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 VOSSIUS troversy. Voss translated much from French and English. His shorter pieces were pub- lished in 1829 under the title KritiscJie Blat- ter, nebst geographischen Abhandlungen (2 vols., Stuttgart). His son Abraham published Brief e von Johann Heinrich Voss, mit erlautemden Beilagen (3 vols., 1829-'33). In 1838 appeared a volume of Voss's AnmerTcungen und Rand- glossen zu GriecTien und Rdmern. His biogra- phy has been written by Paulus (1826), Coring (1833), and Herbst (1872 et seq.). OSSII S, or Voss. I. Gerard Johannes, a Dutch philologist, born near Heidelberg in 1577, died in Amsterdam, March 17, 1649. He studied at Dort and Leyden, and at the age of 22 was appointed master of the public school of Dort, in 1614 director of the theological college at Leyden, and in 1618 professor of eloquence and chronology. Shortly afterward he was deprived of his professorship on the charge of Arminianism, founded upon his Historia de Controversiis qnas Pelagius ejusque Reliquiae moverunt (1618); but in 1621 the synod of Kotterdam restored him on condition that he should neither speak nor write against the synod of Dort. For some years he refused to comply with the condition, and in the mean time was prohibited from teaching. Arch- bishop Laud procured him a prebend in the cathedral of Canterbury, which he was per- mitted to hold as a sinecure till 1629, when he visited England and was installed. He re- turned to Holland soon after, and in 1633 be- came professor of history in a college then newly founded at Amsterdam. He wrote Ars Rhetorica (1623); De Historicis Greeds (1624); De Historicis Latinis (1627); Aristarchus, site deArte Grammatica (1635) ; De Theologia Gen- tili (1642) ; De Rhetorices Natura et Constitu- tione (1647); and various other treatises on history, poetry, rhetoric, logic, and the math- ematical sciences. His collected works are in 6 vols. fol. (Amsterdam, 1695-1701). II. Isaac, a Dutch author, son of the preceding, born in Leyden in 1618, died at Windsor castle, Eng- land, Feb. 21, 1689. After his studies with his .father were completed he visited Italy, France, and England, and in 1648 was invited to Sweden by Queen Christina. A misunder- standing with Salmasius exposed him to the queen's displeasure, and he returned home in - 1650. He was requested by the states of Hol- land to write a history of the war between England and Holland, but refused ; upon which he was deprived of his pension, and in 1670 went to England. At Oxford he was made a doctor of laws, and Charles II. made him a canon of Windsor in 1673. Among his best known works are his De Poematum Cantu et Viribus RhytJimi (1673), Variarum Observa- tionum Liter (1685), and editions of Catullus, Ignatius, and Pomponius Mela. VOUET, Simon, a French painter, born in Paris, Jan. 9, 1590, died there, June 30, 1649. He studied under his father, and in 1611 went with the French ambassador to Constantino- VULCAN 411 pie, where he painted from memory a portrait of the sultan Ahmed I. After familiarizing himself at Venice with the style of Paul Vero- nese, he settled in 1613 in Rome, became a rival of Domenichino and an imitator of Guido and Caravaggio, and in 1624 was made prince of the academy of St. Luke. In 1625 he married the painter Virginia di Vezzo of Velletri. In 1627 Louis XIII., who had long paid him a pension of 2,000 francs, invited him to the Louvre. He became his principal painter, and was em- ployed in embellishing the palaces at Paris, Versailles, and Fontainebleau, Richelieu's chap- el at hia chateau of Rueil, and many of the churches. His " St. Francis de Paula resusci- tating a Child," in the church of the Minims, and " Presentation in the Templa," in the Louvre, are his masterpieces. VUILLAOIE, Jean Baptist*, a' French violin maker, born at Mirecourt, Vosges, Oct. 7, 1798, died in Paris in 1874. His great-grand- father worked under Antonio Stradivari, and his grandfather was celebrated as a violin ma- ker. Jean early exhibited great skill in his father's shop, and in 1818 went to Paris, where he soon became distinguished. He revived the long neglected laws of acoustics in the manu- facture of violins, making a special study of all the qualities of the ancient instruments, particularly the varnishes ; and he attempted to imitate the old violins by means of chemically prepared wood. He aimed to copy exactly the violins of Stradivari, the Amatis, and Giovanni Paolo Maggini, and invented a machine for re- producing any model. He also made bows after the model of Tourte. In 40 years he turned out more than 3,000 violins, many of which he made himself throughout. In the Paris expo- sition of 1855 he received the unique grand medal of honor accorded to the best maker of stringed instruments with bows; and in the exposition of 1867 he was declared above the range of competition. He was intimate with the Italian connoisseur Tarisio, and purchased his entire collection. VULCAN, the Latin name of the Greek Hephaestus, the god of- fire, and of the arts and industries dependent on fire. According to the Hesiodic theogony, he was one of the 12 great gods of Olympus ; but one account made him the son of Jupiter and Juno, the other of Juno alone. In Homer he is represented as de- formed from his birth, and his appearance eo disgusted his mother that she dropped him from Olympus into the sea, where he was kindly treated by Thetis and Eurynome, with whom he remained nine years. Later writers relate that he was brought up in heaven with the other gods, and that once interfering in behalf of his mother, who had been fastened by Jupiter with a golden chain, he was hurled by the latter down from Olympus. He was a whole day in passing to the earth, and at even- ing fell in the island of Lemnos. His leg was broken by the fall. There he built himself a palace, and constructed workshops and forges.