Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/598

WEL long, and his hands and feet in excellent proportion. His hair was originally coal-black; it became white as silver before he died, but to the last there was no baldness. His eyes were of a dark violet-blue or grey, and his sight was so penetrating that even to the last he could distinguish objects at an immense distance. The general expression of his countenance when silent or preoccupied, was grave; but his smile had a charm about it which, when once seen, could never be forgotten. A forehead not very high, but broad and square, eyebrows straight and prominent, a long face, a Roman nose, a broad under jaw, with a chin strongly marked, gave him a striking resemblance to more than one of the heroes of antiquity, especially to Julius Cæsar."

"Full of years beyond the term of mortality, and of honours almost beyond human parallel" the great duke descended to the grave "like a shock of corn fully ripe." He was one of the wisest and most loyal and faithful subjects that ever graced and supported the English throne. "He was the grandest, because the truest man, whom modern times have produced."—J. T.  WELLS,, M.D., was born at Charleston, South Carolina, in May, 1757. The son of a Scotchman, he was sent by his father to be educated in Scotland, and was placed at a school at Dumfries, and afterwards attended classes in the university of Edinburgh. He returned to Charleston in 1771, and was apprenticed there to Dr. Alexander Garden, the principal medical practitioner and a zealous naturalist. In 1775, having refused to take part in the resistance to the British government. Wells left America and came to London. Thence he proceeded to Edinburgh for the purpose of medical study, and after three years passed the usual examinations, but did not at that time graduate. Returning to London he studied for a time at St. Bartholomew's, and then obtained a commission as surgeon in a Scottish regiment in the service of the United Provinces. From this appointment he soon retired on account of a quarrel with his commanding officer. He then resided at Leyden and composed his inaugural thesis "De Frigore," and thence proceeded to Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1780. After a visit to Carolina, where during a stay of three years he was at one and the same time a volunteer officer, a printer and bookseller, a merchant, and trustee for some English connections, he returned to England in 1784, and in the following year settled in London as a physician. In 1788 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians, and in 1790 became physician to the Finsbury dispensary. In 1798 he was elected assistant-physician to St. Thomas' hospital, and physician in 1800. His private practice is said not to have been commensurate with his merits. He died at his lodgings in Sergeants' inn, 18th September, 1817, and was buried at St. Bride's, Fleet Street, where is a tablet to his memory. The work on dew, which has immortalized his name, appeared in 1814 under the title of "An Essay on Dew, with several appearances connected with it." Two years after the Royal Society awarded to his researches the Rumford medal. His medical writings consist principally of papers in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. Several papers on scientific subjects were read by him before the Royal Society, and were published in the Philosophical Transactions. Besides the essay on dew, his only separate publication was "An Essay on Single Vision with Two Eyes," 8vo, London, 1792. Dr. Wells was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1793, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1814.—F. C. W.  WELLWOOD,, an eminent physician and historian, was descended from an old family long officially connected with Dunfermline, and was born in 1652. He was educated first at Glasgow and afterwards at Leyden, where he took the degree of M.D. He returned to Britain with William, prince of Orange, at the Revolution, was appointed one of the royal physicians for Scotland, and settled at Edinburgh, where he attained great eminence in his profession, and acquired a considerable fortune. He died in 1716. He was the ancestor of the Wellwoods of Garvock and Pitliver in Fife. Sir James was the author of "Vindication of the Revolution in England in 1688," 4to, 1689; "Memoirs of the most Material Transactions in England for the last hundred years preceding the Revolution of 1688," 8vo, 1692; "An Answer to the late King James' Last Declaration to all his pretended subjects in the Kingdom of England, dated at Dublin Castle, May 8, 1689."—J. T.  WELSTED,, an English poet, was born at Abington, Northamptonshire, in 1689, and was educated in Westminster school, where he wrote a celebrated little poem called the "Apple Pie," sometimes attributed to Dr. King, and which may be found in Nicholls' Select Collection of Poems. He was appointed early in life to a post at the ordnance office by the influence of the earl of Clare, to whom, when he afterwards became duke of Newcastle, Welsted penned a clever address. In 1724 Welsted published "Epistles, Odes, &c., with a translation of Longinus on the Sublime." His other works were "The Genius," a poem on the death of Marlborough; the prologue and epilogue to Steele's Conscious Lovers; "The Triumvirate," a supposed satire on Pope, for which he was repaid in the Dunciad; "The Dissembled Wanton," a comedy; and several compositions of a minor character. He died in 1747.—F.  WENCESLAUS, Emperor of Germany from 1378 to 1411, was the son of Charles IV., the promulgator of the Golden bull. In 1377 he was, not without demur, crowned king of the Romans at Aix-la-Chapelle. The following year, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the imperial dignity. The crisis demanded a man who could wield the sovereign authority with more than usual dexterity and vigour. The imperial cities of Suabia had combined in a league for their mutual protection against the emperor's encroachments. The great western schism, which placed one pope at Rome and another at Avignon, divided the princes of Germany into hostile parties, and a league of the nobility was formed in opposition to that of the cities. Wenceslaus, unable to control these powerful factions, secretly fomented their animosity in the hope of triumphing over them both when exhausted. The first diet which he held was at Nuremberg, but it was afterwards removed to Frankfort. In 1387 he adopted the important administrative measure of dividing the empire into four circles, a scheme subsequently completed by Maximilian. After a second diet at Nuremberg in 1388, the emperor, who had given umbrage to the nobles of Bohemia by the severity with which he had quelled their disorderly conduct, was seized by the malcontents and imprisoned. Through the mediation of the diet, however, he was reinstated in his authority. He greatly tarnished the honour of his crown by granting the title of Duke of Milan to the infamous Galeazzo Visconti, who gave a large sum of money in exchange for the investiture. He was a man of self-indulgent habits, but not ill-disposed to good government; and as the highest sovereign of Christendom he bade the contending popes to abdicate their assumed authority, and summoned the cardinals to elect another chief of the church. Boniface IX. not only refused compliance with this requisition, but retorted upon Wenceslaus a sentence of deposition which the ecclesiastical electors and some of the free cities agreed to confirm. The remaining free cities, however, two electors, and all the princes continued to acknowledge him as emperor until 1411, when he voluntarily resigned his dominions to his brother Sigismund, who has been charged with instigating many of the intrigues that troubled the reign of Wenceslaus. The latter lived seven years in Bohemia, and died at Prague in 1418.—R. H.  WENTWORTH,, Earl of Strafford, was born in London, 13th April, 1593, and was the eldest of twelve children of Sir William Wentworth, the representative of an ancient and wealthy family which had been seated at Wentworth Wodehouse since the Conquest. He numbered among his ancestors "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster," the old barons of Newark and Oversley, and the Cliffords, De Spencers, D'Arcys, Latimers, Quinceys, Beaumonts, and other members of the 'great old houses' of England." From his youth upward Thomas Wentworth seems to have regarded his aristocratic descent with pride, and it is not unworthy of notice that he was educated at St. John's college, which was founded by the grandmother of Henry VII., whom he claimed as one of his ancestors. At an early age he showed great powers of mind as well as a very generous disposition. On leaving the university, in his eighteenth year, he obtained the honour of knighthood, doubtless by purchase, and probably with a view to his marriage to Frances, eldest daughter of the earl of Cumberland, which took place before the close of the same year (1611). Immediately after, he made a tour through France and Italy. On his return home, in 1614, he was elected knight of the shire for Yorkshire in the second parliament of James VI., and succeeded about the same time to the family estates by the death of his father. The parliament showed a strong determination to abolish the monopolies and other unjust grants made by the king, and was in consequence dissolved after a session of two months. Wentworth remained a silent spectator of the struggle for popular rights, and was 