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WIS WISHART,, a Scottish bishop and biographer, was born at Yester, East Lothian, in 1609. He studied at the university of Edinburgh, and was ordained one of the ministers of St. Andrews. Having refused to take the Covenant, he was deposed by the assembly of 1639, and being detected in secret correspondence with the royalists, he was thrown into prison. He was no less than three times similarly punished. In 1644 he was taken prisoner at the surrender of Newcastle, and kept in durance for a season. In 1645 he became chaplain to Montrose, and went abroad with him. After the death of Montrose Wishart became chaplain to Elizabeth, the electress palatine, and came with her to England in 1660 on the restoration of her nephew. Having been made bishop of Edinburgh, he took immediate possession of his see, and it is said that the remembrance of his own former privations prompted him to show daily acts of kindness to the imprisoned covenanters. Bishop Wishart died in 1671, and was buried in the abbey church of Holyrood. His principal work is his history of the war under Montrose, published in Latin—"De rebus auspiciis serenissimi et potentissimi Caroli D. G. Brit. Regis, sub imperio illustrissimi Montisrosarum Marchionis, sub anno 1644, et duobus sequentibus," Paris, 1647. An English translation was published in 1756 by the Ruddimans at Edinburgh, containing also Wishart's continuation; and by Constable in 1819. When Montrose was condemned, his enemies barbarously hung from his neck this famous volume, which the unfortunate hero declared was held by him in higher honour than his chain and garter. Bishop Wishart's character, if we are to trust Woodrow, was not so high as his talents. He is accused of profane swearing, drunkenness, and the composition of licentious poems.—J. E.  WISHART,, a Scottish divine, born at Dalkeith, and educated at Utrecht. On his return from the continent he was suspected of connection with the Rye-house plot, and arrested. He then went abroad, and coming over from Holland at the Revolution, was ordained one of the ministers of Leith. In 1716 he was appointed principal of the university of Edinburgh and one of the city ministers. His "Theologia" is a good plain digest of the Calvinistic system.—J. E.  WISSENBACH,, a celebrated jurist, was born at Fronshuisen in Nassau, on the 8th October, 1607. He was the son of Johann Wissenbach, Calvinist minister of the place. He studied first for the church, but afterwards abandoned theology for jurisprudence, which he studied successively at Herborn, Franeker, Groningen, and Marpurg. He took the degree of doctor of canon and civil law in 1631. For a short time he taught jurisprudence at Heidelberg, and subsequently accompanied the Baron Zinzendorf in his travels in France, Italy, and England. On his return he was appointed extraordinary professor of law in the university of Franeker, in 1640, and ordinary professor three years afterwards. His attachment to this university made him refuse offers from Herborn, Deventer, Utrecht, and many other places. To the study of jurisprudence he added that of antiquities, history, and ancient philosophy. He died at Franeker on the 16th February, 1665. A collected edition of his works, exclusive of his commentaries on the first and second parts of the Pandects, and on the first six books of the Code, was published at Franeker in 1666.—R. M., A.  WISSOWATZI, (in Latin Wissowatius), a celebrated Socinian, was born of a noble family at Philippovia in Lithuania in 1608. His mother, whose name was Agnes, was a daughter of the famous Faustus Socinus. His parents intended him for some post in the civil service; but Martin Ruarus, who had recognized the brilliant talents of the youth, besought them to allow him (Ruarus) to teach him theology, in order, he said, to repair the great loss which the sect had experienced in the death of Faustus Socinus. His parents consented, and Wissowatzi, after some preliminary instruction, was sent to Leyden, where he made the acquaintance of Vossius, Barlæus, and De Courcelles. Having completed his education, and travelled for some time in England and France, he settled as a Socinian minister in Volhynia. But by reason both of the political troubles of the times, and of the hatred with which the Socinians were regarded, the young minister's life was soon filled with the most anxious and distracting cares. Wissowatzi was besides bold even to rashness, and wanted the prudence necessary in such difficult circumstances. He was driven from place to place, and was forced at last to take refuge at Przypcovitz in Hungary. From that place he removed to the Palatinate, and finally took up his residence in Holland, where he died in 1678. Wissowatzi procured the famous Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum to be printed at Amsterdam, though the place is not mentioned on the title-page. In this work are contained his notes on the New Testament. The "Andreæ Wissowatii narratio, quomodo in Poloniâ à Trinitariis reformatis separati sint Christiani Unitarii," together with an Anonymi epistola, exhibens vitæ ac mortis Andreæ Wissowatii, necnon ecclesiarum Unitariorum ejus tempore, brevem historiam, has been printed in Sand's Bibliotheca Anti-Trinitariorum. Wissowatzi also gave a metrical rendering of the Psalms of David in Polish—a work, however, which has never been printed.—R. M., A.  WISTAR,, an American physician, was born at New Jersey in 1760. His father was a German emigrant and a Quaker. He was educated at the school founded by Penn in Philadelphia, and after having commenced the study of medicine, and obtained the degree of M.B. in that city, he came to Europe and entered the university of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1786. He returned to Philadelphia in the following year, and shortly afterwards was appointed professor of chemistry and physiology in the university. He afterwards shared with Dr. Shippen the chairs of anatomy and surgery, and on the death of his colleague discharged their whole duties. He filled the offices of physician to the dispensary and hospital at Philadelphia, and was in 1816 chosen president of the Philosophical Society. He died of fever, contracted in the discharge of his professional duties, on the 22nd of January, 1818. Dr. Wistar was a successful lecturer, and a good anatomist and naturalist. He published in 1812 a system of anatomy in two vols., and was the author of several memoirs on medical, philosophical, and palæontological subjects.—F. C. W.  WITHER,, the poet, was born in 1588 in Hampshire, and was the son of a country gentleman of that county. He received his later education at Oxford; and after an interval of agricultural labour at home, entered himself at one of the inns of court, but soon diverged from law into literature. In 1613 appeared, not his first, but the first of his more notable publications, the "Abuses stript and whipt," a satire on the times, for which he was imprisoned. During this imprisonment he wrote not only an indignant "Satire to the Kings," but his "Shepherd's Hunting," one of the most pleasing of his pastoral performances. His pen became now very prolific both of prose and verse, and he grew to be considered by the puritans one of their chief literary champions. Yet, strangely enough. Wither served in Charles' expedition of 1639 against his Scotch subjects. On the breaking out of the civil war in England, however, he espoused with zeal the side of the parliament, and to raise a troop of horse sold the patrimony which he had meanwhile inherited. Eventually, after captivity and suffering, he emerged into prosperity, on the triumph of the cause to which he had adhered. At the Restoration he was impoverished and imprisoned, and he died in 1667. Wither is a most unequal writer; hence the exaggerated depreciation and appreciation which he has received. His prose is quite forgotten, but his poetry, though it abounds with doggrel, contains some beautiful passages. "I think," says Mr. Hallam, "there is hardly anything in our lyric poetry of this period equal to Wither's lines on his muse." His "Hymns and Songs of the Church" were edited, with an introduction, by Mr. Edward Farr in 1856.—F. E.  WITHERING,, an English botanist and physician, was born at Wellington in Shropshire in 1741, and died near Birmingham on the 6th of October, 1799. His father was a respectable apothecary. Young Withering prosecuted his studies at the university of Edinburgh, and took the degree of M.D. in 1766. He practised for a short time at Stafford, and then removed to Birmingham, where he acquired great reputation as a physician. He devoted his leisure to the prosecution of botany, and in 1776 appeared the first edition of his "Arrangement of British Plants," in 2 vols. 8vo. It was chiefly taken from Hudson and Ray. The third edition, in 1796, in four volumes, was much improved, and had more the character of an original work. In 1783 he published a translation of Bergmann's Mineralogy, and in 1785 a treatise on the use of digitalis as a diuretic. He printed a memoir on scarlet fever, and he contributed papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society. A genus of plants was named Witheringia after him.—J. H. B.  WITHERINGTON,, R.A., was born in London, May 26, 1785. He became a student in the Royal <section end="659Zcontin" />