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Louisiana v. Wood

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Upon the facts found by the court below this case is as follows:--

The city of Louisiana, Missouri, had authority in law to borrow money, at any rate of interest not exceeding ten per cent per annum, and to provide for the payment of its debts. On the 8th of January, 1867, an ordinance was passed by the city council creating the office of 'city fund commissioner.' It was made the duty of this officer to sell the bonds of the city for the purpose of funding or paying the indebtedness of the city, and apply the proceeds to the purchase of outstanding warrants and bonds past due, or not having more than three years to run. By this ordinance he was limited in his sales to a price not less than ninety-five cents on the dollar of the par value of five-year bonds, and ninety cents for those running ten years. On the 1st of March, 1871, the fund commissioner reported to the city council that the bonded indebtedness of the city was about $150,000, bearing interest mostly at the rate of ten per cent per annum, and that about $100,000 would mature that year, and in the years 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1875. Upon this report an ordinance was passed authorizing the commissioner 'to negotiate the bonds of the city for purpose of raising money to liquidate the city debt, for a period not exceeding fifteen years, and at a rate of discount not exceeding fifteen per cent.'

On the 28th of March, 1872, the General Assembly of that State passed 'An Act to provide for the registration of bonds issued by counties, cities, and incorporated towns,' sects. 4 and 11 of which are as follows:--

'SECT. 4. Before any bond hereafter issued by any county, city, or incorporated town, for any purpose whatever, shall obtain validity or be negotiated, such bond shall first be presented to the State auditor, who shall register the same in a book or books provided for that purpose, in the same manner as the State bonds are now registered, and who shall certify by indorsement on such bond that all the conditions of the laws have been complied with in its issue, if that be the case; and, also, that the conditions of the contract under which they were ordered to be issued have also been complied with, and the evidence of that fact shall be filed and preserved by the auditor; but such certificate shall be prima facie evidence only of the facts therein stated, and shall not preclude or prohibit any person from showing or proving the contrary in any suit or proceeding to test or determine the validity of such bonds, or the power of any court, city or town council, or board of trustees or other authority, to issue such bonds; and the remedy of injunction shall also lie at the instance of any tax-payer of the respective county, city, or incorporated town, to prevent the registration of any bonds alleged to be illegally issued or founded under any of the provisions of this act.'

'SECT. 11. Any county, city, or town that desires to place its outstanding indebtedness, under the provisions of this act, may do so by funding the same, and issuing new bonds in lieu of the present ones, upon such terms and bearing such interest, with such length of time to run, as may be agreed upon between the county, city, or town and the holders of its bonds: Provided, however, that the contract for fundings, with the terms of the same, shall be assented to by a majority of the qualified voters of such county, city, or town, at a general or special election held therefor, and at least thirty days' public notice of the same shall be published in every paper in the county, city, or town, and when there are none, then by four printed handbills put up in the most public places in every voting precinct in such county, city, or town.'

Other sections make special provision for the assessment and collection of taxes to pay the principal and interest of all bonds registered in accordance with the act.

On the 16th of July, 1872, after this act went into effect, the city, for the purpose of raising money to pay its interest-bearing debts and the expenses of its government, caused to be executed by its proper officers, and sealed with its corporate seal, twenty-one bonds, payable to bearer on the 1st of January, 1887, for $1,000 each, with coupons attached for semi-annual interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum. These bonds contained recitals that they were issued under the authority of the charter and the ordinance of Jan. 8, 1867. Although not actually executed until July 16, 1872, the city, 'for the purpose of evading the provisions of said registration law, and with the intent to make it falsely appear that said bonds were not subject to the requirements of said law, caused said bonds to be antedated as of the first day of January, 1872, and caused it to be falsely stated in them that they were signed, countersigned, and sealed on the day last named.' The bonds thus executed were, without being registered, placed by the fund commissioner in the hands of a respectable stock and bond broker in St. Louis, to sell for the account of the city. On the 25th of August, 1873, the broker and agent sold and delivered to the plaintiff below, now the defendant in error, ten of the bonds at ninety per cent of their face value, and on the 1st of September nine more at the same rate. On the 24th of June he sold to Lewis Dorsheimer one bond, and on the 24th of February, 1874, another to John F. Gibbons, at the same price. The price was in each case paid to the broker in money, the purchasers all the time being ignorant of the fact that the bonds were actually executed after the registration law went into effect, or that the recitals were not in all respects true. They bought the bonds, and paid for them in good faith, believing them to be what on their face they purported to be, and obligatory on the city. The broker, with the assent of the fund commissioner, retained from the money realized on the sales five per cent on the par value of the bonds sold, for his services, and paid the residue to the commissioner, who, with the sanction of the city council, used part in the payment and redemption of matured bonds, coupons, and warrants of the city, and handed over the rest to the city treasurer. The fund commissioner reported the sales of the bonds to the city council, and charged himself with a sum equal to eighty-five per cent of the par value as the sum realized by him, making no mention of the amount retained by the broker for services. His accounts were examined and approved by the city council, and the bonds, coupons, and warrants taken up by his payments were destroyed. The interest on the bonds thus sold was met in full by the city as it matured until Jan. 1, 1876, when only forty per cent was paid, and on the 1st of July of that year the city declared its purpose not to pay either principal or interest, claiming that the bonds were invalid because not registered.

The bonds bought by Dorsheimer and Gibbons were transferred to the plaintiff. After the city had repudiated its obligation, he offered to return the whole twenty-one bonds, and demanded the repayment of the several sums paid for them. This being refused, the present suit was brought to recover back the money so paid. Upon the foregoing facts the court gave judgment against the city for $18,900, and interest at the rate of six per cent per annum from the time the payment of the interest on the bonds was stopped. To reverse that judgment, the city brought the case to this court, and the error assigned is that the facts found are not sufficient to support the judgment.

Mr. David P. Dyer for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. John D. S. Dryden, contra.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE, after stating the facts, delivered the opinion of the court.

title: Louisiana v. Wood


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 58 are being compared with the local cults of savages, which become obliterated before the savage state of society has ceased to exist, and therefore must have been obliterated long before civilisation could have dawned upon the prehistoric savages of Europe.

The questions, then, which folk-lorists have to ask Col. Ellis are: (1) Is his theory so absolutely true of the Slave Coast savages of Africa as to admit of no modification by the light of folk-lore research? (2) If his theory cannot be disturbed, does it apply to these African savages specially, and must not be taken to be of general import?

These questions, it will be seen, indicate a proposition which I feel sure this Society will think necessary to put forward, namely, that investigators into savage custom and belief, when they are discussing origins and development, should take into consideration the problems suggested by the science of folk-lore.

Another fruitful source of error in those anthropologists who do not take count of the detailed methods and ascertained results of folk-lore is the idea that the hunting and pastoral stage of life is necessarily earlier in development than and generally precedes the agricultural. This idea has become so prevalent that it is stated as the basis of important arguments by scholars of the first importance. But it is not in accord with the evidence of folk-lore. I do not follow quite closely the extremely interesting study which Mr. Grant Allen has given us in his discourse on the Attis of Catullus; but, at all events, I recognise that he has gone a long way to prove the primitive origin of agriculture. And for this proof he has appealed only to folk-lore. I note this as a triumph for our study, and one which we should be careful to register, because it touches upon one of the most important stages in the social history of man.

Now Mr. Grant Allen suggests, if I follow him rightly, that cultivation began through the offerings of fruits and seeds at the graves or barrows of departed ancestors. This, of course, presupposes a previous state of things when

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 60 I am not quite sure whether the evidence is yet complete enough to write "proven" against it; but I am sure that it is sufficient to disturb the equanimity of those who, on the strength of the theory that the agricultural stage of society is necessarily an advance upon the hunting and pastoral stage, draw important conclusions as to the relative barbarism or culture of people who are found in either of these conditions of life. I leave this part of my subject in the hands of the Ethnological Committee, and I shall be greatly surprised if, before its work is done, we do not discover that folk-lore has yet some revelations to make not dreamt of by those who shrink from admitting that there can be any science in the testimony of tradition.

But I do not leave the ethnographical evidence of folklore, for I think in the county collections we have the beginning of most excellent material. Thanks to Mr. Hartland, Lady Camilla Gurdon, and Mr. Clodd, we have now two county collections. They are probably not complete; but, as they stand, they afford a very valuable study in comparative folk-lore. It happens that neither Gloucestershire nor Suffolk has received the attention of a special collector of its folk-lore, and we therefore approach these collections almost in the nature of monographs. The two counties are sufficiently distinct, geographically and philologically, to hope for some results, and I have taken the trouble to draw up some points of comparison, from which I will give one important result.

It is that Suffolk appears to have retained the myth-making stage of thought very strongly, while there is no trace of this in Gloucestershire. Thus the peasant at Martlesham in Suffolk, who believed the pudding-stone conglomerate to be the mother of the pebbles, was either a poet or a myth-maker; and I argue for the latter assumption because of his companions, who believed that land produced the stones; that the primroses left Cockfield village because they caught the plague and died; that the Virgin Mary thistle once supplied the place of a cup when


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 Rh fruits and seeds were the ordinary food of the people. There is evidence of this from the rudest types of man.

Immediately in the neighbourhood of the Turees are a savage set of beings termed Nahals, who exist perfectly wild among the mountains, subsisting chiefly on roots, fruits, and berries; marriage contracts, as well as all other religious ceremonies, are entirely dispensed with, and the assorted pair are free to live together whilst they choose, or separate at pleasure and convenience; the infant accompanies its mother to her next abode, but the grown-up children remain with the father. The Nahals are dark and diminutive in stature,and their features are exceedingly ill-favoured. A few of this tribe cultivate a little grain among the ashes of the burnt boughs of the forest.

Wild rice, or Folle avoinie of the voyagers and traders, grows abundantly in the district between Lakes Superior and Winnipeg. In favourable seasons it affords sustenance to a populous tribe of Indians. In harvest-time the natives row their canoes among the grass, and bending its ears over the gunwale, thresh out the grain, which separates readily.

The Australian aborigines derived their subsistence from the spontaneous produce of the country. The soil was not cultivated, but a kind of grain was collected and prepared for food by pounding with stones.

I will not multiply evidence, but I draw attention to the fact that this evidence of the means of subsistence of man being derived from agricultural produce comes from the most backward races of the world. So that, from this stage up to the stage when ancestor-worship, and therefore tribal society, had become fully developed, we have the suggestion of a continued succession of agricultural people without the intervention of a hunting or pastoral stage.


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 and self-confidence. He declared that the Spirit announced that arms must be taken, the prisoners at Pont-de-Montvert delivered, and the priest of Moloch destroyed.

On July 24th, 1702, at half-past ten at night, were heard at Pont-de-Montvert strains of distant psalmody drawing nearer and nearer; it was Esprit Séguier, the terrible prophet, who was on his way with fifty-three of his men, and as they marched they sang Marot's psalm— Du Chayla heard the chant, and did not trouble himself much about it. He went to the window and saw the assembled crowd. "Get away with you!" he shouted; "dogs of Huguenots!"

But the door was burst in by a beam of wood driven against it, and the house was invaded. The fanatics occupied the ground floor. Du Chayla and his men held the staircase. "Children of God!" shouted the prophet, "let us set fire to the house of Baal and burn it and its priest." The flames spread. Du Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden by means of knotted sheets; some escaped across the river under the fire of the insurgents, but the Inspector of Missions fell and broke his thigh, and could only crawl among some bushes. The Calvinists went through the house shouting for his blood. Finding on the staircase a


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 is dedicated. From this letter Webbe would appear to have been present when the first version of the play in 1568 at the Inner Temple was 'curiously acted in view of her majesty, by whom it was then princely accepted.' Nothing more is known of Webbe.

While he was at Flemyngs in the 'summer evenings' apparently of 1586 Webbe composed 'A Discourse of English Poetrie. Together with the authors judgment touching the reformation of our English Verse. By William Webbe, graduate. Imprinted at London, by John Charlewood for Robert Walley, 1586,' 4to. This was entered on the 'Stationers' Register,' 4 Sept. 1586. Only two copies are known—one is in Malone's Collection at the Bodleian, and the other is now at Britwell. It was reprinted in 'Ancient Critical Essays, edited by J. Haslewood, London, 1815' (ii. 13–95), and by Edward Arber among the 'English Reprints' in 1870. The work shows Webbe to have been intimately and intelligently acquainted with contemporary English poetry and poets. It is dedicated to Edward Sulyard, and has a preface 'to the noble poets of England.' At the end of the 'Discourse' the author prints his own version in hexameters of the first two eclogues of Virgil. It appears from the dedication (see also Discourse, p. 55, ed. Arber) that he had previously translated the whole eclogues into a common English metre, probably hendecasyllables, for Sulyard's sons. The eclogues are followed by a table in English of 'Cannons or general Cautions of Poetry,' compiled from Horace by George Fabricius (1516–1571) of Chemnitz. A short 'Epilogus' concludes the tract. It is of high value and interest as a storehouse of allusions to contemporary poets, and for the light it throws upon the critical ideas of the Cambridge in which Spenser was bred. It is a proof of Webbe's taste that he perceives the superiority to contemporary verse of the 'Shepherd's Calendar' (ib. pp. 23, 35, 52, 81). He translates Spenser's fourth eclogue into quaintly absurb sapphics, and his hexameters are scarcely better; but his protest against 'this tinkerly verse which we call rhyme' must not be judged by his attempts at composition in classical metres.

Warton mentions 'a small black-lettered tract entitled "The Touchstone of Wittes," chiefly compiled, with some slender additions, from William Webbe's "Discourse of English Poetry," written by Edward Hake and printed at London by Edmund Bollifant' (History of English Poetry, ed. 1870, p. 804); but no copy is known to be extant.

WEBBER, JOHN (1750?–1793), landscape-painter, was born in London about 1750. His father, Abraham Weber, was a Swiss sculptor, who, at the age of twenty-four, settled in England, anglicised his name, and married an English woman named Maria Quandt. John, their eldest child, was sent when six years old to Berne to be brought up by a maiden aunt who resided there. At the age of thirteen he was placed with J. L. Aberli, a Swiss artist of repute, by whom he was instructed in both portraiture and landscape. Three years later he was enabled, with pecuniary assistance from the municipal authorities of Berne, to proceed to Paris to complete his training, and there he resided for five years, studying in the academy and under J. G. Wille. He then returned to his family in London, and was for a time employed by a builder in decorating the interiors of houses. In 1776 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a portrait of his brother, which attracted the notice of Dr. Solander, and this led to his appointment as draughtsman to the third and last expedition of Captain Cook to the South Seas. He returned in 1780, having witnessed the death of Cook, and was then employed for some time by the Admiralty in making finished drawings from his sketches for the illustrations to the account of the expedition which was published in 1784. These were engraved by Woollett, Pouncy, and others. Subsequently Webber painted many views of picturesque parts of England and Wales, as well as of Switzerland and North Italy, which he visited in 1787. Between 1787 and 1792 he published a series of sixteen views of places visited by him with Captain Cook, etched and coloured by himself. From 1784 he was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, of which he was elected an associate in 1785, and a full member in 1791. His paintings were carefully finished, but weak in colour and drawing. His representation of the death of Captain Cook was engraved by Byrne and Bartolozzi, and his portrait of the explorer (now in the National Portrait Gallery), which he painted at the Cape of Good Hope, was also engraved by Bartolozzi. Webber died unmarried in Oxford Street, London, on 29 April 1793. He bequeathed his Academy diploma to the public library at Berne, where also is a portrait of him painted by himself. His brother, Henry Webber, practised as a sculptor, but without distinction; the '


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Rh priest who had not escaped, they murdered him. They hunted for their arch-enemy, and at last, by the light of the flames, found him. To the last he maintained his composure. "If I be damned," said he, "will you damn yourselves also?" Séguier gave the order, and he was despatched, in the place of the little town to which they dragged him. According to Brueys, Séguier fell into an ecstasy, and offered Du Chayla his life if he would apostatise. The priest peremptorily refused. "Then die," said the prophet, and stabbed him. Then began a horrible scene. All the insurgents one after another approached, and driving their weapons into the bleeding body, reproached Du Chayla for some of the barbarities he had committed. "This thrust," said one, "is for my father, whom you caused to be executed on the wheel." "And this for my brother," said another, whom you sent to the galleys." "And this for my mother," exclaimed a third, as he ran his sword through the body, "who died of grief." The body of the Abbé du Chayla received fifty-three stabs, every one of which he had richly deserved. But the astounding thing in the whole story is that he, a man who had suffered all but absolute martyrdom for the Faith in China, should not have seen that barbarities could not turn a soul from one conviction to another.

Séguier and his companions employed the remainder of the night in prayer, kneeling around the corpses. They had murdered all found in the house, except the prisoners whom they had released, one soldier and a servant. When dawn broke they retired in good order, still singing, and ascended the Tarn to Frugères. When the last notes of their psalmody died away, two Capuchins who had managed to conceal themselves in a


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190 cellar of one of the houses in the town, crept from their retreat and carried off the body of Du Chayla to the church of S. Germain de Colberte, for burial.

But during the funeral a cry was heard outside, "The insurgents are coming! Frugères, S. Maurice, S. André de Lancize, have been given up to fire and massacre!" At once all the assembled clergy fled for their lives, and some did not stay their feet till they had found refuge behind the walls of Alais.

However, the storm that threatened to break over S. Germain rolled away to the west.

Séguier, whose name in the patois signifies The Mower, had assumed the appellation of Esprit, as he deemed himself a channel through whom the Holy Spirit spoke. He was subject to frequent ecstasies, and he had no doubt but that it was due to direct inspiration that he was prompted to the deeds of blood of which he was guilty. It is deserving of note that when he or any of the prophets and prophetesses gave forth their oracles it was never in their own names. They always spoke as if the Holy Spirit were uttering commands through their mouths, as, "I, the Spirit of God, command."

Whilst the funeral of Du Chayla was in progress, actually Séguier, followed by a band of thirty men singing psalms, had entered Frugères and shot the parish priest. They went on to S. Marcel, but thence the vicaire had escaped. At S. André the curé hearing of the approach of the band, rang the alarm bell. Séguier's men pursued him, flung him out of a belfry window, and then hacked him to death. The schoolmaster was also murdered and his body mutilated. Wherever he went Séguier destroyed the crosses and every emblem


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 months before the birth of his son, he began business as a printer at the White Horse in Little Britain, and here he produced his first book, a neat small 4to, of 96 pp., 'A Defence of the Vindication of King Charles the Martyr justifying his Majesty's title to Εἰκὼν Βασιλική in answer to … Amyntor [i.e. John Toland],' Lond. 1699, 4to. Immediately after he removed to Dogwell Court, Whitefriars. In 1700 he was made liveryman of the Stationers' Company, and was chosen one of the twenty printers allowed by the Star-chamber. On 29 Jan. 1712-13 a fire destroyed his printing-office and dwelling, and one member of the family was burnt to death. Plant and stock were consumed; Atkyn's 'Gloucestershire,' Bishop Bull's 'Primitive Christianity,' L'Estrange's 'Josephus,' part of Thoresby's 4 Ducatus Leodiensis,' and many other works, with some valuable manuscripts, were lost. The estimated total loss was 5,146l., but this was more than half replaced by the produce of a king's brief granted 6 March 1713 for a charitable collection, the contributions of friends and a subscription of his own fraternity amounting to 2,539l. In remembrance of this kindness he had several tail-pieces and devices engraved, representing a phoenix rising from the flames, with suitable mottoes used afterwards in some of his best books. Continuing his business at the houses of friends, he at length returned to Whitefriars, October 1713, where he became the foremost printer of his day, until the fame of his learned son overshadowed his. The latter was taken into partnership in 1722, and his duty thenceforward was to correct the press, while his father up to his death retained the executive, the imprint of their works continuing to be 'Printed by William Bowyer.' The list, with copious notes, of all the works published by him is given in Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes,' from 1697 to 1722, 230 pages, and of the joint works, 1722 to 1737, 370 pages.

Bowyer died 27 Dec. 1737, having survived his wife ten years, and was buried in the church of Low Leyton, Essex, in the south-west corner of which is an inscription to the memory of the Bowyer family generally. There is a marble monument erected by his son to his memory in the same church. In the stock room at Stationers' Hall there is a brass tablet, also by his son, commemorative of his loss by fire in 1712-13, and of the donations of the Stationers' Company and friends. By the side of it hangs a half-length portrait of Bowyer, which has been well described as that of 'a pleasant round-faced man' and 'a jolly good-looking man in a flowing wig.' An engraving of it by Basire Bowyer is the frontispiece of Nichols's first volume of 'Literary Anecdotes.'

In 1724 Bowyer was a nonjuror; we know nothing more of his religious views except a few traces, in his early life, recorded by Ord in the 'History of Cleveland,' where it is said that he had a controversy with a priest who defended the conduct of his sister, a professed nun of the order of Poor Clares, at Dunkirk. The letters commence October 1696, and end in June 1697, at the time when he was a journeyman printer at Daniel Sheldon's in Bartholomew Close. He seems to have been a very kind-hearted man, and ever ready to show kindness to others. He was the principal means of establishing the elder Caslon as a typefounder.

BOWYER, WILLIAM, the younger (1699–1777), 'the learned printer,' only son of the elder [q.v.] and his second wife, Dorothy Dawks, was born at Dogwell Court, Whitefriars, London, on 19 Dec. 1699, a few months after his father had set up in business as a printer and issued his first book. Early in life he was placed under the elder [q. v.], at Headley, near Leatherhead. Bowyer so won his master's affection, that when his father suffered in the great fire of 1712, he was gratuitously taught and boarded by Bonwicke for a year, without any intimation that it was the good divine's own deed. In June 1716 his father placed him as a sizar at St. John's, Cambridge, but seems to have dealt not very kindly in the matter of finances. Here he was under Dr. Christopher Anstey and Dr. Newcome, and in 1719 obtained Roper's exhibition, and wrote 'Epistola pro Sodalitio à rev. viro F. Roper mihi legato,' but did not take a B.A. degree. He was therefore not a candidate for a fellowship in 1719, as sometimes stated. In 1722 he was still at college without a degree, and about this time he began to help his father in correcting learned works for the press, Dr. Wilkins's great folio edition of Selden's works being the first, and for this he drew up an epitome 'De Synedriis veterum Ebræorum,' and memoranda of 'Privileges of the Baronage' and 'Judicature in Parliament.' His father took him into partnership towards the end of 1722, retaining the management of the business, and delegating the learned work to his son. In 1727 he wrote and published 'A View of a Book entitled Reliquiæ Baxterianæ' [see


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Author:Timothy Augustine Coghlan

Works

 * Hand-book to the Statistical Register of the Colony of New South Wales, for the years 1885-86, Sydney, 1886-87
 * Australian statistics, Sydney, 1886
 * Statistics showing the relative position and importance of each of the Australian colonies, during the year 1886, compiled from official returns by T. A. Coghlan, Government Statistician, Sydney, 1887
 * Labour and industry in Australia: from the first settlement in 1788 to the establishment of the commonwealth in 1901, 4 volumes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1918
 * (With T.T. Ewing), The progress of Australasia in the nineteenth century, Toronto, Linscott Publishing, 1903
 * (Geography and Statistics)
 * (Geography and Statistics)
 * (Geography and Statistics)
 * (Geography and Statistics)
 * (Geography and Statistics)
 * (Geography and Statistics)
 * (Geography and Statistics)

title: Author:Timothy Augustine Coghlan


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192 day. The band, knowing that the Baron de Saint-Cômes, who was especially obnoxious to them as a convert to the Church from Calvinism, was going in his carriage to Calvisson, Catinat and six of his men laid an ambush for him, stopped the carriage, blew out the brains of the baron, and murdered his valet.

The insurrection spread rapidly. Laporte declared: "The God of Hosts is with us! We will thunder forth the psalm of battle, and from the Lozère to the sea all Israel will rise." His prediction was fulfilled; the revolt extended from the mountains to the plain, even to the shores of the Mediterranean. Laporte had sent his nephew Roland into lower Languedoc to collect recruits. Circumstances favoured his project Executions had multiplied of persons merely suspected of having attended the religious assemblies, so that the Calvinists alarmed fled their homes and in great numbers joined the bands of insurgents. The Camisards next caught and killed the secretary of Du Chayla, the prior of S. Martin, and Jourdan, a militia captain who had shot Vivens. Panic fell on the Catholics; fifteen churches were in flames, and great numbers of the curés had fled.

On October 22nd, 1702, being a Sunday, Captain Poul and his corps, led by a traitor, surprised Laporte on a hill at Ste. Croix with a body of the faithful. Laporte had barely time to marshal his men for defence. Unfortunately for him a heavy rain came on that disabled their guns; only three could be fired. Poul, who saw the disadvantage, charged with impetuosity. Laporte fell shot through the heart, but the Children of God effected their retreat without disorder, having left nine of their comrades dead on the field.


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Rh Roland, nephew of Laporte, now assumed the command. He had served in the army under Catinat in the campaigns of the Alps, and had consequently acquired military experience in mountainous country. Roland was a middle-sized man with a robust constitution; he had a broad face marked by small-pox, large grey eyes, flowing brown hair. He was naturally grave, silent, imperious, and was aged twenty-five.

The Catholics in derision called him Count Roland, but he assumed the title of General of the Children of God. It was not his military experiences or capacity that gave the young chief the ascendancy over his co-religionists, but his prophetic ecstasies. There were four degrees of inspiration. The first was the Announcement, or Call; the second was the Breathing. Those who had received the breath were highly regarded, but not considered capable of becoming leaders. The third degree was Prophecy, and such as had this were regarded as vehicles for the communication of the will of God. But the highest of all was the Gift. Those who had received this could work miracles; they disdained to prophesy, but were supposed to be exalted into personal communication with God. Roland had passed through all these degrees.

There were now five legions of insurgents under their several captains, but all subject to the supreme control of Roland. This remarkable man now set to work to collect the material of war. He created magazines, powder mills, arsenals, and even hospitals in the caverns that abound in the Cevennes, notably in the limestone mountains. He also required all his co-religionists to pay a tax in money or goods for the maintenance of the army. He formed wind and water


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194 mills on heights or by streams, and as the chestnut woods produced abundance of food there was little fear of starvation. When the hosts were assembled the prophets prophesied, and pointed out men here and there whom they declared to be false brethren; these men were at once led aside and summarily shot.

On one occasion a prophet, Clary, pointed out two traitors and demanded their execution. Cavalier had them bound, but a good many of those present murmured and expressed doubts. Clary, who was in a condition of delirious elevation, cried out: "Oh, men of little faith! Do you doubt my power? I will that ye light a great fire, and I say to thee, my son, that I will carry thee unhurt through the flames." The people cried out that they no longer needed the ordeal; they were satisfied, and the traitors should be executed. But Clary, still a prey to his exaltation, insisted, and a huge bonfire was made. An eye-witness, quoted in the "Théâtre sacré des Cevennes," describes what follows:—

"Clary wore a white smock, and he placed himself in the midst of the faggots, standing upright and having his hands raised above his head. He was still agitated, and spoke by inspiration. Some told me that he himself set the pile on fire by merely touching it—a miracle I observed often, especially when one cried, A sac! à sac! against the temples of Babylon. The wife of Clary and his father-in-law and sisters and his own relatives were there, his wife crying loudly. Clary did not leave the fire till the wood was completely consumed, and no more flames arose. The Spirit did not leave him all the while, for about a quarter of an hour. He spoke with convulsive movements of the breast and great sobs. M. Cavalier made prayer. I was one of the first to embrace Clary and examine his


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Rh clothing and hair, which the flames had respected, even to having left no trace on them. His wife and kinsfolk were in raptures, and all the assembly praised and glorified God for the miracle. I saw and heard these things."

This seems precise and conclusive, but Court, in his account, gives another colour to the story. He says:—

The condition of wild excitement in which the Calvinists were rendered them incapable of calm observation, and led them involuntarily to pervert facts and imagine miracles. It is curious, moreover, that although the prophecies of the inspired were almost always belied by the event, the insurgents never lost their confidence in these oracles of God.

At this point it becomes necessary to devote a few words to Jean Cavalier, the ablest commander of the Camisards. He was born at Ribaut, near Anduze, was the son of a labourer, had been a swineherd and then a baker's boy. He was short and stoutly built, had a big head, broad shoulders, and the neck of a bull. His eyes


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196 were blue, his hair long and fair. Sent as a boy to school, he was encouraged by his mother, a venomous Calvinist, to oppose and hate everything that savoured of Catholicism. Every evening, on his return from school, she sought to undo all the doctrinal teaching that had been given him there. His father, a Catholic, urged him to attend Mass; the boy refused. The persecution to which the Huguenots were subjected led him to quit the land at the age of sixteen, and he went to Geneva, where he resumed his occupation as a baker. Meeting a Cevenol refugee in the streets of Geneva, he was told that his mother had been imprisoned at Aigues-Mortes, and his father, as suspected, at Carcassonne. He determined to return to the Cevennes, and he crossed the frontier in 1702. He found that his father and mother had been released, she on promising conformity. He at once dissuaded her from attending Mass, and he succeeded equally with his father.

A few days later occurred the murder of the arch-priest Du Chayla, at Pont-de-Montvert. Cavalier at once offered his hands to The Mower, and he speedily gathered about him a body of followers, and they secured arms by forcing the doors of the parsonage of S. Martin-de-Durfort, where was a collection of weapons, but no injury was done to the prior in charge there, who had taken no part in the persecution of the Calvinists.

The area of insurrection extended through six dioceses, those of Mende, Alais, Viviers, Uzès, Nîmes and Montpellier—in fact, over the present departments of Lozère, Ardèche, Gard and Hérault.

In January, 1703, the Marshal de Broglie, with a considerable force of dragoons and militia, went to


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  to Garrick in Westminster Abbey is his work.

[Neujahrstück der Künstlergesellschaft in Zurich, No. 17 (with portrait); Sandby's Hist. of the Royal Academy; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]  WEBER, HENRY WILLIAM (1783–1818), editor of plays and romances and literary assistant of Sir Walter Scott, is said to have been the son of a Westphalian who married an Englishwoman, and to have been born at St. Petersburg in 1783. He 'escaped to this country in 1804 from misfortunes in his own,' and was sent down with his mother to Edinburgh 'by some of the London booksellers in a half-starved state.' Scott pitied their condition, employed him from August 1804 as his amanuensis, and secured for him profitable work in literature. Weber was 'an excellent and affectionate creature,' but was imbued with Jacobin principles, about which Scott used to taunt him. He was 'afflicted with partial insanity,' especially under the influence of strong drinks, to which he was occasionally addicted (, Journal, 1890, i. 149). Scott's family, with whom he often dined, liked his appearance and manners, and were pleased by his stores of knowledge and the reminiscences of a chequered career. After Christmas 1813 a fit of madness seized Weber at dusk, at the close of a day's work in the same room with his employer. He produced a pair of pistols, and challenged Scott to mortal combat. A parley ensued, and Weber dined with the Scotts; next day he was put under restraint. His friends, with some assistance from Scott, supported him, 'a hopeless lunatic,' in an asylum at York. There he died in June 1818.

Scott describes Weber as 'a man of very superior attainments, an excellent linguist and geographer, and a remarkable antiquary.' He edited 'The Battle of Flodden Field: a Poem of the Sixteenth Century, with various Readings, Notes,' &c., 1808; Newcastle, 1819. Sixteen copies of the 'Notes and Illustrations' were struck off separately. Scott advised him in the publication and supplied materials. 2. 'Metrical Romances of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries, with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary,' 1810, 3 vols. Described by Southey as 'admirably edited' (Letters, ed. Warter, ii. 308). 3. 'Dramatic Works of John Ford, with Introduction and Explanatory Notes,' 1811, 2 vols. He was not skilled in old English literature, and did not collate the early editions of the plays. This work aroused a storm of angry comment (cf., Works, ed. Gifford, 1827, vol. i. pp. li–clxxx; Letter to William Gifford, by Octavius Gilchrist, 1811; Letter to J. P. Kemble [anon., by G. D. Whittington], 1811; Letter to Richard Heber [anon., by Rev. John Mitford], 1812). 4. 'Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, with Introduction and Explanatory Notes,' 1812, 14 vols.; acknowledged by Scott, whose own annotated edition supplied the most valuable notes, to have been 'carelessly done;' Dyce speaks of it as 'on the whole the best edition of the dramatists which had yet appeared' (Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, 1843, vol. i. p. iii). 5. 'Tales of the East; comprising the most Popular Romances of Oriental Origin and the best Imitations by European Authors,' 1812, 3 vols.; the preface was borrowed from the 'Tartarian Tales' of Thomas Flloyd of Dublin (Athenæum, 14 April 1894, p. 474). 6. 'Popular Romances, consisting of Imaginary Voyages and Travels,' 1812 (, Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn, iv. 2862). 7. 'Genealogical History of Earldom of Sutherland, by Sir Robert Gordon [edited by Weber],' 1813. 8. 'Illustrations of Northern Antiquities from the earlier Teutonic and Scandinavian Romances,' 1814; in this Weber was assisted by Dr. Jamieson and Scott; it is a work 'of admirable learning, taste, and execution' (, German Novelists, iv. p. 6).

[Gent. Mag. 1818, i. 646; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. Hist. vii. 213–18; Lockhart's Scott (1845 ed.), pp. 117–18, 158–9, 202, 237, 251–2, 613; Byron's Poems, ed. 1898, i. 396; Scott's Journal, i. 149; Scott's Letters, i. 320, 387; Smiles's John Murray, i. 145, 172, 259; Pinkerton Corresp. ii. 406–7.]  WEBER, OTTO (1832–1888), painter, son of Wilhelm Weber, a merchant of Berlin, was born in that city on 17 Oct. 1832. He studied under Professor Steffeck, and was also much influenced by Eugen Krüger. He became a very skilful painter of landscapes and animals, working both in oil and watercolours, and his pictures were much admired in Paris, where he resided for some years and was awarded medals at the Salon in 1864 and 1869. On the outbreak of the Franco-German war in 1870, Weber left France, and, after a stay of two years in Rome, came to London, where he settled. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy from 1874 until his death. In 1876 he was elected an associate of the 'Old Watercolour' Society, and he also became a member of the Institute of Painters in Oil Colours. He received many commissions from the queen. His best work, 'The First Snow on the Alp,' is now in the


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Rh Vaunage in quest of Cavalier, but could not find him, for he, in fact, was then in Nîmes, disguised, purchasing powder. De Broglie was on his way back when some dragoons, who were reconnoitring, came to him to announce that a large body of Camisards was assembled, with drums beating and singing psalms, at two farms forming a hamlet called the Mas de Gaffard. He gave immediate orders to Captain Poul, who was in command, to dislodge them. De Broglie was in the centre, Poul on the right wing, and La Dourville, captain of dragoons, on the left. When the insurgeuts saw the royal troops approach they drew up, prepared for battle, in a situation naturally adapted for defence. The insurgents received the first volley without breaking formation; they replied by a musket discharge that disordered the left wing and centre of the enemy. The militia were seized with panic, and in turning to fly threw the dragoons into confusion. Poul alone rushed forwards brandishing his sword, when a boy threw a stone at him that brought him down from his saddle, and Catinat rushing forward despatched him. Then seeing the royal troops in rout the Camisards pursued, shouting "Voilà votre Poul (cock)! We have plucked his feathers; stay to eat him."

Immediately after this success the Camisards marched to Roquecourbe, near Nîmes, and on the way set fire to the church and village of Pouls and massacred several of the inhabitants. Thence they directed their attentions to Moussac, where was a garrison of militia commanded by M. de Saint-Chattes. They took the place, and the whole detachment was either slaughtered by them or were drowned in the endeavour to escape across the Gardon.


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198 Cavalier now departed at the head of eight hundred men to rouse the Vivarais. The Count du Roure, at the head of the militia, attempted to stop him; a desperate conflict ensued in the night. The Baron de Largorce, wounded in the thigh, a very old man, fell from his horse. Du Roure was forced to retreat with only sixty men. Five hundred corpses of his men strewed the battlefield. Largorce was lying on the snow. He was clubbed to death by Cavalier's men.

But this victory was a preliminary to a disaster. Cavalier was drawn into an ambuscade by S. Julien, the new commander of the troops; he lost two hundred of his men, was obliged to fly and hide himself, and make his way back to his comrades in the Cevennes as best he might.

As the contest went on, each side became more cruel. Forests were set on fire that were supposed to serve as hiding-places for the Camisards, villages were burnt that were known to harbour them.

On their side the insurgents did not spare even the Protestant nobles who hesitated about joining in the insurrection. In December, 1702, the Camisards burnt the church of S. Jean de Ceyrargues, and taking the curé they bound him hand and foot, and putting knives into the children's hands, bade them stab him to death, encouraging them with the words, "Dip your hands in the blood of the ungodly."

In January, 1703, Cavalier burnt the church and thirteen houses in S. Jean de Marvéjols, that belonged to Catholics, and massacred twenty of these latter, among them four women and a child of two years old.

In February, 1703, at Robiac, the insurgents murdered seven persons, among these a woman whom they


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 the Melbourne Gallery. His ‘Doughty and Carlisle’ (her majesty's pet dogs), ‘Greedy Calves,’ and ‘A Sunny Day, Cookham,’ have been engraved. Weber died in London, after a long illness, on 23 Dec. 1888.

WEBSTER, ALEXANDER (1707–1784), Scots writer, was the son of James Webster, by his second wife, Agnes, daughter of Alexander Menzies of Culter in Lanarkshire.

The father, James Webster (1658?–1720), minister, was born in 1658 or 1659, and studied at St. Andrews University, but, quarrelling with Archbishop Sharp, he had to leave the university before he took his M.A. degree. He joined the covenanters, and twice suffered imprisonment for his religious opinions. After the revolution he was appointed presbyterian minister of Liberton (near Edinburgh) in 1688, was removed to Whitekirk in 1691, and thence in 1693 to the collegiate church, Edinburgh, which he retained until his death on 18 May 1720 (, Fasti Eccles. Scot. i. 53, 116, 385).

Alexander Webster was born at Edinburgh in 1707, and was educated at the high school there. In 1733 he was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Haddington, and in the same year was appointed assistant and successor to Allan Logan, minister of Culross. On Logan's death in September 1733 Webster assumed the full charge, and in June 1737 he was translated to the Tolbooth church, Edinburgh. Webster's favourite study had been mathematics, and he applied his knowledge in a philanthropic manner. In 1742 he laid before the general assembly a proposal for providing annuities for the widows of clergymen, basing his plan upon actuarial calculations. To obtain information that would enable him to formulate his scheme, he put himself in communication with all the presbyteries in Scotland; and the tables of average longevity drawn up by him were so accurate that they have since formed the basis for similar calculations made by modern life insurance companies. Webster received in 1744 the thanks of the general assembly for his labours. In August 1748 he was appointed chaplain to the Prince of Wales; and on 24 May 1753 he was elected moderator of the general assembly. Previous to 1755 no census had been taken in Scotland, and the government, through Lord-president Dundas, commissioned Webster in that year to obtain figures as to the population. Sir [q. v.] had projected an enumeration of this kind in 1682, but it had never been accomplished. The plan taken by Webster was to send a schedule of queries to every parish minister in Scotland, and from the replies thus obtained he made up the first census of the kingdom in 1755. The manuscripts of this work are now in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. They were used by Sir John Sinclair [q. v.] when he made up his statistical account of Scotland at the close of last century; and Sinclair adopted the system which Webster had devised. On 24 Nov. 1760 Webster obtained the degree of D.D. from Edinburgh University. In the following month he was one of a deputation sent by the general assembly to present an address to George III on his accession to the throne. He was appointed general collector of the ministers' widows' fund in June 1771, and in that year was made one of his majesty's chaplains-in-ordinary for Scotland and a dean of the Chapel Royal. He died on 25 Jan. 1784. In 1737 he married Mary, daughter of Colonel John Erskine of Alva, by whom he had six sons and a daughter; his wife died on 28 Nov. 1766.

Webster was a devoted adherent of the house of Hanover. When Prince Charles Edward entered Edinburgh, Webster was almost the only minister who remained in the city; and it is said that it was through his importunity that Colonel (1688–1745) [q. v.] was induced to precipitate the encounter at Prestonpans, where Gardiner was slain. After Culloden had terminated the Jacobite rising, Webster preached a sermon in the Tolbooth church on 23 June 1746, in which he eulogised the conduct of the Duke of Cumberland. He is credited with the authorship of the song, ‘Oh, how could I venture to love one like thee!’ which was first published in the ‘Scots Magazine’ for 1747 (ix. 589), and is often referred to as a model love-song. It is said that he suggested to Lord-provost George Drummond the plan for the construction of the new town of Edinburgh which has since been carried out.

His portrait, painted by David Martin, was placed in the hall of the ministers' widows' fund office, and an engraved portrait was published in the ‘Scots Magazine’ for 1802. His principal publications are:
 * 1) ‘Divine Influence the True Spring of the Extraordinary Work at Cambuslang,’ 1742 (a defence of the revival that followed Whitefield's preaching); second edition with postscript, 1742.
 * 2) ‘Vindication of the Postscript,’ 1743.
 * 3) ‘Calculations, with the Principles and


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Rh alive because she refused to abjure her religion.

On the 17th of the same month, in the same year, the band under Joany entered Chamborigaud and committed atrocious acts. They tied three children up in I sacks and threw them into a furnace. A mother flying with her five children was caught; her eldest son was stabbed with a bayonet and his tongue torn out, the youngest had his eyes scooped out, the third was dismembered; the mouth of the fourth was filled with burning coals, and the fifth was brained with clubs. The mother was then stabbed to death. The six victims were then put on a bed, along with other inhabitants of the place, in one heap, and the whole consumed by fire. Twenty-four victims perished. When Joany left, the Catholics retaliated by destroying the houses of the Protestants, so that only two houses remained standing, those of the Catholics having been burnt by Joany. The two last were burnt by the fanatics on August 27th, 1703, and three more Catholics killed. Next year seven houses that had been rebuilt or repaired were again set on fire and three Catholic families slaughtered.

At S. Génies de Malgoire, Cavalier took the place in April, 1704, and cut the whole garrison to pieces. He set fire to the church and the houses of the Catholics, and burnt in them seven of the inhabitants and the curé and vicaire.

At Ambais Sommière, on September 27th, 1703, the band of Cavalier roasted a girl of three years old over a slow fire.

The war was degenerating into fiendish reprisals on one side as well as the other. But the sad feature in this was that the victims in most cases were not those


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  :: Data on which they are instituted relative to the Widows' Scheme,’ 1748.
 * 1) ‘Zeal for the Civil and Religious Interests of Mankind commended,’ 1754.

WEBSTER, AUGUSTA (1837–1894), poet, was born at Poole, Dorset, on 30 Jan. 1837 (her full christian names were Julia Augusta). Her father, Vice-admiral George Davies (1800–1876), attained great distinction for services in saving lives from shipwreck (, Naval Biography, pp. 266–7). Her mother, Julia (1803–1897), was the fourth daughter of Joseph Hume (1767–1843) of Somerset House, the intimate friend and associate of Lamb, Hazlitt, and Godwin. Hume was of mixed English, Scottish, and French extraction, and claimed descent from the Humes of Polwarth. He was the author of a translation in blank verse of Dante's ‘Inferno’ (1812) and of ‘A Search into the Old Testament’ (1841).

Augusta's earliest years were spent on board the Griper in Chichester Harbour and at various seaside places where her father, as lieutenant in the coastguard, held command. In 1842 he attained the rank of commander, and was appointed the next year to the Banff district. The family resided for six years in Banff Castle, and Augusta attended a school at Banff. After a short period spent at Penzance, Davies was appointed in 1851 chief constable of Cambridgeshire, and settled with his family in Cambridge. In 1857 he was nominated also to the chief constableship of Huntingdonshire. At Cambridge Augusta read widely, and attended classes at the Cambridge school of art. During a brief residence at Paris and Geneva she acquired a full knowledge of French. She studied Greek in order to help a young brother, and subsequently learned Italian and Spanish.

In 1860 she published, under the name of Cecil Home, a volume entitled ‘Blanche Lisle, and other Poems.’ Under the same pseudonym appeared in 1864 ‘Lilian Gray,’ a poem, and ‘Lesley's Guardians,’ a novel in three volumes.

In December 1863 Augusta Davies married Mr. Thomas Webster, then fellow, and afterwards law lecturer, of Trinity College, Cambridge. There was one child of the marriage, a daughter. In 1870 they left Cambridge for London, where Mr. Webster practised his profession. Meanwhile Mrs. Webster published in 1866 a literal translation into English verse of ‘The Prometheus Bound’ of Æschylus. This, and all her subsequent publications, appeared under her own name. She was not a Greek scholar, but her translations—in 1868 appeared the ‘Medea’ of Euripides—obtained praise from scholars, and proved her a sympathetic student of Greek literature. Her views on translation may be found in two excellent essays contributed to the ‘Examiner,’ entitled ‘The Translation of Poetry’ and ‘A Transcript and a Transcription’ (cf. A Housewife's Opinions, pp. 61–79). The latter is a review of Browning's ‘Agamemnon.’ Mrs. Webster's first important volume of original verse, ‘Dramatic Studies,’ was published in 1866. It contains ‘The Snow-waste,’ one of her best poems. In 1870 appeared ‘Portraits,’ Mrs. Webster's most striking work in verse apart from her dramas. It reached a second edition in the year of publication, and a third in 1893. A remarkable poem, ‘The Castaway,’ won the admiration of Browning, and deserves a place by the side of Rossetti's ‘Jenny.’ Her first effort in the poetic drama was ‘The Auspicious Day,’ published in 1872. It is a romance of mediæval English life of small interest. ‘Disguises,’ written in 1879, is a play of great charm, containing beautiful lyrics.

Mrs. Webster took as keen an interest in the practical affairs of life as in literature. In 1878 appeared ‘A Housewife's Opinions,’ a volume of essays on various social subjects, reprinted from the ‘Examiner.’ She served twice on the London school board. In November 1879 she was returned for the Chelsea division at the head of the poll, with 3,912 votes above the second successful candidate; she owed her success to her gift of speech. She threw herself heart and soul into the work. Mrs. Webster was a working rather than a talking member of the board. She was anxious to popularise education by bringing old endowments into closer contact with elementary schools, and she anticipated the demand that, as education is a national necessity, it should also be a national charge. She advocated the introduction of technical (i.e. manual) instruction into elementary schools. Her leanings were frankly democratic, but in the heat of controversy her personality rendered her attractive even to her most vigorous opponents. In consequence of ill-health, which obliged her to seek rest in the south of Europe, she did not offer herself for re-election in 1882.

During earlier visits to Italy Mrs. Webster had been attracted by the Italian peasant songs known as ‘rispetti,’ and in 1881 pub-


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200 who had been actively engaged in hostilities, but inoffensive peasants.

Thirty-one parishes in the Cevennes, by order of the governor, were destroyed, every house was required to be burnt, and three days only were accorded to the inhabitants to retire with their cattle and their substance.

It is unnecessary to relate all the engagements in which the Camisards were either victorious or defeated by the royal troops. Cavalier and Roland marked themselves out as the most able commanders, but Roland was defeated at Pompignan, with the loss of three hundred men. A month later, April, 1703, a body of the same number were surrounded in La Tour de Belot; Cavalier, who was with them, escaped; the rest perished by fire, the place catching from the hand grenades cast in.

The last and final victory gained by Cavalier was at Ste. Chatte at the end of 1704, against the royal troops commanded by La Jonquière, who was himself wounded. A whole regiment of six hundred soldiers and twenty-five officers was swept away by the Camisards.

Montrevel, the governor after Bâville, had shown equal incapacity and barbarity. He was now replaced by the Marshal Villars, who at once inaugurated a different system in dealing with the insurgents. He recognised that the cruelties committed had exasperated the evil. He announced that he was come to pacify spirits, not to outrage consciences; all he desired was to bring those who were in revolt into allegiance to the King. He was ready to accept the submission of the Camisard leaders, to grant them commissions in the army, and to let the past be forgotten. Cavalier received a pension and


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  ‘A Book of Rhyme,’ containing rural poems called ‘English rispetti.’ She was the first to introduce the form into English poetry. In 1882 she published another drama, ‘In a Day,’ the only one of her plays that was acted. It was produced at a matinée at Terry's Theatre, London, in 1890, when her daughter, Miss Davies Webster, played the heroine, Klydone. It had a succès d'estime. In 1885 she was again returned member of the school board for Chelsea. She conducted her candidature without a committee or any organised canvassing.

‘The Sentence,’ a three-act tragedy, in many ways Mrs. Webster's chief work, appeared in 1887. The episode of which the play treats illustrates Caligula's revengeful spirit (cf. introductory note to  Mother and Daughter, pp. 12–14). It was much admired by Christina Rossetti (cf. Christina Rossetti, p. 161). A volume of selections from Mrs. Webster's poems (containing some originally contributed to magazines), published in 1893, was well received. She died at Kew on 5 Sept. 1894. In 1895 appeared ‘Mother and Daughter,’ an uncompleted sonnet-sequence, with an introductory note by Mr. William Michael Rossetti.

A half-length portrait in crayons by Canevari, drawn at Rome in January 1864, is in the possession of Mr. Webster.

Mrs. Webster's verse entitles her to a high place among English poets. She used with success the form of the dramatic monologue. She often sacrificed beauty to strength, but she possessed much metrical skill and an ear for melody. Some of her lyrics deserve a place in every anthology of modern English poetry. Many of her poems treat entirely or incidentally of questions specially affecting women. She was a warm advocate of woman's suffrage—her essays in the ‘Examiner’ on the subject were reprinted as leaflets by the Women's Suffrage Society (cf. Life of Christina Rossetti, p. 111)—and she sympathised with all movements in favour of a better education for women.

Works by Augusta Webster, not mentioned in the text, are: A selection from her poems is given in Miles's ‘Poets and Poetry of the Century’ (Joanna Baillie to Mathilde Blind, p. 499).
 * 1) ‘A Woman Sold, and other Poems,’ 1867.
 * 2) ‘Yu-Pe-Ya's Lute: a Chinese Tale in English Verse,’ 1874.
 * 3) ‘Daffodil and the Croäxaxicans: a Romance of History,’ 1884.

WEBSTER, BENJAMIN NOTTINGHAM (1797–1882), actor and dramatist, was born in Bath on 3 Sept. 1797. His father, who came from Sheffield, and through whom Webster claimed descent from Sir or Buck [q. v.], was at one time a musical ‘composer’ and a pantomimist; he married Elizabeth Moon of Leeds, joined the army, served in the West Indies, was engaged in Bath in organising volunteer forces, and settled there as a dancing and fencing master. A brother Frederick (d. 1878) became stage manager of the Haymarket theatre.

After receiving some education at Dr. Barber's military academy, ‘Ben’ Webster threw up the chances of a promised commission as midshipman from the Duchess of York. Upon his mother's death he made his first appearance on the stage as a dancer, assisted his father in his occupations, ran away from home, and obtained from the younger Watson of Warwick an engagement at twenty-five shillings a week to play Harlequin, small speaking parts, and second violin in the orchestra. As Thessalus in ‘Alexander the Great’ he made on 3 Sept. 1818 his first appearance at Warwick, playing also at Lichfield and Walsall races. Joining in a sharing scheme a manager called ‘Irish’ Wilson, who fitted up a barn at Bromsgrove, Webster (announced, with no apparent claim, as from the Theatre Royal, Dublin) doubled the parts of Sir Charles Cropland and Stephen Harrowby in the ‘Poor Gentleman,’ danced a hornpipe, and played in his own dress, and with a head chalked to look like grey hair, Plainway in ‘Raising the Wind.’ He then went as Harlequin to the Theatre Royal, Belfast, under [q. v.], acted in Londonderry and Limerick, and joined the Dublin company to play with it in Cork as Harlequin.

After appearing in Manchester and Liverpool he came to London, and played on 11 May 1819 a smuggler in the opening entertainment of the Coburg Theatre. According to a speech he made at a complimentary dinner given to him at the Freemasons' Tavern on 24 Feb. 1864, he had at this time married a widow with a family of children. Webster became ballet-master and walking gentleman at Richmond, then leader of the band at Croydon, which led to his engagement as dancer and walking gentleman under Beverley at the Regency Theatre in Tottenham Street, called many names before it became the Prince of Wales's. At the English Opera House (the Lyceum), where he played a part in ‘Captain Cook,’ he was Raymond in ‘Raymond and Agnes’ and Seyward


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Rh retired, first to Holland and then to England. The revolt lingered on, the most fanatical refusing all compromise; but gradually opposition died away, prophecy ceased—prophecy that had always proved false and had led to terrible disaster. And very many years had not passed before dead indifference had settled down over a people that had gone mad with zeal.

When we come to look at what was the creed and what the moral code of these Cevenols, we are not surprised at this collapse of faith. They had but one article of belief—conviction that they themselves were the infallible oracles of the Holy Ghost. They had but one duty—to overthrow and root out whatever pertained to Catholic faith and worship. They recognised but one sin—attendance at Mass.

Their fanaticism was the natural and irresistible outcome of the cruel persecution to which they were subjected. Their prophetic trances, revelations, visions, ecstasies were due to nervous and cerebral exaltation caused by lack of wholesome nourishment. Had they been treated as was la belle Isabeau at the first, inspiration, as they considered it, would have ceased. Cavalier, with tears in his eyes, when well nourished on English beef and ale, lamented that the spirit of prophecy had left him.

And finally, what was gained to the Church of Rome by these forcible conversions and these butcheries? Ferdinand Fabre well says:—

"No land bears so deeply impressed on it the scars of battles fought for liberty of conscience as does our Cevenol country. Nowhere else in the world were fire and sword employed with more savagery to conquer the human being to God, and nowhere has it succeeded worse. It is the chastisement of all


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 in the ‘Hypocrite.’ Accepting from Elliston an engagement at Drury Lane, he appeared on 28 Nov. 1820 as Almagro in ‘Pizarro,’ and at Christmas played Pantaloon. At the end of the season of 1821–2 he joined Bunn's company at Birmingham, where he was seen in low-comedy parts, then acted at Sheffield, Newcastle, and Chester. Returning to Birmingham, he was re-engaged by Elliston for the Drury Lane season of 1823, an action which Elliston had brought against him for previous loss of service having been compromised. On a revival of ‘Measure for Measure’ on 1 May 1824, Harley, who played Pompey, being taken ill, Webster took the part. In this year he was the first Tuditanus in Knowles's ‘Caius Gracchus,’ and in 1825 the first Erni in the ‘William Tell’ of the same author. In spite of obtaining some recognition, he was kept back. Remonstrating with Elliston, he was given on the third night of performance the part of Sadak, originally played on 27 March 1826 by Fitzwilliam in an anonymous adaptation of ‘Oberon,’ and played a few other parts refused by Harley. On 4 Jan. 1827 he was the original Malise in the ‘Lady of the Lake;’ on 16 April the original Domingo, a negro, in Macfarren's ‘Gil Blas and the Robbers of Asturias;’ on 29 Nov. the original Spalatro in ‘Isidore di Merida, or the Devil's Creek;’ on 1 Dec. the original Peter in Howard Payne's ‘Lancers;’ on 18 Feb. 1828 the first Cyrus in ‘Don Juan's Early Days,’ and on 7 April the first Sturmwald in Thompson's ‘Dumb Savoyard and his Monkey.’ He was also seen as Sharpset in the ‘Slave’ and in other slightly better parts.

On 15 June 1829, as Webster from Drury Lane, he made at the Haymarket his first appearance, playing Trusty, an original part, in Poole's ‘Lodgings for Single Gentlemen.’ Here he was assigned leading comic business: Dr. Pangloss in the ‘Heir at Law,’ Risk in ‘Love Laughs at Locksmiths,’ Spatterdash in the ‘Young Quaker,’ Mungo in the ‘Padlock,’ Farmer Ashfield in ‘Speed the Plough,’ Lingo in the ‘Agreeable Surprise,’ Ramilie in the ‘Miser,’ Dougal in ‘Rob Roy,’ Trappanti in ‘She would and she would not,’ Wormwood in the ‘Lottery Ticket,’ and Sir Philip Modelove in ‘A Bold Stroke for a Wife.’ Back at Drury Lane, he was the original Kastro in the ‘Greek Family’ on 22 Oct. 1829, and the original John Thomas in Buckstone's ‘Snakes in the Grass;’ played other unimportant original parts, was seen as Justice Greedy in ‘A New Way to pay Old Debts,’ and Old Gobbo in the ‘Merchant of Venice;’ was the first Sam in Haynes Bayly's ‘Perfection’ on 25 March 1830 and on 1 May the original Herr Stetten in ‘Hofer, the Tell of the Tyrol.’ He was seen in some other parts, and for his benefit (shared with Paul Bedford and Mrs. W. Barrymore) was Jock Robinson in the ‘Cataract of the Ganges.’ The Haymarket in 1830 saw him as Roderigo, Launcelot Gobbo, Oswald in ‘King Lear,’ Robin Roughhead in ‘Fortune's Frolic,’ Jessamy in ‘Bon Ton,’ L'Eclair in the ‘Foundling of the Forest,’ Jocoso in ‘Clari,’ Sir Harry's servant in ‘High Life below Stairs,’ Buskin in ‘Killing no Murder,’ Dandie Dinmont, Marquis in the ‘Cabinet,’ Trudge in ‘Inkle and Yarico,’ and in a few original parts—Popponoff in ‘Separation and Reparation’ on 1 July, Barney O'Cag in ‘Honest Frauds’ on 28 July, and Roughhead in Caroline Boaden's ‘First of April’ on 31 Aug. The ‘Dramatic Magazine’ (1829–30) speaks of him at this time as an eminently useful actor, and asks what the Haymarket would do without him. In 1832 he was with Madame Vestris at the Olympic, where he played in Dance's ‘Kill or Cure,’ and in an adaptation by himself of ‘L'Homme de soixante Ans,’ in which he took the part created by Gabriel Charles Potier. At the Haymarket he was on 17 July 1833 the original Father Olive in Jerrold's ‘Housekeeper;’ played the following October in Buckstone's farce ‘Uncle John,’ then first produced; and was on 2 Jan. 1834 at Drury Lane the original Creamly in Jerrold's ‘Wedding Gown.’ At the same house he played Bardolph in a revival of the second part of ‘King Henry IV;’ in 1834 had an original part in Jerrold's ‘Beau Nash;’ and was the original Samuel Coddle in Buckstone's ‘Married Life.’ On 21 April 1835 he was at Covent Garden the first Sharkshead in Fitzball's ‘Carlmilhan.’ Again at the Haymarket he was the original Serjeant Austerlitz in Mrs. C. Gore's ‘Maid of Croissey.’ Among very many original parts which he played at the Haymarket, of which house he became lessee in 1837, were Frederick II in Tyrone Power's ‘St. Patrick's Eve,’ Mr. Docker in Buckstone's ‘Weak Points,’ Major Hans Mansfeldt in Lover's ‘White Horse of the Peppers,’ Gibolette in Buckstone's ‘Lesson for Ladies,’ Wallop in Thomas Haynes Bayly's ‘Mr. Greenfinch,’ John Niggle in Buckstone's ‘Single Life,’ Wildrake in Knowles's ‘Love Chase,’ and Joseph in Knowles's ‘Maid of Mariendorpt,’ Lionel Varley in Bayle Bernard's ‘Boarding School,’ Baron Ravenspurg in Bernard's ‘Woman Hater,’ Graves in Bulwer's ‘Money,’ Harry Lawless in Boucicault's ‘Love by Proxy,’ Pliant in Boucicault's ‘Alma Mater,’ Bob Lincoln in Mark Lemon's ‘Grandfather


text:
United States Code/Title 5/Chapter 5/Section 561

§ 561. Purpose

The purpose of this subchapter is to establish a framework for the conduct of negotiated rulemaking, consistent with section 553 of this title, to encourage agencies to use the process when it enhances the informal rulemaking process. Nothing in this subchapter should be construed as an attempt to limit innovation and experimentation with the negotiated rulemaking process or with other innovative rulemaking procedures otherwise authorized by law.


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 Whitehead,’ William Shakespeare Dibbs in Boucicault's ‘Curiosities of Literature,’ Nonpareil in Peake's ‘Sheriff of the County,’ Cymon Foxhall in R. Sulivan's ‘Beggar on Horseback,’ Nathan Thompson in Westland Marston's ‘Borough Politics,’ Napoleon in the ‘Pretty Girls of Stilberg,’ and Mark Meddle in ‘London Assurance.’

Webster's own farce, ‘My Young Wife and Old Umbrella’ (‘Ma Femme et mon Parapluie,’ by Laurencin), was given at the Haymarket on 23 June 1837, with Webster as Augustus Tomkins; his ‘Swiss Swain,’ in which he played Swig, on 6 Oct. 1837; the ‘Village Doctor,’ with himself as Baron de la Fadaise, on 24 July 1839. He was Hobbs in his own ‘Hobbs, Dobbs, and Stubbs, or the Three Grocers,’ 31 March 1840; the Marquis d'Arblay in his ‘Caught in his own Trap,’ 25 Nov. 1843; and Ally Croaker in his ‘Miseries of Human Life,’ 27 Nov. 1845. He also translated for the Haymarket in 1846 ‘Le Part du Diable’ (the ‘Black Domino’), 10 June 1846, but did not appear in it. He played Verges, Moses, Bob Acres, Sir Hugh Evans, Scrub, Trappanti, Tony Lumpkin, Don Vincentio in ‘A Bold Stroke for a Husband,’ and First Witch in ‘Macbeth.’ At Covent Garden in the meantime he had been seen as Sparrow in Dance's ‘Country Squire,’ Tassel in Fitzball's ‘Walter Tyrrel,’ and Marquis de Montespan in Bulwer's ‘Duchesse de la Vallière.’ His first appearance at the Adelphi was made in a piece called ‘Yellow Kids.’

After 1844 he divided his time between the Adelphi, of which he became manager, and the Haymarket. Among the pieces he had produced at the Haymarket were Bulwer's ‘Sea Captain,’ Talfourd's ‘Glencoe,’ and the ‘Bridal,’ an adaptation of the ‘Maid's Tragedy.’ To the Adelphi, in conjunction with Dion ‘Bourçicault’ (sic), he gave ‘Fox and Goose,’ 2 Oct. 1844, in which he did not play; and ‘Cæsar de Bazan,’ 14 Oct. 1844, in which he was Don Cæsar. He had previously, June 1843, played at the Haymarket for the first time with his constant associate, Madame Celeste [q. v.], in an adaptation entitled ‘Louison,’ and on 1 Nov. was Victor to her Hortense in a vaudeville called ‘Victor and Hortense.’ This year (1843) he offered a prize of 500l. for the best English comedy. This was awarded by the judges (including Charles Young, Charles Kemble, G. P. R. James, and Alexander Dyce) to ‘Quid pro Quo, or the Day of Dupes,’ by Mrs. Gore, which was produced at the Haymarket on 18 June 1844, and was received with uproar and ridicule. ‘Old Heads and Young Hearts,’ by Boucicault, was given on 16 Nov. 1844, with Webster as Tom Coke, a good-hearted country gentleman, a part in which he showed much pathos. Webster next produced Jerrold's ‘Time works Wonders,’ in which, after the death of Strickland, the original exponent, he played Professor Truffles. On the secession of Charles Mathews, Webster played Sir Charles Coldstream in ‘Used Up.’ On 6 Jan. 1846 he made a great hit as John Peerybingle in his own adaptation of the ‘Cricket on the Hearth.’ Still at the Haymarket, he was Clown in ‘Twelfth Night;’ played the Laird of Killiecrankie, a duellist, in ‘Queen Mary's Bower,’ Planché's adaptation of ‘Les Mousquetaires de la Reine;’ Jack Spriggs in Lovell's ‘Look before You Leap;’ and Reuben Gwynne in the ‘Round of Wrong.’ In 1847 he was the first Job Sykes, M.P., in Boucicault's ‘School for Scheming,’ and Hope Emerson in Robert Bell's ‘Temper.’ On 15 Nov. he played Stanislas de Fonblanche in his own ‘Roused Lion’ (‘Le Réveil du Lion’). In performances at Covent Garden for the purchase of Shakespeare's house, he was Petruchio. He played Jabez Sneed in a revival of the ‘Wife's Secret;’ was, 6 April 1848, Michael Bradshaw in Morton's ‘Old Honesty,’ and Lavater in ‘Lavater the Physiognomist.’ In his address at the close of the season of 1848 he declared that in eighteen months at the Haymarket he had lost 8,000l. During the next two years he was the first Giles Fairland in the ‘Queensberry Fête,’ played Malvolio, Modus, Gratiano, Bullfrog in Jerrold's ‘Rent Day,’ and produced his own ‘Bird of Passage,’ a rendering of Bayard's ‘Oiseau de Passage.’ In Morris Barnett's ‘Serious Family’ (‘Le Mari à la Campagne’) he was the original Charles Torrens, was the first Coolcard in Jerrold's ‘Catspaw,’ and Captain Gunn in Jerrold's ‘Retired from Business.’ In a version of ‘Tartuffe’ by Oxenford he played Tartuffe, and gave at the Adelphi his own ‘Belphegor’ (‘Paillasse’) January 1851. In April 1852 was the first Verdun in Mark Lemon's ‘Mind your own Business.’ On 20 Nov. he was seen for the first time in what was perhaps his greatest part, Triplet in ‘Masks and Faces,’ by Taylor and Reade; and in a revival of Bulwer's ‘Not so bad as we seem,’ was Sir Geoffrey Thornside. On 14 March 1853, with a performance of the ‘Roused Lion,’ ‘A Novel Expedient,’ and the ‘Pretty Girls of Stilberg,’ his management of the Haymarket closed. He had kept the house open sixteen years, paid 60,000l. for rent, 30,000l. to actors, and had employed the best actors of his time, the Keans, the Mathewses, the Keeleys, Mrs. Warren, Mrs. Glover, Mrs.


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 Nisbett, Charlotte Cushman, Helen Faucit, and many others. A presentation was made him by the company.

On Easter Monday 1853 he began a new management of the Adelphi with Lemon's farce, ‘Mr. Webster at Home.’ He gave on 8 June Boucicault's ‘Geneviève,’ in which he played Lorin; produced on 10 Oct. his own ‘Discarded Son,’ and was Falstaff in a revival of the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor.’ On 20 March 1854 he was the first Father Radcliffe in Taylor and Reade's ‘Two Loves and a Life;’ played two parts, Diogenes and Ferdinand Volage, in the ‘Marble Heart,’ Selby's adaptation of ‘Les Filles de Marbre,’ 31 May; was Richard Pride in Boucicault's ‘Janet Pride,’ 5 Feb. 1855; and on 20 June first Lorentz Hartmann in Taylor's ‘Helping Hand.’ On 5 Feb. 1856 he was Cobbs in ‘Boots at the Holly Tree Inn,’ in 1857 the first Joseph Chavigny in Watts Phillips's play so named, on 16 Nov. Carl Blitzen in the ‘Headless Man,’ and on 22 May 1858 Horatio Sparkins in Morton's ‘French Lady's Maid.’

In the new Adelphi theatre, erected on the site of the old, Webster was, on 6 Aug. 1859, the original Penn Holder, one of his greatest parts, in his own adaptation, ‘One Touch of Nature.’ On 10 Nov. 1859 he was the original Robert Landry in Watts Phillips's ‘Dead Heart.’ On 29 Aug. 1864 he produced at the Adelphi his own adaptation, ‘A Woman of Business.’ On 30 Nov. he was first Van Gratz in the ‘Workmen of Paris’ (‘Les Drames du Cabaret’). In ‘No Thoroughfare,’ adapted by Wilkie Collins, Webster was the first Joey Ladle on 28 Dec. 1867. In ‘Monte Cristo,’ which was damned in October 1868, he played Noirtier. On 31 May 1869 he was the first Hugh Wollaston in ‘Eve,’ an adaptation by his son, B. Webster, jun., of Augier's ‘Gabrielle.’ On 1 Nov. he opened as lessee the Princess's, which he had long owned, reviving the ‘Willow Copse,’ in which he played his old part of Luke Fielding. In Byron's ‘Prompter's Box,’ on 23 March 1870, he was the first Frank Bristow, and in April 1873 the first Rodin the Jesuit in the ‘Wandering Jew,’ adapted by Leopold Lewis. This appears to have been his last original part. In February 1874 he retired from the stage, and on 2 May his farewell benefit took place at Drury Lane. The ‘School for Scandal’ was given. Mrs. Keeley recited an address by Oxenford, and Webster, who did not act, made a speech; over 2,000l. was raised. On 1 Aug. he repeated at the Princess's Richard Pride in ‘Janet Pride.’ He played Snake for Buckstone's benefit at Drury Lane on 8 June 1875. The previous day he had spoken at the Theatrical Fund dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern. His last appearance was at the Crystal Palace on 2 Nov. 1875 as William Penn Holder. He died on 3 July 1882 at his residence, Churchside, Kennington.

Webster left two sons, Ben and John, who were connected with the stage. Ben Webster, the younger, wrote for the Adelphi ‘Behind Time,’ a farce in one act, on 26 Dec. 1865; and seven other farces or adaptations from the French came from his pen between that date and 1873. John Webster played about 1837 and 1838 at Covent Garden, the Haymarket, St. James's, and the Adelphi. A daughter married Sir Edward Lawson, bart., proprietor and editor of the ‘Daily Telegraph.’ Benjamin Webster, a grandson, is at present on the London stage.

In his line as a character actor Webster stood foremost in his day, and has not since known a superior. He kept his energy, physical and intellectual, almost to the last, and his latest creations count among his best. His greatest characters were Richard Pride, Robert Landry, Lavater, William Penn Holder, Lorentz Hartmann, Jabez Sneed, Triplet, Graves, Belphegor, Tartuffe, Rodin in the ‘Wandering Jew,’ and Joey Ladle. He was happiest in characters in which serious purpose, puritanical fervour, and grim resolution were shown, and had not indeed more comedy than would serve like light points in a picture to indicate the gloom. He was a spirited manager so far as regards the engagement of good actors, but was behind the times, backward as those were, in respect of stage mounting and the employment of supernumeraries. To this day the term Adelphi guests is used as a byword.

Webster is responsible for about a hundred plays, the names of many of which cannot now be traced. Several are in part based on French originals. In addition to those named are ‘High Ways and By Ways,’ a farce in two acts (Cumberland's ‘British Drama’); ‘Paul Clifford,’ a drama in three acts, and ‘The Golden Farmer,’ a drama in two acts (both in Cumberland's ‘Minor Theatre’); ‘The Old Gentleman,’ a comedy in one act (Duncombe's ‘British Theatre’); ‘The Modern Orpheus,’ a farce in one act; ‘The Village Doctor,’ a drama in two acts; ‘Peter and Paul,’ a comic drama in two acts; ‘Caught in a Trap,’ a comedietta in two acts; ‘The Thimble Rig,’ a farce in one act; ‘The Wonderful Water Cure,’ extravaganza in one act; ‘Mrs. Sarah Gamp's Tea and Turn Out,’ a Bozzian sketch in one act. These are all in Webster's ‘Acting National Drama.’ His name also appears to ‘The


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 Series of Dramatic Entertainments performed by royal command at Windsor Castle, 1848–1849’ (London, 4to), in which he took part.

A portrait in oils of Webster is in the Garrick Club. A likeness, engraved by J. Onwhyn, accompanies a memoir prefixed to the sixth volume of his ‘Acting National Drama.’ Many photographs are in existence, in character alone, or in company with Mrs. Stirling and others. A large photograph of him as Robert Landry in Watts Phillips's ‘Dead Heart’ (1859), and a coloured engraving of him in the ‘Roused Lion,’ as well as an oil painting, are in the possession of his family.

WEBSTER, JOHN (1580?–1625?), dramatist, born about 1580, was the son of a London tailor. The father may be identical either with John Webster who was admitted to the freedom of the Merchant Taylors' Company on 10 Dec. 1571, or with John Webster who attained to the like position on 20 Jan. 1576. The dramatist seems to have been apprenticed to his father's trade, and nominally at any rate followed it. He was a freeman of the company in 1603–4, when he was assessed in the payment of ten shillings toward ‘the charges of the pageants entended against the king's coronation’ (, Memorials of the Merchant Taylors' Company, 1875, p. 596). But Webster's interest lay elsewhere than in tailoring, and early in life he identified himself with the profession of letters.

Before 1602 Webster had made the acquaintance of the chief members of the band of dramatists who were in the service of the theatrical manager Philip Henslowe, and in that year he joined his literary friends in preparing at least four pieces for the stage. Four or more pens were employed on each, and Webster's share must have been small. On 22 May 1602 ‘Cæsar's Fall’ was accepted by Henslowe from the joint pens of Webster, Drayton, Middleton, Munday, and ‘the rest.’ The syndicate was possibly ambitious of measuring swords with Shakespeare, whose ‘Julius Cæsar’ had been successfully produced a year before. A week later Dekker joined the same four partners in producing a piece called by Henslowe ‘Two Harpes.’ Twice in the ensuing October (15 and 21) there was performed a play named ‘Lady Jane,’ in the composition of which Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, and Wentworth Smith were associated with Webster. ‘Lady Jane’ seems to have been revived, under the new name of ‘The Overthrow of Rebels,’ on 6 and 12 Nov. following. Thrice in the same month (on 2, 23, and 26 Nov.) there was also acted a piece called ‘Christmas comes but once a year,’ in preparing which Chettle, Dekker, and Heywood again combined with Webster. Of these four plays only parts of one—‘Lady Jane’—survive. There can be little doubt that Dekker's and Webster's contributions to ‘Lady Jane’ appeared in print in 1607 in the play assigned to them jointly under the title of ‘The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat, with the Coronation of Queen Mary and the coming in of Philip.’ ‘Lady Jane,’ when first produced in 1602, was acted at the Rose Theatre by the Earl of Worcester's company of players, who were taken into Queen Anne's service in 1603, and were known thenceforth as ‘the queen's servants.’ The title-page of ‘Sir Thomas Wyat’ declared that that piece was ‘played by the queen's servants.’ The play, which is in blank verse, lacks striking features, but the text is so corrupt that it is difficult to judge its merits fairly.

Webster maintained through life very friendly relations with those engaged, like himself, in writing for the stage, but after the first year of his dramatic career he gradually abandoned the practice of writing in co-operation with others. With ‘his kind friend’ Munday professional relations apparently ceased when he contributed commendatory verses to Munday's ‘Palmerin of England,’ a poor translation from the French (1602). In 1604 Webster was employed by the king's company to make additions to ‘The Malcontent,’ a play by John Marston, a writer of far greater power than most of those with whom he had worked before. At the same time he prefixed to ‘The Malcontent’ a prose ‘induction,’ in which the actors were introduced under their own names in debate about the merits of the piece. Webster's contributions were printed in the second edition of the play, which bore the title: ‘The Malcontent. Augmented by Marston. With the Additions played by the Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Jhon Webster’ (1604). This was the sole production in which Webster seems to have been associated with Marston, and it is probable that


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Rh height to arrest him. He refused to open to them, and threw stones at their heads and threatened to shoot the first man who entered. They, however, stove in the door with a pole, whereupon Esprit escaped out of a window, but in trying to crawl away unseen fell over the rocks and broke his leg. He was taken to the hospital and died there.

In the year 472 that magnificent prelate, Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont, and a great noble to boot, came to Alais to pay a visit to Tonantius Ferreolus, Prefect of Gaul, who had his villa at Prusianus, now Brégis, a little to the south-west of Alais. Another friend, a Roman senator, had his country house on the opposite or Alesian side of the river. Sidonius says: "The Vardo (Gardon) separates the two domains. These splendid dwellings were commanded by hills covered with vines and olives; before one of them stretched a rich and vast plain, the other looked out on woods. Every morning there was a strife between our two hosts, very flattering to myself, as to which should have our society for the day, which should make his kitchen smoke on our behalf. With them we flew from pleasure to pleasure. Hardly had we set foot in the vestibule of one or the other, before there appeared bands of those who played tennis, and above their noisy shouts we could hear the braying of cornets. … Whilst any one of us was occupied in reading or in playing, the butler would come to inform us that it was time for us to take our places at table. We dined promptly, after the manner of senators."

Where stands now the citadel of Alais stood formerly two castles frowning at one another side by side. The lordship of Alais was in the family of De Pelet, but the


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 last of the name died in 1405, leaving two daughters and the barony to be divided between them. Naturally they quarrelled. Each would have the rock and a castle on the summit, and as neither could be induced to yield a right, they had their two castles and scolded and swore at one another out of the windows. At last the situation became so intolerable that first one and then the other sold their half baronies to a De Cambis, and he ran the two castles into one.

Jacques de Cambis, lord of Alais, was engaged in Catalonia under the great Condé. His war-cry was "Allez comme Alès!" and on his son's sword was inscribed: Both Jacques and his son died on the same day, August 21st, 1653, of wounds received at the taking of Tortosa. With them died out the male branch of the barons of Alais.

On November 15th, 1323, died a citizen of Alais, named Guy de Corbian. A week after his burial his widow came in great agitation to the Dominican convent to say that her husband walked and made unpleasant noises in the house, and she begged that the prior would lay his spirit. Jean Gobi was prior at the time. He took three brethren with him and went to the house. As soon as darkness settled in, all at once the widow screamed out, "There he is! There is my husband!" All present were dreadfully frightened, but the prior recovered first, and bade the woman question the ghost. She asked, "Are you a good or a bad spirit?" Answer: "Good."—"Where are you now?"


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Rh Ans.: "In purgatory."—"Why do you trouble the house?" Ans.: "A sin was committed in it by my mother."—" What did she commit?" Ans.: "That is a delicate question, which I decline to answer."—"Can you make the sign of the cross?" Ans.: "Do not ask silly questions. How can I when I have no hands?"—"How then is it that you can hear, having no ears?" was the shrewd repartee. The ghost hesitated a moment and then replied, "By a special privilege of God." Now it so happened that at this very period a furious controversy was going on between the Dominicans and the Franciscans as to whether the disembodied spirits of the just had the sight of the Face of God. The Franciscans said they had not, the Dominicans asserted that they had. The strife became so hot and acrimonious that Pope John XXII. on November 12th, 1323, issued a decision condemning the opinion of the Friars Minor. They refused to surrender their tenet. The General of the Order appealed from an ill-informed Pope to a General Council. Such an appeal is absurd, argued their adversaries. A council derives all its authority from the Pope. Philip of Valois threatened that unless John withdrew his judgment he would have him burned as a heretic. But he had not the power to carry his threat into execution. Now this ghost story occurred a week or fortnight after John XXII. had issued his homily, in which he asserted that the dead did enjoy the beatific vision. Jean Gobi saw his opportunity. He published at once an account of his interview with a good spirit, and related how that he had catechised the ghost on the very point under dispute, and that the departed Guy de Corbian had affirmed precisely the doctrine for which the Dominicans


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Waynflete, William of


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weale, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weatherhead, George Hume


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weaver, John (d.1685)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weaver, John (1673-1760)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weaver, Robert


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 Rh the Virgin drank some milk; and the other agricultural myths collected in the Suffolk volume. To make this comparison good special inquiry must be made in Gloucestershire, and I need scarcely point out how significant such a differentiation in county folk-lore will prove for the prosecution of our inquiries.

Another branch of folk-lore research treats of the relationship of primitive custom and belief to the higher religions of Asia and Europe. That Buddhism, Mahommedanism, and Christianity, have each incorporated into their ritual—ay, and into their beliefs—something from the older aboriginal or native ritual and beliefs of the people whom they have converted, is, of course, generally admitted. The difficulty is to trace out how much is incorporated. In India the quest is not difficult, the scarcely veiled lower cults being readily detected by the practised inquirer. In the Western world the quest is not so easy—indeed, is not easy at all—unless, indeed, we except the remarkable evidence vouched for by Mr. Leland from Italy. We may, by going into the later conquests of Christianity find out how it has fared when combating the beliefs of modern savages, and work back by analogy to the facts presented in European countries. There we should find some startling facts. For instance, every year in September, at Loja in South America, there is a great fair. As a prologue to it there is a religious procession in honour of a female saint, specially created for the occasion. On the 22nd August, "Our Lady" enters the town, when there is great excitement. The streets are strewed with flowers, and a body of Indians, headed by the Alcalde, precede the party. Many of them wear alligator-heads as masks, and all perform hideous grimaces to their own music. This is a part of the old superstitions which the politic Spaniards, in order to reconcile the natives, have allowed to be mixed up with the rites of the Roman Catholic religion.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weaver, Thomas (1616-1663)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weaver, Thomas (1773-1855)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Mrs.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Benjamin


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Daniel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Francis (1735-1815)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Francis Cornelius


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, John (1611-1672)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, John (1772-1852)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, John (1776-1869)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, John Richmond


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Jonas


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208, and which the Pope had ratified. What better evidence could be desired:

The Franciscans might have replied that they had no better evidence than the word of Gobi, and that they doubted his veracity. But they said nothing, they saw that every sensible man would judge that Jean Gobi told fibs.

Jean Gobi doubtless had hopes of reaping some solid advantages by his opportune revelation. But he was disappointed. John XXII. died, and his successor, Benedict XII., published his judgment on the question, determining that the holy dead did not immediately behold the Godhead, thus at least implying the heresy of his predecessor.

In 1567 the Huguenots occupied Alais, and massacred six of the canons in the church whilst they were singing Matins, as also two cordeliers and several other ecclesiastics. But Alais was retaken. In 1575 they again surrounded Alais, under their captains Guidau and Broise, the latter of whom managed to escalade the walls by means of a vine-trellis. One part of the population was massacred; those who could fled into the castle. Damville came to the aid of the besiegers, and on Easter Eve, after nine weeks of gallant defence, the castle surrendered. The see of Alais was constituted in 1694. The cathedral was consecrated in 1780, and is a heavy and hideous building. Only the west tower remains of the


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Matthew


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Philip Barker


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Philip Carteret


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webb, Thomas William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webbe, Edward


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Güstrow

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Güstrow


text: Talk:Louisiana v. Wood

title: Talk:Louisiana v. Wood