Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/993

 and the mosaic “Minerva” in the Congressional Library at Washington. Among his better-known pictures are: “Lair of the Sea Serpent,” in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; “Young Marsyas,” “Cumaean Sibyl,” “Nausicaa,” in the collection of J. Pierpont Morgan; and “Genii and Fisherman,” in the collection of Martin Brimmer, Boston.  VEDETTE, a French military term (formed from Lat. videre, to see), adopted into English and other languages for a mounted sentry or outpost, whose function it is to bring information, give signals or warnings of danger, etc., to the main body of troops.  VEERE, a town in the province, of Zeeland, Holland, on the island of Walcheren, 4 m. N.N.E. of Middelburg, with which it is connected by canal (1867–72). It contains several interesting architectural remains of the days of its former prosperity, many of its quaintly gabled old houses dating from the 16th century. There is a fine Gothic church dating from 1348, but subsequently in part destroyed and used for secular purposes; the town hall (1475) has a fine gable filled with sculpture, and contains some interesting antiquities.  VEGA, GARCILASO DE LA (1503–1536), Spanish soldier and poet, was born at Toledo on the 6th of February 1503. His father, Garcilaso (Garcias Laso or Garcilasso) de la Vega, was counsellor of state to Ferdinand and Isabella, and, for some time their ambassador at the, court of Rome; by his mother he was descended from the illustrious house of Guzman. At the age of seventeen he was attached to the bodyguard of Charles V., and fought against the insurgent comuneros, being wounded at the battle of Olias near Toledo. He afterwards served in the north of Italy, and gained great distinction by his bravery at the battle of Pavia in 1525. In the following year he married a lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor. He took part, in the repulse of the Turks from Vienna in 1529, was present at the coronation of the emperor at Bologna in 1530, and was charged with a secret mission to Paris in the autumn of the same year. In 1531 he accompanied the duke of Alva to Vienna, where, for conniving at the clandestine marriage of his nephew to a maid-of-honour, he was imprisoned on an island in the Danube. During this captivity he composed the fine canciou, “Con un manso ruido de agua corriente y clara.” Released and restored to favour in June, 1532, he went to Naples on the staff of Don Pedro de Toledo, the newly appointed viceroy, by whom he was twice sent on public business of importance to Barcelona, in 1533 and 1534. After having accompanied the emperor on the expedition to Tunis (1535), where he received two, severe wounds, he was employed as a confidential agent at Milan and Genoa in negotiations connected with the proposed invasion of Provence, and joined the expedition when it took the field. Being with Charles in the neighbourhood of Fréjus during the retreat from Marseilles, Garcilaso de la Vega was ordered to storm a fort at Muy, which had checked the advance of the arrny. In the successful discharge of this duty he was mortally wounded and died twenty-one days afterwards, at Nice, (14th of October 1536). His poems were entrusted to his friend Boscan, who was preparing them for publication along with his own when death overtook him in 1540. The volume ultimately appeared at Barcelona in 1543, and has often been reprinted. Garcilaso’s share in it consists principally of three eglogas or pastorals, which the Spaniards regard as among the finest works of the kind in their language, and which for sweetness of versification and delicacy of expression take a high rank in modern European literature. In addition to the pastorals, there are thirty-seven sonnets, five canciones, two elegies and a blank verse epistle, all influenced by Italian models. The poems rapidly gained a wide popularity; and with in a century of their appearance they were edited as classics by Francisco Sanchez (1577), Herrera (1580) and Tamayo de Vargas (1622). An English translation of his works was published by Wiffen in 1823. Garcilaso’s delicate charm has survived all changes of taste, and by universal consent he ranks among the. most accomplished and artistic of Spanish poets.

 VEGA, GARCILASO DE LA, called “Inca” (c. 1535–1616), historian of Peru, was born at Cuzco. His father, Sebastiano Garcilaso (d. 1559), was a cadet of the illustrious family of La Vega, who had gone to Peru in the suite of Pedro de Alvarado, and his mother was of the Peruvian blood-royal, a circumstance of which he was very-proud as giving him a right to the title which he, claimed by invariably subscribing himself “Inca.” About 1560 he removed to Spain, and after serving against the Moors incurred the hatred. of Philip II; and was imprisoned at Valladolid. He died in Spain in 1616. A diligent student of the language and traditions of his maternal ancestors, Garcilaso left a valuable work on Peruvian history; the first part, entitled Comentarios reales que tratan del origen de los Yncas, was first published at Lisbon in 1609, and the second part, Historia general del Peru, in 1617.

 VEGA CARPIO, LOPE FELIX DE (1562–1635), Spanish dramatist and poet, was born on the 25th of November 1562 at Madrid. His father and mother, Felix de Vega Carpio and Francisca Hernandez Flores, originally came from the valley of Carriedo in Asturias, where the hamlet of Vega still exists. Lope began his studies at the Theatine college in Madrid, and according to his admiring biographer, Pérez de Montalbán, his precocity was extraordinary. On leaving college he entered the service of Don Jerónimo Manrique, bishop of Avila, and appears to have then begun the composition of his earlier dramas. He quitted the bishop’s service to enter the university of Alcalá de Henares, where he devoted himself to what was called philosophy. The date of Lope’s matriculation is unknown, as his name does not appear in the university books; but it seems probable that he was in residence between 1576 and 1581. He took part in the expedition to the Azores in 1582, and from 1583 to 1587 was secretary to the marques de las Navas. In February 1588 he was banished for circulating criminal libels against his mistress, Elena Osorio, whom he has celebrated under the name of Filis. He defied the law by returning to Madrid soon afterwards and eloping with Isabel de Urbina, daughter of Philip II.’s herald; he married her by proxy on the 10th of May 1588, and joined the Invincible Armada, losing his brother in one of the encounters in the Channel. He settled for a short while at Valencia, where he made acquaintance with a circle of young poets who were afterwards to be his ardent supporters in founding the new comedy. He joined the household of the duke of Alva, with whom he remained till 1595. Soon afterwards he lost his wife; he was prosecuted for criminal conversation in 1596, became secretary to the marquis de Malpica (afterwards count de Lemos), and in 1598 married a second wife, Juana de Guardo, by whom he had two children (Carlos, who died in 1612, and Feliciana Felix); but she died, shortly after giving birth to the latter, in 1613. During this wife’s lifetime the poet had by a mistress, Micaelade Luxan, two other children—Marcela del Carpio, who became a nun in 1621, and Lope Felix del Carpio y Luxan, who chose the profession of arms and perished at sea about 1634. Widowed a second time in 1613, Lope sought a refuge in the church. After having been for some time affiliated to a tertiary order, he took priest’s orders.

At this juncture, about 1614, he was in the very zenith of his glory. A veritable dictator in the Spanish world of letters, he wielded over all the authors of his nation a power similar to that which was afterwards exercised in France by Voltaire. At this distance of time Lope is to us simply a great dramatic poet, the founder of the Spanish theatre; but to his contemporaries he was 