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VIL Villiers de L'Isle-Adam died in Malta on the 21st of August, 1534. The poets Mayre and Privat-Foutanilles have celebrated his deeds in heroic verse.—R. M., A.  VILLIERS. See.  VILLIERS. See.  VILLOISON, , a distinguished Greek scholar, was born at Corbeil-sur-Seine in France on the 5th of March, 1750. From his earliest years he evinced remarkable ability and perseverance as a student, outstripping not merely his fellow-pupils, but his teachers themselves; and in proof of this, we are told that at the age of fifteen he had actually read almost all the Greek authors. Greek was the language to which he specially devoted his attention; and when only twenty-two years old he published the first edition of Apollonius' Lexicon on the Iliad and Odyssey, to which were added the fragments of Philemon, accompanied with learned prolegomena and notes. This publication at once attracted the admiring attention of the scholars of Europe. He continued to prosecute his studies with undiminished vigour; and his chief desire being to give to the world as yet unpublished classics, he was sent in 1778 to Venice, at the expense of the state, to search the library of St. Mark. The discoveries he made appeared under the title of "Anecdota Græca," in 1781. One of his discoveries in the Venetian library was pregnant with momentous consequences. It was a manuscript of the Iliad, with ancient scholia, and marginal notes pointing out transposed, corrupt, or supposititious verses—and was published by its finder in 1788. Wolf's celebrated Prolegomena ad Homerum, which, it is truly said, has undoubtedly had greater influence than any other learned production of modern times, was largely founded on this discovery of Villoison. After residing for some time at Weimar, and publishing in the Epistolæ Vimarienses the results of his search in the library of that capital also, Villoison travelled for several years in Greece. There he collected an ample store of materials for a great work on the country he was visiting, and the execution of which he had for some time planned. But on his return to France, the disorder and turmoil of the Revolution frustrated the design he had in view. After the lull of the political tempest, he returned to Paris from Orleans, where he had been living in retirement. Napoleon appointed him professor of ancient and modern Greek in the college of France; but his death occurred shortly afterwards, 26th April, 1805.—J. J.  VILLON,, one of the numerous French poets who sprang into existence soon after the revival of letters, and whose once great popularity is now little more than a tradition, was born at Paris in 1431. He was come of poor parentage, at least we conclude so from the following lines in his "Grand Testament:"—

Very little, however, is known of the history of his life. In 1461 he was committed to prison at Melun, together with five accomplices, for a crime the nature of which is not known. Whatever it was, he tells us that he was tempted into it by his mistress, who afterwards deserted him. After remaining in a dungeon and in chains during a whole summer, he was condemned to be hanged; but Louis XI., then newly come to the throne, commuted his sentence into exile, in consideration of his poetical abilities. Villon is perhaps the only man, says Carey, whom the muse has rescued from the gallows. After his enlargement he was reduced to such straits that he was forced to beg his bread. The two facts mentioned by Rabelais are all we know respecting his subsequent life, viz., his having been in favour with Edward V. of England, and his dying at an advanced age. Besides his "Petit Testament," written in 1456, and his "Grand Testament," composed during his imprisonment, his published writings consist of only a few ballads in the language D'Argot—a sort of slang used among knaves of that age, but now wholly unintelligible. His two "Testaments," which were praised by Boileau, are humorous pieces, in which a fancied disposal of property is made with the view only of raising a laugh at the legatees—a species of drollery in which Villon has had a crowd of imitators. Villon's poems were edited by Clement Marot at the instance of Francis I. Another edition was published at Paris in 1723.—R. M., A.  VILMAR,, a German politician and author, was born at Solz in Hesse on the 20th November, 1800. He was successively rector of the municipal school of Rothenburg, professor in the college of Hersfeld, professor at Hanau, and rector of the college of Marburg. In 1851 he was appointed superintendent of the affairs of the church at Cassel, and took his seat in the following year in the higher chamber. Vilmar was a conservative in religious and educational matters. He edited "Die Weltchronik Rudolf's von Ems," Marburg, 1839; and wrote "Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Nationallitteratur, "Marburg, 1845; "Schulreden über Fragen der Treit," &c. He died in 1868.—R. M., A.  VILMORIN,, an eminent French horticulturist, was born in 1816, and died at Paris on 22nd March, 1860. He and his father rendered important services to agriculture and horticulture, and did much to improve the useful products of cultivated plants. Many new varieties were introduced by them, an account of which was published under the title "Notice sur l'amelioration des plantes par les senis, et considerations sur l'heredité des Vegetaux." Vilmorin also gave an account of the various sorts of wheat known in cultivation.—J. H. B.  VINCE,, D.D., an English mathematician and mechanical philosopher, died in 1821. He was for many years a fellow of the Royal Society, and professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy in the university of Cambridge, and finally became archdeacon of Bedford. He contributed various papers to the Philosophical Transactions on mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, and atmospheric refraction; improved the Archimedean demonstration of the property of the lever, and made some important experiments on friction and other mechanical subjects.—R. <section end="527H" /> <section begin="527I" />VINCENT, a Dominican of the thirteenth century, regarded as the precursor of the Encyclopædists, at a time when the word encyclopædia was not invented. He was reader to St. Louis, king of France, and tutor to his children. He compiled a summary of general knowledge, under the title of "Speculum Majus," containing subjects of a natural, philosophical, and historical kind. As the work contains the opinions of authors who are not now extant, it possesses considerable curiosity; in general, however, it only displays the ignorance and superstition of the age in which it was written. Vincent is supposed to have died about 1264.—W. J. P. <section end="527I" /> <section begin="527J" />VINCENT, a noted Greek writer of the fifth century, died about 450. Of the personal history of this St. Vincent, so much only is known as may be gathered from a few sentences occurring in the small tract, the "Commonitorium," upon which his repute as a writer rests. This tract, which is of not more than about seventy pages, well deserves perusal: pointed, animated, and concise in style, it brings within these narrow limits the substance of what others have drawn out to a wearisome length. In modern times St. Vincent has been much brought into notice in the controversy between Romanists and protestants; and again, more lately, in the Oxford Tracts for the Times. From the preface to the "Commonitorium" we learn that the writer, after having passed through the turmoil of a soldier's life, with its various and its disastrous fortunes, had retired from the world, and had found a haven of rest in a monastery—that of Lerins, a green island off the coast of Provence (not far from the now much-frequented town of Cannes). Availing himself of this secure retreat, he had addicted himself to religious meditation; and to careful thought also, labouring to discover for his own comfort and for the use of others, certain rules or principles in the application of which he might assure himself that he held catholic truth, clear of heretical pravity of all sorts, and especially from the false teachings of Novatian, Sabellius, Donatus, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, Jovinian, Pelagius, Cælestius, and Nestorius. The rule on which he insists for this purpose has been often quoted of late. "A Christian man," he says, "is safe who holds quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. Hoc est etenim proprieque catholicum." This rule may indeed serve us well, if only we are willing to apply it honestly and intelligently; but then it will not lead us either into Romanism, or the superstitions of the fourth and fifth centuries, or into the practices of the middle ages. The "Commonitorium" has often passed through the press—as in the editions of Antwerp, 1560: Leyden, 1572; Cologne, 1600; Augsburg, 1757; Rome, 1765, Vienna, 1809; and Ingolstadt, 1834.—I. T. <section end="527J" /> <section begin="527Zcontin" />VINCENT DE PAUL, a saint of the Roman calendar, and <section end="527Zcontin" />