. His Requiem was bitterly assailed by pedants and purists, partly on the ground of its defiance of obsolete rules of musical grammar and partly because of its theatrical treatment of sacred subjects, but by saner and more sympathetic critics, of whom Brahms was not the least enthusiastic, it has been accepted as a work of genius. There are passages in it with which Protestant feeling can scarcely sympathize, but its passionate intensity and dramatic force, and the extraordinary musical beauty with which it abounds, amply atone for what to some may seem errors of taste. In 1881 a revised version of Simon Boccanegra, an earlier work which had not been successful, was produced at Milan. The libretto had been in part rewritten by Arrigo Boito, and Verdi wrote a great deal of new music for the revival, which was eminently successful. After this it was generally supposed that Verdi, who had reached an advanced age, had finally relinquished composition, but after a lapse of some years it became known that he was at work upon a new opera, and in 1887 Otello was produced at Milan. The libretto, a masterly condensation of Shakespeare's Othello, was the work of Boito. Otello recalls Aida in the general outlines of its structure, but voices and orchestra are treated with greater freedom than in the earlier work, and there is a conspicuous absence of set airs. In so far as regards the essential qualities of the music, Otello is an immense advance upon anything Verdi had previously written. It has a dramatic force and a power of characterization for which it would be vain to look in his earlier work, and which are all the more remarkable as appearing for the first time in this high degree of development in a work written in extreme old age. All that has been said of Otello may be repeated of Falstaff, which was produced in 1893, when the composer was in his eightieth year, with the addition that the later work contains, besides the dramatic power and musical skill of the earlier work, a fund of delicate and fanciful humour which recalls the gayest mood of Mozart. The libretto of Falstaff, which is the work of Boito, is an adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor, with the addition of a few passages from Henry IV. After the production of Falsiaff, Verdi wrote nothing for the stage. In 1808 he produced four sacred pieces, settings of the Ave Maria, Laudi alia Virgine (words from Dante's Paradiso), the Stabat Mater and the Te Deum, the first two for voices alone, the last two for voices and orchestra. In these pieces Verdi abandoned to a certain extent the theatrical manner of the Requiem for one more restrained and more in keeping with ecclesiastical traditions. In imaginative power and musical beauty these pieces yield to none of Verdi's works. With the exception of these and the Requiem, Verdi has written little save for the stage. Among his minor works may be mentioned a string quartet, composed in 1873, a hymn written for the opening of the International Exhibition of 1862, two sets of songs, a Paternoster for five-part chorus, and an Ave Maria for soprano solo, with string accompaniment. The venerable composer died at Milan on the 27th of January 1901.

(R. A. S.)

VERDICT, (O. Fr. verdit, Lat. vere dictum, truly said, used in Late Latin in one word with its present significance), the decision of a jury in a criminal or civil cause, given to the court through the foreman of the jury and recorded. In English law verdicts may be "general," i.e. in criminal cases "guilty," or "not guilty," or "special," when there is some question of law of which the jury wish to leave to the consideration of the court; in this case the verdict is given in the form of a statement of facts as found by the jury, and the issue is left to be found by the court in accordance with the law upon such facts as found (see ../Jury).

VERDIGRIS, a pigment, consisting of basic copper carbonates, made by acting upon copper plates with pyroligneous acid soaked up in cloths, exposing the plates to air, then dipping in water, and finally scraping off the greenish cruet; the plate is re-exposed and the operation repeated till it is used up. Another method consists in exposing thin copper sheets to the acid vapours rising from the residues or "marcs" of wine factories, the product being scraped off, and the plate re-exposed. Both processes require several weeks. The pigment appears with several shades of blue and green; blue verdigris is chiefly CuO-Cu(C2H3O2)2-6H2O, while light blue and green verdigris contain 2CuO-Cu(C2H3O2)2-2H2O. Besides being used as a paint it is employed in dyeing and calico-printing, and also in the manufacture of other paints, e.g. Schweinfurt green, which is a double salt of the acetate and arsenite. A liniment or ointment is also used in medicine as a cure for warts. It is an irritant poison (hence the need that acid substances should never be cooked in copper utensils); the best antidote is white of egg and milk.

VERDUN, a garrison town of north-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Meuse, on the main line of the Eastern railway between Paris and Metz,. 42 m. N.N.E. of Bar-le-Duc. Pop. (1906) 12,837. In addition the population comptie a part (soldiers, &c.) numbers 8198. Verdun is situated in a basin surrounded by vine-clad hills on the Meuse, which here forms the Eastern Canal.

Verdun as a fortress is of first-rate importance. It lies directly opposite the frontier of German Lorraine and the great entrenched camp of Metz. At the time of the war of 1870 (when it was defended for long without hope of success by General Guerin de Waldersbach) it was still a small antiquated fortress of the Vauban epoch, but in the long line of fortifications on the Meuse created by Serre de Riviere in 1875 Verdun, forming the left of the "Meuse Line" barrier, was made the centre of an entrenched camp. The first lesson of 1870 being taken to heart, forts were placed (Belrupt S.E., St Michel N.E., Belleville N. and La Chaume and Regret W.) on all the surrounding heights that the besiegers had used for their batteries, but the designers soon extended the line of the eastern defences as far out as the sharply defined cliffs that, rising gently for some miles from the Meuse, come to an abrupt edge and overlook the plain of Woevre. On this front, which is about 5 ½ m.