Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/790

 In 1831 he published Grundriss der anorganischen Chemie, and in 1840 Grundriss der organischen Chemie, both of which went through many editions. Still more valuable for teaching purposes was his Mineralanalyse in Beispielen (1861), which first appeared in 1853 as Praktische Übungen in der chemischen Analyse. Chemists also had to thank him for translating three editions of the Lehrbuch of Berzelius and all the successive volumes of the Jahresbericht into German from the original Swedish. He assisted Liebig and Poggendorff in the Handwörterbuch der reinen und angewandten Chemie, and was joint-editor with Liebig of the Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie.

A memoir by Hofmann appeared in the ''Ber. deut. chem. Gesellsch. (1882), reprinted in Zur Erinnerung an vorangegangene Freunde'' (1888).

 WOHLGEMUTH, MICHAEL (1434-1519), German painter, was born at Nuremberg in 1434. Little is known of his private life beyond the fact that in 1472 he married the widow of the painter Hans Pleydenwurff, whose son Wilhelm worked as an assistant to his stepfather. The importance of Wohlgemuth as an artist rests, not only on his own individual paintings, but also on the fact that he was the head of a large workshop, in which many different branches of the fine arts were carried on by a great number of pupil-assistants, including Albert Dürer. In this atelier not only large altar-pieces and other sacred paintings were executed, but also elaborate retables in carved wood, consisting of crowded subjects in high relief, richly decorated with gold and colour, such as pleased the rather doubtful Teutonic taste of that time. Wood-engraving was also carried on in the same workshop, the blocks being cut from Wohlgemuth's designs, many of which are remarkable for their vigour and clever adaptation to the special necessities of the technique of woodcutting. Two large and copiously illustrated books have woodcuts supplied by Wohlgemuth and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. The first is the Schatzkammer der wahren Reichthümer des Heils, printed by Koburger in 1491; the other is the Historia mundi, by Schedel, 1493-1494, usually known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, which is highly valued, not for the text, but for its remarkable collection of spirited engravings.

The earliest known work by Wohlgemuth is a retable consisting of four panels, dated 1465, now in the Munich gallery, a decorative work of much beauty. In 1479 he painted the retable of the high altar in the church of St Mary at Zwickau, which still exists, receiving for it the large sum of 1400 gulden. One of his finest and largest works is the great retable painted for the church of the Austin friars at Nuremberg, now moved into the museum; it consists of a great many panels, with figures of those saints whose worship was specially popular at Nuremberg. In 1501 Wohlgemuth was employed to decorate the town hall at Goslar with a large series of paintings; some on the ceiling are on panel, and others on the walls are painted thinly in tempera on canvas. As a portrait-painter he enjoyed much repute, and some of his works of this class are very admirable for their realistic vigour and minute finish. Outside Germany Wohlgemuth's paintings are scarce: the Royal Institution at Liverpool possesses two good examples—"Pilate washing his Hands," and "The Deposition from the Cross," parts probably of a large altarpiece. During the last ten years of his life Wohlgemuth appears to have produced little by his own hand. One of his latest paintings is the retable at Schwabach, executed in 1508, the contract for which still exists. He died at Nuremberg in 1519.

 WOKING, a market town in the Chertsey parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 24 m. S.W. of London by the London and South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1891) 9786; (1901) 16,244. The river Wey and the Basingstoke canal pass through the parish. St Peter's church dates from the 13th century. Modern structures include a public hall, and an Oriental institute (in the building erected for the Royal Dramatic College, including a museum of Eastern antiquities, a mosque, and residences for Orientals). In the vicinity are the Surrey county asylum and a female convict prison. Near Woking is Brookwood cemetery, belonging to the London Necropolis Company, with a crematorium.  WOKINGHAM, a market town and municipal borough in the Wokingham parliamentary division of Berkshire, England, 36 m. W. by S. of London by the South-Western railway, served also by the South-Eastern and Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 3551. It lies on a slight eminence above a valley tributary to that of the river Loddon, in a well-wooded district on the outskirts of the former royal forest of Windsor. The church of St Laurence is Perpendicular, greatly altered by restoration. Two miles west of the town is the village of Bearwood. The trade of Wokingham is principally agricultural. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 557 acres.

 WOLCOT, JOHN (1738-1819), English satirist and poet, known under the pseudonym of, was the son of Alexander Wolcot, surgeon at Dodbrooke, adjoining Kingsbridge, in Devonshire, and was baptized there on the 9th of May 1738. He was educated at Kingsbridge free school, at the Bodmin and Liskeard grammar schools, and in France. For seven years he was apprenticed to his uncle, John Wolcot, a surgeon at Fowey, and he took his degree of M.D. at Aberdeen in 1767. In 1769 he was ordained, and went to Jamaica with his uncle's patient, Sir William Trelawny, the new governor In 1772 he became incumbent of Vere, Jamaica, but on the death of his patron (11th of December 1772) he returned to England, and settled as a physician at Truro. In 1781 Wolcot went to London, and took with him the young Cornish artist, John Opie, whose talents in painting he had been the first to recognize. Before they left Cornwall Opie apparently made a rash engagement to share his profits with Wolcot, but a breach between them occurred soon after they settled in London. Wolcot had already achieved some success in a Supplicating Epistle to the Reviewers (1778), and after his settlement in London he threw off with marvellous rapidity a succession of pungent satires. George III. was his favourite subject of ridicule, and his peculiarities were described or distorted in The Lousiad (1785), Peeps at St James's (1787) and The Royal Visit to Exeter. Two of Wolcot's happiest satires on the "farmer king" depicted the royal survey of Whitbread's brewery, and the king's naïve wonder how the apples got into the apple dumplings. In his Expostulatory Odes (1789) he eulogized the prince of Wales. Boswell's biography of Johnson was ridiculed in An Epistle to James Boswell (1786), and in the same year followed another piece, called Bozzy and Piozzi. Other subjects were found in Sir Joseph Banks and the Emperor of Morocco (1790), and a Complimentary Epistle to James Bruce (1790). Among his early satires were Lyric Odes to the Academicians (1782), and another series on the same subject, Farewell Odes (1786). He specially attacked Benjamin West, but expressed great admiration for the landscapes of Gainsborough and Richard Wilson. Wolcot was himself no mean artist, and in 1797 appeared Six Picturesque Views from Paintings by Peter Pindar, engraved by Alken. In 1795 he disposed of his works to the booksellers for an annuity of £250. His