Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/344

Rh 320 W A K W A L the latter of which was entirely written in nine days. He apologizes for this precipitancy as the result of &quot;a con stitutional ardour which will not suffer me to dwell long on the same subject.&quot; However inevitable, this was the source of most of his failures and mistakes. After the dissolution of the academy, he resided successively at Bramcote in Nottinghamshire, at Richmond, and at Nottingham, taking pupils and persevering in his theo logical and classical studies, which were considerably retarded by ill health. His most important production at this time was the Silva Critica, &quot;illustrating the Scriptures by light borrowed from the philology of Greece and Rome.&quot; Three parts of this work were printed at the Cambridge university press, but, the authorities declining to proceed further with it, the author was obliged to com plete it himself. In 1790 he was appointed professor of classics at the newly-founded Unitarian college at Hackney. Here he speedily became uncomfortable ; his proposals for reform in the course of instruction were unacceptable to his colleagues, and his dislike to the religious services, which he carried to the length of objecting to all social worship, occasioned his resignation in June 1791. The publication of his views on public worship deprived him of all his private pupils, and his time was henceforth devoted to authorship and the education of his children. His next important work was a new translation of the New Testa ment, retaining as much of the language of the Authorized Version as he deemed consistent with accuracy. This soon reached a second edition. He commenced an edition of Pope, which he was prevented from completing by the competition of Warton, but the notes were published separately. His edition of Lucretius, a work of high pre tensions and little solid performance, appeared in 1796. It gained for the editor a very exaggerated reputation, but Wakefield suffered himself to be allured from the paths of literature into those of political and religious controversy. After assailing with equal acerbity writers so diverse in their principles as Wilberforce and Thomas Paine, he in January 1798 &quot;employed a few hours&quot; in drawing up a reply to Bishop Watson s Address to the People of Great Britain. These few hours procured him two years imprisonment in Dorchester jail. He was convicted in February 1799 of having published a seditious libel, an offence which he had assuredly no intention of committing, and his eloquent defence was naturally thrown away upon the same jurymen who had already convicted the printer. The sympathy excited for him, however, led to a subscription, amounting to no less than ,5000, and forming a sufficient provision for his family upon his death, which occurred September 9, 1801, shortly after his liberation, from an attack of typhus fever. He had occupied himself while in prison with the preparation of classical lectures and an English- Greek lexicon, and had corresponded on classical subjects with Charles James Fox. The letters were subsequently published. Wakefield was one of the most honest of men, but also one of the most precipitate, narrow-minded, and pre sumptuous. His extreme ardour and his consciousness of integrity produced an uncharitableness verging on offensive- ness, little in harmony with the many magnanimous and amiable features of his character. Rashness, opinionative- ness, and contentiousness grievously marred in him the character of patriot and scholar, though they could not destroy his claim to be numbered among both. The principal authority for his life is the second edition of his Memoirs, in two volumes (London, 1804). The first volume is autobiographical ; the second, compiled by the editors, Rutt and Wainwright, includes several estimates of his character and per formances from various sources, the most remarkable being one by Dr Parr. WAKIDI. See TABARI. WALACHIA. See ROUMANIA and VLAOHS. WALAFRID 1 STRABO (or STEABTJS, i.e., &quot;squint- eyed&quot;) was born in Germany (808-9), but the exact place is unknown. His taste for literature early displayed itself, and by the age of eighteen he had already achieved a reputation among the learned men of his age. He was educated at the monastery of Reichenau, near Constance, where he had for his teachers Tatto and Wettin, to Avhose visions he devotes one of his poems. Later on in life (c. 826-829) he passed to Fulda, where he studied for some time under Hrabanus Maurus before returning to Reichenau, of which monastery he was made abbot in 838. There is a story, based, however, on no good evidence, that Walafrid devoted himself so closely to letters as to neglect the duties of his office, owing to which he was expelled from his house ; but, from his own verses, it seems that the real cause of his flight to Spires was that, notwithstanding the fact that he had been tutor to Charles the Bald, he espoused the side of his elder brother Lothair on the death of Louis the Pious in 840. He was, however, restored to his monastery in 842, and died August 16, 849, on an embassy to his former pupil. His epitaph was written by Hrabanus Maurus, whose elegiacs praise him for being the faithful guardian of his monastery. &quot;Walafrid Strabo s works may be divided into three classes, theological, historical, and poetical. 1. The first class includes the Glossa Ordinaria,&quot; a large com mentary on the Bible and part of the Apocrypha. This is of course to a great extent a compilation from St Jerome, St Augustine, St Isidore, Bcde, Hrabanus Maurus, &c. Under the same heading come the exposition of the first twenty Psalms, published by Pez (Anecdota Nova, iv.), and an epitome of Hrabanus Maurus s com mentary on Leviticus. An Expositio Quatuor Evangcliorum is also ascribed to Walafrid. The treatise De Rebus Ecclcsiasticis, dedicated to Regenbert the librarian, gives not only explanations and direc tions for the erection and embellishment of churches, but also instructions as regards such questions as the method of taking the holy communion and the payment of tithes. Walafrid approves of the use of images and pictures in churches, &quot;quia pictura est quredam literatura illiterata. &quot; He had himself seen &quot;simple folk and idiots,&quot; whom words could hardly bring to a realization of what they were told, so touched by representations of our Lord s passion that the tears ran down their faces. Last among Wala frid s theological treatises must be mentioned the DC Subxcrsionc Jerusalem Tractatus. 2. Walafrid s chief historical works are (a) the Vita Sandi Galli, which, though written nearly two centuries after this saint s death, is still the primary authority for his life, and (b) a much shorter life of St Othmar, abbot of St Gall (d. 759). Both these lives were based on previous ones written by Abbot Gotzbert of St Gall (from 816-837). 3 3. Walafrid s poetical works include a short life of St Blaithmaic, a high-born monk of lona, murdered by the Danes in the first half of the 9th century; a life of St Mammes; and a Liber de Visionilus Wcttini. This last poem, like the two preceding ones written in hexameters, was composed at the command of &quot;Father&quot; Adalgisus, and based upon the prose narrative of Heto, abbot of Reichenau from 806 to 822. It is dedicated to Wettin s brother Grimald. At the time he sent it to Grimald Walafrid had, as he himself tells us, hardly passed his eighteenth year, and lie begs his corre spondent to revise his verses, because, &quot;as it is not lawful for a monk to hide anything from his abbot,&quot; he fears he may be beaten with deserved stripes. In this curious vision Wettin saw Charles the Great suffering purgatorial tortures because of his incontinence. The name of the ruler alluded to is not indeed introduced into the actual text, but Carolus Imperator &quot; form the initial letters of the passage dealing with this subject. Many of Walafrid s other poems are, or include, short ad dresses to kings and queens (Lothair, Charles, Louis, Pippin, Judith, &c.) and to friends (Einhard, Grimald, Hrabanus Maurus, Tatto, Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims, Drogo, bishop of Metz, &c. ). His most famous poem is the Ilortulus, dedicated to Grimald. It is an account of a little garden that he used to tend with his own hands, and is largely made up of 1 In the oldest MSS. this is always spelt &quot; Walahirid.&quot; 2 This commentary was the one in general use during the Middle Ages, when it went by the name of Glossa simply. 3 Walafrid also edited Thetmar s Life of Louis the Pious, prefixing a preface and making a few additions, and divided Einhard s Vita Caroli into chapters, adding an introduction.