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VER  to Charles II. as a fitting person to direct the royal tapestry works at Mortlake, which the king was desirous to re-establish. But the fickle monarch soon changed his mind; the Mortlake works were forgotten, and Verrio was employed instead in painting the walls and ceilings of Windsor castle. As long as Charles lived Verrio was in high favour; and he found equal favour in the eyes of his successor, for whom, among other things, he painted Wolsey's tomb-house, which James wished to fit up as a Roman catholic chapel. After the Revolution of 1688, Verrio threw up the sinecure office of surveyor of the royal gardens given him by Charles II., and refused to employ his pencil in the service of William III. He, however, had plenty of private commissions. Besides smaller works, he was employed on the decorations of Burleigh (for which he received from the earl of Exeter £1500 a year, besides board, residence, and an equipage), Chatsworth, and Lowther hall. Eventually he relented so far in his hostility to William as to consent to paint the king's staircase and several ceilings at Hampton court. Walpole says that he did his work here "as ill as if he had spoiled it out of principle;" but this is hardly likely to have been the case, and the Hampton court paintings are really not worse than the others which remain by him. In truth he was a thoroughly worthless painter in all respects. The grotesque allegories and absurd mythological conceits with which he defaced so many of our palaces, are as contemptible as works of art, as they are ridiculous in invention and offensive in taste. Yet no painter had ever before received such extravagant payment in England, and few elsewhere. Verrio was, however, ostentatiously profuse in expenditure, as well as vain, boastful, and insolent in manners; and his sight failing, he must have looked forward to an old age of penury had not Queen Anne bestowed on him a pension of £200 a year. He died in 1707.—J. T—e.  VERRIUS,, a freedman by birth, was distinguished for his learning under the reign of Augustus. By that emperor he was employed to instruct the youthful princes, Cains and Lucius Cæsar. He died at an advanced age in the reign of Tiberius. Verrius was the author of a history of the Etruscans, and many other valuable works on historical, antiquarian, and philological topics. The treatise of Festus is supposed to be founded to a considerable extent on the writings of Verrius.—G.  VERROCCHIO,, a distinguished Florentine painter, born in 1432. He was the scholar of Donatello, and the master of Leonardo da Vinci; but he is said to have given up painting on seeing himself surpassed by his pupil. Verrocchio was a good anatomist, and was the first, or one of the first among the moderns, to take plaster casts from the human limbs for art purposes. He attained a great reputation as a sculptor in bronze, and was in 1479 invited to Venice to make the colossal statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni; but he caught cold, and died in 1488 before the work was finished. Leopardi completed it, and placed it in 1495. A cast of this monument may be seen at the Crystal palace. Verrocchio's principal work is considered the bronze group of the "Incredulity of St. Thomas," in the church of Or San Michele at Florence; it was made in 1483, and weighs nearly four thousand pounds. Though Verrocchio died at Venice, he was buried in Sant' Ambrogio at Florence; his body having been taken home by Lorenzo di Credi.—R. N. W.  VERSCHURING,, a celebrated Dutch painter, was born at Gorcum in 1620. His first teacher was T. Govertz, a portrait painter, but he completed his studies under Jan Both, by whose advice he went to Italy. Here he remained ten years, and painted many views of the neighbourhood of Rome, Italian scenery with ruined buildings, &c., which were then, and are still, much admired. Returning to Holland he seems to have been led by the troublous character of the times to turn his attention to less peaceful scenes. His later pictures are most frequently battles, skirmishes, encampments, scenes with banditti, and other gloomy subjects; but they are painted with great spirit and effect, and are prized by collectors. Verschuring was burgomaster of his native city. He was drowned near Dort during an excursion on the water in 1690. There are four slight but spirited etchings by him; two of them are of dogs.—J. T—e.  VERSCHUUR,, a celebrated Dutch marine painter, was born at Rotterdam, and is said to have been a pupil of the marine painter, Simon de Vlieger, who flourished, 1630-50. Verschuur drew and painted with great skill and care, but was a feeble colourist. His sea and river moonlight scenes are much admired. His most celebrated work is the "Arrival of the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles II.) at Rotterdam," which is in the Amsterdam museum. He died in 1691.—J. T—e.  VERSTEGAN, or, an able English antiquary, whose ancestors settled in England in the reign of Henry VII., was born in London and educated at Oxford. He left this country in consequence of his entertaining Roman catholic principles, and went to Antwerp, where he published in 1592 a history of the persecution of the members of his church, entitled "Theatrum crudelitatum hæreticorum nostri temporis." He subsequently went to Paris, where he was imprisoned at the instigation of the English ambassador for making certain charges against Queen Elizabeth. He was shortly after released, and returned to Antwerp, where he set himself up in business as a printer and produced his best-known work, "A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence concerning the most noble and renowned English nation." After this he wrote "The successive regal Governments of England;" "A Dialogue on dying well," from the Italian; and some odes in imitation of the seven penitential psalms, "with sundry other poems and ditties tending to devotion and piety," 1601. He died about 1635.—F.  VERTOT D'AUBEUF,, better known as the Abbé Vertot, a celebrated French historian, was born on the 25th December, 1655, at Benetot, in the Pays de Caux. He was educated at the Jesuits' college, Rouen, which in a fit of religious zeal he quitted clandestinely for a convent of Franciscans at Argentan. The austerities he practised seriously affected his health, and a change was effected in his favour to the milder rule of the Premontanes. He became successively prior of Joyenval, curé of Croissy la Garenne, near Marly, curé of a parish in his native district of Caux, and of a richer living in Rouen. In 1703 he settled in Paris, being appointed associate of the Academy of Inscriptions, and two years later a paid member. His literary career commenced by the publication in 1689 of a "History of the Conspiracy of 1640 in Portugal," which was followed in 1695 by a "History of the Revolutions." The great favour with which these works of Vertot were received is due to the charm of style, rather than to the scrupulous accuracy of details. In his most original work, "The History of the Knights of Malta," which he undertook at the express invitation of the order, and with liberty to command their archives, he is charged with having in one instance refused to spoil his rounded paragraphs by looking at documents that arrived after his narrative of the siege had been written. "Je n'en ai plus besoin; mon siége est fait," is the reply attributed to him in an oft-repeated anecdote. The work upon which he bestowed most of his love is the "History of the Revolutions of the Roman Republic," which has passed through innumerable editions. He contributed many papers to the annals and memoirs of the academy, and wrote two learned works to confute the claims of the Bretons to certain independent rights. His book on "The origin of the greatness of the Court of Rome" is conceived in a spirit of opposition to the temporal power of the pope, and in support of the king's rights over the Galilean church. He prepared for the press an account of the embassies of the dukes of Noailles, which was published in 1763. He died in 1735.—(See a full list of his works in Querard, La France Litteraire.)—R. H.  VERTUE,, an eminent engraver, was born in St. Martins-in-the-Fields, London, in 1684. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to an engraver of arms on plate; but he failing in business, the young man was at the age of eighteen placed with Michael Vandergucht, with whom he remained, first as pupil, afterwards as assistant, till 1709. Vertue then began to engrave for booksellers. Afterwards he was employed by Sir Godfrey Kneller to engrave his portraits. A head of Archbishop Tillotson, which he engraved for Lord Somers, and which was considered the best print that had appeared in England for several years, laid the foundation of his reputation. Thenceforth he never wanted employment. His industry was untiring, and the number of his prints is very great: Walpole has given a classified list of them at the end of his Catalogue of Engravers. Many of Vertue's engravings were made for private patrons—Harley, earl of Oxford, the earl of Winchelsea, the duke of Dorset, Lord Coleraine, and others. He engraved portraits of a large number of distinguished persons of his own time, after Kneller, Dahl, Richardson, &c.; portraits illustrative of Lord Clarendon's History; portraits of the English sovereigns, &c., for the folio edition of Rapin's History—a task which occupied him three years; a series of twelve portraits of poets, from the gallery <section end="509Zcontin" />