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 Next to the Hottentots the white settlers encountered the (q.v.). When first known to the early colonists they were inveterate stock thieves, and were treated as wild animals, to be shot whenever an opportunity occurred Such opposition as Hottentots and Bushmen were able to offer to European colonization was not difficult to overcome (see : History). The expansion of the colony was little retarded by native opposition until the Dutch encountered the Bantu negro tribes. As already stated, the Bantus, like the Europeans, were invaders of South Africa, and the meeting of these rival invaders was the cause of many bloody conflicts. At first the Cape government endeavoured to come to an amicable arrangement with the new power threatening its eastern border, and in 1780 it was agreed that the Great Fish River should be the permanent boundary between the colonial and Bantu territories. The Bantus or (q.v.), as they were universally called, then held all the coast-lands between Delagoa Bay and the Great Fish River, and for many years they were strong enough to bar the further progress eastward of the white races. But the agreement of 1780 was impossible of fulfilment. The peace was broken in 1789 by an invasion of the colonial territory by the Kaffirs, and this conflict proved to be but the first of a series of Kaffir wars which lasted for a century. In 1811 it was deemed necessary to expel the Kaffirs from the Zuurveld, and the British headquarters in that campaign became the site of Graham’s Town. In 1817–1819 the Kaffirs returned and laid waste a large area. They were driven back and the country up to the Keiskama River annexed to the colony; but the disaster which nearly overwhelmed the eastern province convinced Lord Charles Somerset, then governor of the colony, of the necessity for a line of frontier forts and a more numerous settlement of colonists. Representations on the matter in England, coupled with assurances from Somerset as to the fertility of the district, induced the British government to vote £50,000 for the purpose of sending out a number of emigrants, Applications were called for, and no fewer than 90,000 were received. Of these, only 4000 were selected and shipped to South Africa. They were landed in 1820, in Algoa Bay, Where they founded Port Elizabeth and the Albany settlement. Among these settlers were a number of married men with families. They were recruited from England, Ireland and Scotland, and came from all grades of society. Among them were cadets of old families, retired officers, professional men, farmers, tradesmen, mechanics and labourers. They encountered many difficulties and some suffering in their early days, but on the whole they throve and prospered. Their descendants, the Atherstones, Bowkers, Barbers, Woods, Whites, Turveys, and a number of other well-known frontier families, are to-day the backbone of the eastern district of the Cape, and furnish the largest portion of the progressive element in that province. Among them was a gifted Scotsman named Thomas Pringle (1789–1834). His poems, including “Afar in the desert I love to ride,” depict the scenes of those early days in glowing lines. The vast spaces of the veld, the silence of the solitudes, the marvellous, varied and abundant animal life, the savage, half-weird character of the natives and the wild adventure of the early colonists have been caught with a true spirit of genius. Since his day no one, unless it be Olive Schreiner in The Story of on African Farm, has so vividly painted the life and the atmosphere of that vast continent lying to the south of the Zambezi.

Various Protestant missions had sent agents among the natives during the closing years of the 18th century, and after the definite acquisition of the Cape by Great Britain the number of missionaries in the country greatly increased. Many became pioneers, settling in regions beyond the limits of British jurisdiction. Others remained within Cape Colony, while several were stationed among the Kaffirs along the colonial border. The missionaries from the first often found themselves at variance with the Dutch and also the British settlers, whose methods of dealing with the natives often deserved condemnation. At this period (q.v.), of the London Missionary Society, was the most prominent of the missionaries in the colony, and his influence was powerful with the home government. The publication in 1828 of his book Researches in South Africa had an important effect on the future of the country. The British government adopted his negrophil attitude and made its agents at the Cape conform to it. The equality of all free Hottentots and other free persons of colour with the white colonists was decreed in that year (1820). Philip’s action lacked discrimination, and his faith in the natives was excessive. His charges greatly embittered the Boers, who were further aggrieved by the emancipation of the slaves. The Slave Emancipation Act, freeing all slaves throughout the British Empire, came into force in December 1834. The slaves in Cape Colony, who consisted of negroes from Mozambique, natives of Madagascar, and of Hottentots and Malays were estimated at the time at 36,000. The Cape governments—both Dutch and British—had been consistently averse from the importation of slaves in large numbers, and the great majority of the slaves were therefore Hottentots. The sum voted by the British government to slave-owners in Cape Colony, out of a total compensation paid of £20,000,000, was £1,250,000 (the official estimate of their value being £3,000,000). This money was only made payable in London, and the farmers were compelled to sell their claims for compensation to agents, who frequently paid a merely nominal price for them. In many instances farmers were unable to obtain native labour for a considerable time after the emancipation, and in several cases ruin was the result. A very bitter feeling was thus created among the Dutch colonists.

The championship of the natives by the missionaries led to attacks, in part justified, upon the policy of the missions not only by the Dutch, but by the British colonists. The zeal of the missionaries frequently outran their discretion. This was especially the case in early days. They not only endeavoured to protect and guide the natives beyond the colonial border, but among the Hottentots within the colony they instilled notions of antipathy to the white farmers, and withdrew large numbers of them from agricultural pursuits. Their general attitude may be explained as a reaction against the abuses which they saw going on around them, and to a misconception of the character of the Hottentot and Bantu races. A longer experience of all the African negroid races has led to a considerable modification in the views originally held in regard to them. The black man is not simply a morally and intellectually undeveloped European, and education, except in rare instances, does not put him on an equality with the European. But, admitting all that may be justly urged against the extreme attitude of some of the missionaries, no unprejudiced man will deny that their work on the whole has been a good one. The fair fame of Great Britain has more than once been upheld in South Africa at the instigation and by the conduct of these intrepid pioneers. Robert Moffat and David Livingstone among the Bechuanas, E. Cassalis among the Basutos, François Coillard among the Barotse, James Stewart in Cape Colony, to name but a few of the great missionaries, have all had an excellent influence upon the natives. They have (besides their purely spiritual work) opposed the sale of alcohol, denounced inhumanity from the farmers, encouraged the natives to labour and taught them mechanical arts. Technical education, begun about 1840, now occupies a position little, if at all, inferior to that of doctrinal teaching, and the effect is an excellent one. Strong testimony to the beneficial result of their labours was borne by a thoroughly impartial commission, presided over by Sir Godfrey Lagden, which in 1903–1905 investigated the status and condition of the natives of South Africa.

To return to the period of Dr Philip’s activity. Largely upon

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 Vanbrugh the Collier crusade. On hearing that he was about to assume the management of a London theatre, the Society for the Reformation of Manners addressed a letter of protest to Archbishop Tenison (dated 10 Dec. 1704) with the usual quotations and a description of ‘Mr. Vanbrook’ as ‘a man who had debauch'd the stage beyond the looseness of all former times.’ But nothing came of the protest, and Vanbrugh continued to allow himself the fullest license (witness the scenes between Flippanta and her mistress in the ‘Confederacy’).

The Queen's Theatre, or Italian Opera-house, of which Vanbrugh was not only builder but also lessee, manager, and author in chief, was opened on 9 April 1705, the corner-stone having been laid by Lady Sunderland on 18 April 1704 (see, New Hist. of Stage, i. 238); a prologue written by Garth, and spoken by Mrs. Bracegirdle, referred to the edifice as ‘By beauty founded and by wit designed.’ The piece performed was Giacomo Greber's ‘Loves of Ergasto,’ a melodrama with Italian music (englished apparently by P. A. Motteux; cf. , Hist. of Music, iv. 200; , iv. 810; and , Dict. des Opéras, p. 661; , Londina Illustrata, vol. ii. sig. R). This is believed to have been the second opera of the kind performed in England (Thomas Clayton's ‘Arsinoe’ being the first). Despite its want of success and the loud gibes of Addison and other wits, Vanbrugh (who had doubtless witnessed the triumphs of Quinault and of Lulli and Scarlatti in Paris) determined to persevere, and he varied the usual repertory of plays with several operas during his two seasons of management. He was probably the most enlightened of early patrons of opera in England, and he was the impresario who first introduced an Italian prima donna of distinction into England in the person of Nicolini. Unfortunately the house had serious acoustic defects. Several of the 100l. shareholders (whig friends of the manager, of whom Congreve was one) disposed of their interest in the concern at the close of the first season, and Vanbrugh himself was glad in 1707 to shift the bulk of the responsibility to the shoulders of Owen MacSwiney or Swinny [q. v.] ‘I lost so much money by the opera this last winter,’ he wrote to the Earl of Manchester on 27 July 1708, ‘that I was glad to get quit of it, and yet I do not doubt that operas will thrive and settle in London.’ He appears to have eventually let the theatre to MacSwiney at a maximum rent of 700l. per annum (cf., ii. 333; , Apology, i. 330 n.).

In the same month that the Haymarket Theatre was opened, by an instrument dated 9 June 1705 and signed by Godolphin, Vanbrugh, by the special request of the Duke of Marlborough, was appointed architect and surveyor of the palace it was proposed to erect at Woodstock in commemoration of the victory of Blenheim. Wren, as surveyor-general, was Vanbrugh's official superior at the board of works, but he was now over seventy, while the younger man was in the first flush of his admitted success at Castle Howard. Vanbrugh seems to have felt it incumbent upon him to amaze his patrons, and Blenheim is certainly deficient neither in originality nor in grandiose effect. The work was begun on 19 June 1705, when the architect laid the first stone. The first difficulty arose over the question of the retention of the old manor-house of Woodstock. The architect was anxious to preserve it in subordination to his general scheme on account of its historical and archæological interest. But the duchess suspected some sinister design on the part of the comptroller. The breach was widened when the works were stopped by the cutting off of supplies in October 1710. Some 200,000l. had already been paid out of the civil list, and the duchess deprecated the extravagant scale of the work, still far from completion.

A fresh instalment was obtained from the treasury, and work recommenced in the spring of 1711; but at the close of that year Marlborough was dismissed from all his appointments, and in the summer of 1712 the building was abandoned by the queen's command. The brunt of all the claims for arrears of payment fell upon the unfortunate architect. A letter of protest against the conduct of the treasury (addressed to the mayor of Woodstock on 25 Jan. 1712–13) led to Vanbrugh's dismissal from the comptrollership of the board of works in the following April. With the accession of George I the horizon appeared about to clear. Vanbrugh was knighted at Greenwich House, upon Marlborough's introduction, on 19 Sept. 1714, and it was decided that the Blenheim arrears, amounting to about 50,000l., should be considered as one of the late queen's debts, for the liquidation of which half a million had been allocated. Ultimately in January 1715 the sum of 16,000l., or about a third of what was actually due, was paid to the creditors by the treasury, which also gave it clearly to be understood that no more money would be expended on account of Blenheim. When, in consequence of this proceeding, in Easter term 1718 two contractors brought a suit for 7,314l. due to them for work done

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Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Gymnastics

GYMNASTICS, exercises of the body and limbs which tend to invigorate and develop their power. Gymnastic games are of very ancient origin. They are mentioned in the second book of the “Iliad,” where playing at quoits and javelin hurling are mentioned. Later on games of this kind were dedicated to the gods, and the rewards being called “athla,” gave origin to the name “athletes,” applied to those who contend for them.

Shortly before the time of Hippocrates, gymnastics were made a part of medicine, and gradually they were reduced into a complete system. Public buildings, called “gymnasia,” were erected for the purpose, and officers for their superintendence were appointed by the state. Among the exercises practiced in these gymnasia were dancing, wrestling, boxing, running, leaping, quoit-throwing, hurling, riding, driving, swimming, rowing, climbing ropes, swinging, mock fights of various kinds, etc. It is only since the commencement of the 19th century that gymnastic exercises have been revived as a science.


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 since 1710, the duchess, acting during the duke's infirmity, tried her hardest to divert the responsibility upon Vanbrugh. Fortunately for him, Godolphin's warrant of 1705 was held to exonerate him from such liability, and this judgment was confirmed upon appeal by House of Lords. Thereupon, with a view of defaming the architect's character, the duchess caused to be printed and privately circulated the ‘Case of the Duke of Marlborough and Sir John Vanbrugh,’ ‘the only architect in the world who could have built such a house, and the only friend in the world capable of contriving to lay the debt upon one to whom he was so highly obliged.’ In his ‘Justification of what he Deposed in the Duchess of Marlborough's late Tryal’ (London, 1718, folio) Vanbrugh retorts by reciting the court favour he had lost by espousing the duke's interest; while, instead of reward for his labours and his difficulties with the treasury and the workmen, he complains that his authority was ridiculed and his just claims repudiated. In June 1722, when the Duke of Marlborough died, Vanbrugh commented bitterly upon his vast properties (‘greater even than was expected’) and his inability to pay either his workmen or his architect.

Vanbrugh's own dues as an architect amounted to some 2,000l., and he had practically resigned all hopes of recovering the sum, when in 1725 Walpole interfered in his behalf, and succeeded (by means to which no clue is afforded) in extorting the money from the duchess. In the meantime the long wrangle had told heavily upon his equanimity and even upon his health. The duchess succeeded in completing the building in strict accordance with his plans, but without his aid, in 1724. When, shortly before its completion, Vanbrugh took his wife to inspect his architectural chef d'œuvre, the duchess sent special orders to her servants that Lady Vanbrugh was not to be admitted within the limits of the park (see The Secret History of the Building of Blenheim, ap., Lit. Curiosities, 1840, pp. 411–414; the Blenheim Castle building accounts are among the ‘Marlborough Papers’ in Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 19592–605).

The verdict of Vanbrugh's literary rivals as to the architectural merit of Blenheim was wholly unfavourable. In the minds of less prejudiced critics there has been great divergence of opinion; but it must be conceded that Vanbrugh hardly rose to his opportunities. The general plan of a grand central edifice, connected by colonnades with two projecting quadrangular wings, and of the approaches (including the ‘Titanic bridge’), is admirable in its way. The sky-line is broken in a picturesque fashion, and the light and shade are balanced and contrasted in a manner which evoked the enthusiastic eulogy of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Uvedale Price, Allan Cunningham, and other connoisseurs of scenic effect. On the other hand, the ornament, when not positively uncouth, is unmeaning, and there is a sensible coarseness in matters of detail throughout the work. Voltaire remarked upon Blenheim that if the rooms were as wide as the walls were thick, the château would be convenient enough. The last thing that Vanbrugh had in his mind was personal comfort of his clients. Provided he made his effect, he was satisfied (detailed elevations are given in, Vitruvius Britannicus, and a good idea of the general effect can be gathered from the five engraved views in Seats, 1820, vol. iii.; cf. Addit. MSS. 9123, 19591, and 19618; , Hist. of Architecture, 1862, iii. 282; , Encyclopædia, 1867, pp. 216–17; , Hist. of Blenheim, 1823; , Woodstock, 1873; , Renaissance Architect. in England, 1898).

Vanbrugh's peculiar style was ill adapted to works less than the largest size of palace, yet from 1706 onwards, though preoccupied with Blenheim, he was busily employed upon a number of lesser houses. However small the commission, his endeavour was the same—namely, to convey the majesty of stupendous size, and this aim fitted in well with the ideas of his clients. He wrote to his friend the Earl of Carlisle in 1721 that all the world was ‘mad on building as far as they can reach’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. vi.). In 1707 he restored Kimbolton Castle for the Earl of Manchester, of whom, as of most noblemen with whom he came into contact, he made a steady friend (see, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne, ii. 224 seq.). In 1710 for the Earl of Clare (afterwards Duke of Newcastle) he built Old Claremont House at Esher, ‘where nature borrows dress from Vanbrook's art’ (, Claremont, 1715, p. 5; cf., 1841, ii. 440; Stowe MS. 748, f. 9). Garth further compared the architect to Apollo, or rather Amphion, at the touch of whose lyre ‘stones mount in columns, palaces aspire.’ In 1711, in conjunction with Nicholas Hawksmoor [q. v.], he built the ‘Clarendon Printing Office,’ that is, the old ‘Clarendon Building,’ in Broad Street, Oxford (see, Coll. of Oxford, 1814, ii. 238; , ii. 206). In 1713 he erected the seat of King's Weston, near Bristol (Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, 1884, ii. 359); in


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Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Klondike, The

KLONDIKE, THE, a river which enters the Yukon, the principal river of the Northwest Territory, Canada, 45 miles below the mouth of Sixty Mile, and 15 miles above old Fort Reliance. The word is now applied to the region surrounding the Klondike river and its tributaries.

As early as 1862 gold was discovered in Alaska, but no especial notice was taken of it; 13 years later gold was found at the head of the Stikine river, in the S. E. part, about 300 miles N. of Fort Wrangel, and a rush was made to the fields. Fort Wrangel became a prosperous town but as soon as the rich placer diggings were exhausted, men became discouraged, owing to the lack of stamp mills and the expense of working the quartz, and the mines were finally abandoned. In 1880, Juneau, a Frenchman, with a companion started out from Sitka and traveling N. discovered gold in a creek which they named Gold creek, and at the mouth of this creek founded a town first called Harrisburg, and later Juneau. In 1886 a rich find was reported on Stewart river, in the Yukon district, and the following year an expedition was sent out by the Canadian government, headed by George M. Dawson, which explored the Upper Yukon and reported the existence of an abundance of gold. The difficulties and hardships to be encountered in reaching the location were so great that but a few hundred miners attempted to seek their fortunes there. These, however, persevered and established Circle City on the Alaska side of the boundary. It was not till 1897 that the wonderful riches of the Klondike region were made known through George McCormick, or Cormack, who went from Illinois to Alaska in 1890 and there married an Indian squaw. In 1897 he located at the mouth of the Klondike river for the purpose of salmon fishing, but this not proving profitable moved up the river till he came to Bonanza creek which he began to explore for gold. He found large quantities of paying dust and located an extensive claim. The news spread and miners poured into the newly found gold fields, and stories of sudden riches spread over the United States. Through fall and winter of 1897 the mad rush for the Klondike region continued. Juneau, Dyea and Skaguay, sprang into sudden prominence and rapidly added to their population, while Dawson City in which the first hut was built in September, 1896, in 1901 had grown to a prosperous city with handsome residences.

This section of country is not far removed from the Arctic regions. For seven months of the year intense cold prevails, varied by furious snow storms which begin in September and occur at intervals till May. By October 20, ice is formed over all the rivers. The ground for the better part of the year is frozen to the depth of from 3 to 10 feet, and the only way to get at the gold is to thaw the earth by building a fire and afterward break up the soil with a pick. See .


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 his advice it was decided to create a band of native states on the northern and eastern frontiers of the colony. These treaty states, as they were called, were intended to serve a double purpose; they would be a barrier protecting the colony from the inroads of hostile tribes, and they would enable native civilized nations to grow up (under the tutelage of the missionaries) strong enough to protect themselves from the encroachments of the whites. In fact, neither of these results followed. With one exception, that of Moshesh, the chief of the Basutos, none of the chiefs with whom treaties were made were men powerful enough to found kingdoms, nor had they, in most cases, any better right than their neighbours to the territory recognized as theirs by the British government. Moreover, to treat these men as independent or semi-independent princes was a complete mistake; the failure of the treaty state system is now seen to have been inevitable. The first treaty of this kind was concluded on the 11th of December 1834 with a Griqua chief named Andries Waterboer. This chieftain lived north of the Orange river in the district now known as Griqualand West, and ruled over some 4000 people, a bastard race sprung from the intercourse between Boers and native women. In 1843 two more of these treaty states were established, one under Adam Kok (the third of that name) and the other under Moshesh. Adam Kok had under him a small number of Griquas, who dwelt in the country east of that occupied by Waterboer (see ). And east of this country, again, was a tract of territory occupied by Basutos under Moshesh. In the same way Pondoland was established as a treaty state in 1844. The distinction between these states must be remembered to understand aright subsequent developments. Moshesh ruled over a region largely mountainous and over a people numerous and virile; Pondoland was somewhat remote and was densely inhabited by warlike Kaffirs; the two Griqua states were, however, missionary creations; they were thinly inhabited and occupied open plains easy of access—hence their ultimate collapse.

The year which witnessed the emancipation of the slaves and the creation of the first treaty state also saw the beginning of another disastrous Kaffir war. Fighting began in December 1834, and lasted nearly a year. The Kaffirs wrought great havoc, and Sir Benjamin D'Urban (q.v.), the governor, in order to secure peace, extended the boundary of the colony to the Kei river. The Kaffirs had suffered much injustice, especially from the commando-reprisal system, but they had also committed many injustices, and for the disturbed state of the border the vacillating policy of the Cape government was largely to blame. Sir Benjamin's policy—which had the cordial approval both of the Dutch and the British colonists—was one of close settlement by whites in certain districts and military control of the Kaffirs in other regions, and it would have done much to ensure peace. Lord Glenelg, secretary for the colonies in Lord Melbourne's second administration, held that the Kaffirs were in the right in the quarrel, and he compelled D'Urban to abandon the conquered territory, a mistaken decision adopted largely on the advice of Dr Philip and his supporters. Thus at this time (1836) a critical state had arisen in South Africa. The colonists had lost their slaves, the eastern frontier was in a state of insecurity, The British immigrants of 1820 were still struggling against heavy odds; the Dutch colonists were in a state of great indignation. In these circumstances what is known as the Great Trek occurred. It lasted from 1836 to 1840. During that period no fewer than 7000 Boers (including women and children), impatient of British rule, emigrated from Cape Colony into the great plains beyond the Orange river, and across them again into Natal and into the fastnesses of the Zoutspanberg, in the northern part of the Transvaal.

In view of the vast consequences ensuing from this exodus of Dutch families from the Cape a somewhat detailed consideration of its causes is necessary. Material for forming a judgment will be found chiefly in the correspondence of Sir Benjamin D'Urban with the Colonial Office, in the statements made by the voortrekkers, and in a series of lectures delivered in Pietermaritzburg in 1852–1855 by the Hon. Henry Cloete, whose statements as to the causes of the trek were founded on intimate knowledge and are impartially set forth. Piet Retief, the ablest of the leaders of the exodus, on the eve of leaving the colony published a declaration at Graham's Town, dated January 22nd 1837, in which he declared the chief reasons animating the emigrants to be:—

These four points correspond to the “three great grievances” under which the farmers suffered, enumerated by Cloete as (1) The Hottentot Question (i.e. the first and fourth points of Retief's manifesto combined); (2) The Slave Question; (3) The Kaffir Question. Enough has already been said as to the relations between the missionaries, the Boer farmers and the Hottentots; this grievance, however, “proved quite secondary to the intensity of feeling with which the colonists saw the steps taken by the government to deprive them of that labour (slave labour) over which they claimed an unquestionable right of property.” Then came the Kaffir War of 1834–1835, the reversal by the home government of the statesmanlike settlement of Sir Benjamin D'Urban, and the refusal of any compensation to the sufferers from the war, whose losses amounted to some £500,000. These, then, were the direct causes of the voluntary expatriation of the majority of the first trekkers, who included some of the best families in the colony, but they fail to explain the profound hostility to Great Britain which thereafter animated many, but not all, of the emigrants, nor do they account for the easy abandonment of their homes by numbers of the trekkers. The underlying fact which made the trek possible is that the Dutch-descended colonists in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the colony were not cultivators of the soil, but of purely pastoral and nomad habits, ever ready to seek new pastures for their flocks and herds, and possessing no special affection for any particular locality. In the next place these people, thinly scattered over a wide extent of territory, had lived for long under little restraint from the laws, and when in 1815, by the institution of “Commissions of Circuit,” justice was brought nearer to their homes, various offences were brought to light, the remedying of which caused much resentment. An effort to bring a man named Frederick Bezuidenhout to justice led to armed resistance and finally to the hanging of five men at Slachter's Nek in circumstances that made an indelible impression throughout the frontier (see : History). It intensified in the minds of many Boers the feeling of hostility towards the British already existing; some of the trekkers in 1836–1840 had taken part in and others had passively aided the rebellion of 1815—“the most insane attempt ever made by a set of men to wage war against their sovereign” (Cloete, op. cit. p. 28). What, however, was probably the most powerful motive of the Great Trek was the equality established by the British between the black and white races. In the eyes of the Boers the possibility of equality between the whites and the natives was not

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Vanbrugh 1716–18 Eastbury, Dorset, for Bubb Dodington (the old seat was pulled down by Earl Temple); and about the same time Oulton Hall in Cheshire (see, Cheshire, ii. 118).

Vanbrugh was reappointed to the post of comptroller to the board of works by George I in January 1715, and about a year later the interest of his numerous friends at court procured him the post of architect to Greenwich Hospital at a salary of 200l. a year. Pressure had been applied to make Wren resign this post, on the ground that he could not give the palace his constant supervision; but no increased rate of progress followed Vanbrugh's appointment, and the brickwork of the southern range of the west front, which is often assigned to Sir John, was for the most part the work of his coadjutor, Hawksmoor (cf. Gent. Mag. 1815, ii. 494;, Greenwich Chronicles, 1886, ii. 85 sq.). The architect's chief memorials in this neighbourhood are the two houses which he built for himself at Blackheath, and which are still standing. One, the ‘Bastille’ on Maze Hill, known latterly as Vanbrugh Castle, passed from Lady Vanbrugh to Lord Tyrawley, and has now been for many years a boarding school for girls; the other, in ‘Vanbrugh Fields,’ was called ‘Mince-pie House’ (, 1886, i. 78), but is now known as Vanbrugh House.

In 1718 Vanbrugh built Floors, near Kelso, for the Duke of Roxburghe; but this ‘severely plain building’ was transformed into a Tudor edifice in 1849 (, Gazett. of Scotland, ii. 32). In the following year, in strict accordance with the rococo taste of the day, he planned the famous gardens of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, where a pyramid sixty feet high was erected in his honour and inscribed ‘Inter plurima hortorum horum ædificia a Johanne Vanbrugh equite designata hanc pyramidem ad illius memoriam sacram voluit Cobham’ (, Beauties of Stowe, 1769, p. 6). ‘Immensity and Van Brugh appear in the whole and in every part,’ wrote the Earl of Peterborough. The details of his next house, Seaton Delaval in Northumberland (1720–21), show a marked improvement upon his earlier design; but his alterations at Audley End, where in 1721 he removed three sides of the old quadrangle and erected lodges at the north and south end of the west front, have not been deemed successful (, Hist. of Audley End, pp. 92, 99). The latest of his more important works was Grimsthorpe, Lincolnshire, built for the Duke of Ancaster (1722–4), and including the ‘biggest entrance-hall in the kingdom’ (see Notes and Queries, 7th ser. iv. 47). Here, though ‘he could not shake himself free of his gigantic rusticated columns, 3½ ft. in diameter, and of certain enormous key-blocks, the front is a fine, unaffected, and almost reasonable design. Had Vanbrugh lived longer, it seems that he might have become a really great architect’ (, ii. 199).

Simultaneously with the Brobdingnagian mansions in which he delighted, Vanbrugh was building for himself between Scotland Yard and the Banqueting House, ‘out of the ruins of Whitehall,’ a modest town house, which was also to be his official residence as comptroller (a drawing is at South Kensington; cf. Gent. Mag. 1815, i. 423). The house was not remarkable in any way, but it elicited from Swift the clever satiric verses in which it was likened to a goose-pie. The ‘goose-pie’ survived for two hundred years, being known in its declining days as the ‘pill-box,’ was occupied for some years by the United Service Institution, and was finally demolished on 1 Oct. 1898. To Swift, who disliked ‘Brother Van’ for his whiggism, his popularity with the great, and his lack of veneration for the cloth, has often been attributed, but wrongly, the well-known epitaph, ‘Lie heavy on him earth …’ which appears to have emanated from Abel Evans [q. v.] (cf., Select Collection of Poems, 1780, iii. 161). After Vanbrugh's death Swift joined with Pope (who had also had his fling at the architect) in expressing regret that their raillery, ‘though ever so tender, had ever been indulged’ against Sir John, ‘a man of wit and honour’ (joint preface to ‘Prose Miscellanies’ of 1727).

In April 1718 John Anstis the younger [q. v.] had established his right (by a reversionary patent dated 2 April 1714) to the office of Garter, and Vanbrugh was disappointed of holding permanently the post which he had temporarily filled (1715–18). On 14 Jan. 1719 he married, at St. Lawrence's Church, York, Henrietta Maria, eldest child of James Yarburgh, colonel of the foot guards, of Snaith Hall, Yorkshire, by Ann, daughter and coheir of Thomas Hesketh of Heslington. Writing from Castle Howard on Christmas day 1718 to the Duke of Newcastle, he had remarked, after cursing the coldness of the winter: ‘I have almost a mind to marry to keep myself warm.’ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu gives a vivacious, if somewhat spiteful, account of the wooing. Henceforth Vanbrugh spent an increasing portion of his time at Blackheath. Some of his later letters to Carlisle give a pleasant picture of his family life. On 9 Feb. 1726 he disposed of his tabard for two thousand


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 guineas to Knox Ward. He died of quinsy at his house in Whitehall on 26 March 1726 (Hist. Reg. Chron. Diary, p. 13), and was buried in the Vanbrugh vault in the north aisle of St. Stephen's, Walbrook. In his will, dated 25 Aug. 1725, he names his sisters Mary, Victoria, and Robina, his [half] sister Garencieres and her daughter Lucia; his brothers, Charles and Philip, and his son Charles. The will was proved on 22 April 1726 by Dame Henrietta Maria Vanbrugh, executrix (P. C. C. 84, Plymouth).

Lady Vanbrugh died at East Greenwich on 26 April 1776 (Gent. Mag. 1776, p. 240, ‘aged 90;’ her real age was eighty-two), and was buried in the Vanbrugh vault on 3 May following. By her will, dated 15 June 1769, she leaves 200l. to her daughter, Mrs. Tulloh, and to ‘Mr. Vanbrugh’ (probably a nephew), with other property, ‘the rooms and cellars that belong to me in the Opera House … all the family pictures, and two small pictures set in gold—one of Sir John Vanbrugh, and the other of Sir Dudley Carleton.’ The will was proved on 22 May 1776 (P. C. C. 250, Bellas; cf., Yorkshire Pedigrees, 1874; , Priory and Peculiar of Snaith, 1861, pp. 55 sq.; Genealogist, 1878, ii. 237).

(d. 1745), their only surviving son, the idol of his parents and godson of the Earl of Carlisle, was educated privately until about 1736, when he went to finish his studies at Lausanne. There in April 1738 he became a member of the ‘Compagnie des Nobles Fusillers,’ and soon afterwards he returned to England and obtained an ensigncy in the Coldstream guards (2nd foot guards). He went with his regiment to Flanders in 1744. He died of wounds ‘received at the late battle near Tournai’ (that is, Fontenoy) on 12 May 1745 (Gent. Mag. 1745, p. 276). He was twenty-six years old on the day of his death. He was buried at Ath on 13 May (Genealogist, ii. 239; cf., Letters to Sir Horace Mann, 1833, ii. 94; Carlisle Papers; Addit. MS. 32703).

Apart from the Duchess of Marlborough (upon whom, in his correspondence with Tonson, Vanbrugh wasted many unparliamentary epithets) and Hearne, who disliked all whigs impartially, Vanbrugh had a good word from everybody as the best of good fellows. As an architect, although he had a passion for size amounting to megalomania, he had an original and powerful imagination and a just idea of subordination. His scenic talent was distinctive, and his ‘passionate appreciation of the abstract qualities of architecture gives him a place by himself’.

In his plays he lacked originality and sentiment, but excelled in wit and in all the refinements of technique. He rarely attempts blank verse, and when he does (as in ‘Æsop’) the result is atrocious, while his attempts at poetic utterance are the merest fustian. But the ‘Relapse’ and the ‘Confederacy’ are full of sparkling dialogue and not deficient in character. Vanbrugh and Congreve copied nature, says Fielding (Tom Jones, pref. to bk. xiv.), while their successors do but copy them. Lord Foppington, ‘the best fop ever brought upon the stage’, is as famous as Dundreary, and with more reason. Above all, Vanbrugh's comedies have the merit of facility. Contemporary actors liked them because the parts were so easy to learn; nowadays he is the most readable of the Restoration dramatists. In like manner Voltaire praised him for being the gayest, as Congreve the wittiest and Wycherley the strongest, of the English playwrights. Walpole attributed his ease to the fact that he lived in the best society and wrote as they talked. Another good saying of Walpole's was that ‘if Vanbrugh had adapted from Vitruvius as well as from Dancour, Inigo Jones would not have been the first architect of Britain.’ To which it may be added that if a few only among adapters had approached Vanbrugh's excellence, adaptation need not have proved ‘the bane of the English drama.’

The best portrait of Vanbrugh is the Kit-Cat by Kneller (36 × 28½), painted when he was about forty, and still preserved at Bayfordbury. It has been engraved by John Simon [q. v.], by T. Chalmers, by Cooper (for the ‘Memoirs of the Kit-Cat Club,’ 1821), and by many others (Cat. Loan Portraits, 1867, No. 112). Another portrait, now preserved at the Heralds' College, was painted by J. Richardson in 1725. The Kneller portrait depicts him holding a pair of compasses; in this he holds in his left hand a plan of Blenheim. The fine mezzotint executed by Faber in 1727 is reproduced as frontispiece to ‘Sir John Vanbrugh’ (1893).

Collective editions of Vanbrugh's works were published in London, 1730, 2 vols. 8vo; 1735 and 1739, 2 vols. 12mo; Dublin, 1765, 2 vols. 12mo; London, 1776, 2 vols. 12mo. In 1840 appeared ‘The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar,’ with excellent biographical and critical notices from the pen of Leigh Hunt, and this volume, dedicated to Thomas Moore, has been several times reprinted. In 1893 appeared in two volumes (London, 8vo) ‘Sir John Vanbrugh,’ edited by W. C. Ward, and this edition, containing all Vanbrugh's


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 known works, of which the chronological order is for the first time properly ascertained, will doubtless remain the standard one. Select ‘Plays’ (including the ‘Relapse,’ ‘Provok'd Wife,’ ‘Confederacy,’ and part of the ‘Provok'd Husband’), with introduction and notes by A. E. H. Swaen, and a reprint of Leigh Hunt's ‘Essay,’ was issued in the ‘Mermaid Series’ in 1896. Selections from Vanbrugh, with an interesting critical note, appear in ‘English Comic Dramatists’ (ed. Crauford, 1884). The more popular plays, such as the ‘Relapse,’ ‘Provok'd Wife,’ and ‘Confederacy,’ have been printed in Oxberry, Inchbald, Dibdin, Bell, and similar collections of plays. A German translation of select plays appeared at Basle and Frankfort in 1764.

A considerable number of Vanbrugh's letters, many of them models of sprightliness and good humour, are scattered through the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ during 1836, 1837, and 1839 (those to Jacob Tonson being the most important). Of his letters to the Earl of Manchester, preserved at Kimbolton, examples are given in the ‘Athenæum’ (1861, i. 84–6) and in the Duke of Manchester's ‘Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne,’ and of those to the Earl of Carlisle extracts are given in the ‘Carlisle Papers’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 15th Rep. App. vi. passim). Others of his letters are in the British Museum, to the Duchess of Marlborough (Addit. MS. 32670), to the Duke of Newcastle (ib. 32687 and 33064), and to P. Mauduit (Egerton MS. 2721). A selection of these letters was printed in the ‘Athenæum’ (1890, ii. 289–91, 321–2). For a letter to Sir Robert Walpole respecting the building of a summerhouse at Chelsea, see Beaver's ‘Memorials of Old Chelsea’ (p. 285; cf., Old Chelsea, 1889, p. 83).

[In spite of the interest of the materials, no exhaustive ‘life’ of Vanbrugh has yet been attempted. Short accounts were prefixed to the early editions, and these were summarised in Baker's ‘Biographia Dramatica’ (1812, i. 724) and elsewhere. Noble in his ‘College of Arms’ (1804, pp. 355–6) supplied some new materials, and these were reproduced with a fresh criticism by Allan Cunningham in his ‘Lives of British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects’ (1829–33). Leigh Hunt furnished a good biographical account in his Introduction of 1840, embodying the materials collected by D'Israeli in his ‘Curiosities of Literature’ relative to the building of Blenheim. This edition was favourably noticed by Macaulay in his well-known ‘Essay on the Comic Dramatists,’ in which he deals at length with Congreve and Wycherley to the exclusion of Vanbrugh and Farquhar. All these accounts were superseded by the memoir by Arthur Ashpitel [q. v.] in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ (8th edition, 1860), which is based upon the most careful research. Wyatt Papworth added much as to Vanbrugh's architectural career in the ‘Dictionary of Architecture,’ and in 1893 appeared the valuable ‘life’ prefixed to the standard edition of Vanbrugh by W. C. Ward. Max Dametz's Vanbrughs Leben und Werke appeared at Vienna in 1898. Other authorities are: Dalton's English Army Lists, iii. 409; Carlisle Papers in Hist. MSS. Comm. 15th Rep. App. vi.; Le Neve's Knights, 1873; Genealogist, ii. 237; Herald and Genealogist (1873), vii. 112–114; Ravaisson's Archives de la Bastille, vol. ix.; St. Nicholas Acons Reg., ed. Brigg, 1890, pp. 31–3; Athenæum, 1890 ii. 289, 321, 1894 ii. 234, 299; Gent. Mag. 1802 ii. 1065, 1804 i. 411, ii. 737, 1815 ii. 494, 1816 i. 37, 135, 1829 i. 42, 1831 i. 330, 1836 i. 13, ii. 27, 374, 1837 i. 243, 479, 1839 i. 149, 1857 ii. 420. See also Luttrell's Brief Relation, Oxford, 1857; Coxe's Life of Marlborough, passim; Thomson's Memoirs of the Duchess of Marlborough, vol. ii. passim; Cibber's Lives, iv. 99–111; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum, iii. 297, and Correspondence, ed. Cunningham, passim; Genest's Hist. of the Stage; Gildon's Comparison between the Two Stages, 1702, p. 32; Knight's Garrick, 1894, p. 321; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, iii. 173–6, 366, vi. 112, x. 106, 187; Dryden's Works, ed. Scott, viii. 440; Swift's Works, ed. Scott, ii. 71, xiii. 6, xiv. 80; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 299, 341, viii. 594; Bingham's The Bastille, i. 444; Ward's English Dramat. Lit. ii. 589; Lowe's Bibl. Account of English Theatr. Lit. and Life of Betterton; Gosse's Congreve, 1888, pp. 117 sq.; Aitken's Steele, i. 61, 70, 99, 146, ii. 58 n. 274; Boswell's Johnson, ed. Hill, iv. 48, 55, 284–6; Hazlitt's Lectures on English Comic Writers, vol. iv.; Hallam's Lit. Hist. of Europe, 1854, iii. 514, 528; Beljame's Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre, pp. 249, 499; Lemaître's Théâtre de Dancourt, 1882; De Grisy's La Comédie Anglaise, 1672–1707, pp. 260–345 (where the plots are lucidly abridged); Lenient's La Comédie au xviiime Siècle, 1888, i. ch. v; Moland's Molière et la Comédie Italienne, 1867, p. 112; Gaetschenberger's Geschichte der engl. Lit. iii. 209 sq.; Zinck's Congreve, Vanbrugh og Sheridan, 1869, 8vo; Quérard's France Littéraire, x. 35; Roget's ‘Old Watercolour’ Society, i. 9; Leigh Hunt's The Town, p. 377; Marshall's Woodstock, 1873, p. 263; Davis's Memorials of Knightsbridge, 1859, p. 83; Times, 8 March 1888; Builder, 1860, p. 460; Saturday Review, 11 March 1893; Architect. Journal, 1850, ii. 430; Boase and Courtney's Biblioth. Cornub. ii. 820; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Smith's Mezzotinto Portraits, p. 435; Evans's Cat. of Engr. Portr. i. 356, ii. 396; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. ix. 499, 7th ser. iv. 28, 113, 8th ser. vii. 166, 258, 509.]

VANCE, ALFRED GLENVILLE (1838?–1888), actor, pantomimist, and comic singer, was born in London about 1838, and


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 admitted. This sentiment, which found formal recognition later on in the constitution of the South African Republic, was held in fullest force by the voortrekkers. Summing up, it may be said that the exasperation caused by just grievances unremedied was no stronger a motive with the trekkers than the desire to be free from the restraints imposed on British subjects and the wish to be able to deal with the natives after their own fashion.

The departure of so large a number of persons caused serious misgiving both to the Cape and the home governments. The trekkers had been told by the lieutenant-governor of the eastern province (Sir Andries Stockenstrom) that he was not aware of any law which prevented any British subject from settling in another country, and in the words of Piet Retief's declaration they quitted the colony “under the full assurance that the English government has nothing more to require of us, and will allow us to govern ourselves without its interference in future.” The British government thought otherwise; they held that the trekkers could not divest themselves of their allegiance to the Crown. Moreover, though the farmers might leave British territory they were still held to be liable to the jurisdiction of British courts. An act passed in 1836 (the Cape of Good Hope Punishment Act) empowered the colonial courts to deal with offences committed by British subjects in any part of South Africa up to the 25th degree of south latitude. Intended by its authors to protect the native tribes from aggression on the part of white men and to check the exploration by Europeans of the lands of the Kaffirs, Bechuanas, &c., the act led in fact to the assertion of British authority in regions beyond the Cape frontier.

B. From the Foundation of the Republics to Majuba.—While the home government was seeking to prevent the expansion of the white races the first steps had been taken by a body of Englishmen to found a new colony at Natal. Since 1824 a few traders had been settled at Port Natal, and in 1834 formal petition was made that their settlement should be recognized as a British colony. The request was refused, and not long afterwards (1837) some of the Dutch emigrant farmers under Retief entered the country by way of the Drakensberg. Retief, like his English predecessors at Port Natal (known also since 1835 as Durban), sought a formal grant of territory from the chief of the Zulu nation, the Zulus being the acknowledged overlords of the tribes living in Natal. Retief and his party were, however, treacherously murdered by Dingaan, the Zulu king (February 1838). Other trekkers followed in the wake of Retief, and attacking Dingaan avenged the massacre.

The Boers then established a republican government at Maritzburg. Though most anxious to avoid any extension of responsibility in South Africa, Great Britain recognized the potential danger arising from the creation of an independent state on the coast. The Boers at first rejected offers of accommodation. Troops were then sent to the country, and finally a settlement was made by Henry Cloete, the British commissioner, with the Boer leaders, and Natal constituted a British colony in 1843. Many Boers, dissatisfied with this arrangement, withdrew beyond the Drakensberg. Natal shortly afterwards received a considerable number of emigrants from England, and the white inhabitants have since been predominantly British. At first Natal was dependent on Cape Colony. In 1856 it was constituted a separate colony, but it did not possess self-government until 1893. A notable departure from the labour policy of the other states was made by Natal in 1860, when Indian coolies were introduced. At the time the matter attracted little attention, but the Asiatic inhabitants speedily increased, and forty years later they outnumbered the whites (see ).

It had taken the British government nearly ten years to decide on the annexation of Natal; its policy towards the Boers settled north of the Orange was marked by the same hesitation (see ). By 1847, when Sir Harry Smith became high commissioner, the failure of the treaty state policy was evident. Sir Harry, deeming no other course open to him, proclaimed (February 1848) the country between the Orange and Vaal rivers British territory, under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. Sir Harry had, in the previous December, extended the northern frontier of Cape Colony to the Orange, and had reoccupied the territory on the Kaffir border D'Urban had been forced to abandon. The extension of British rule north of the Orange was opposed by Andries Pretorius, who, being defeated at Boomplaats, withdrew north of the Vaal, where, though not interfered with by the British, the Boers split up into several rival parties. In the Sovereignty difficulties arose in defining the reserves of the native chiefs, and with the Basutos there were armed conflicts. The home government (the first Russell administration), which had reluctantly consented to confirm Sir Harry Smith's annexation of the Orange River territory, on learning of these difficulties, and also that many of the burghers remained dissatisfied, changed their policy, and in 1851 the governor was informed that the ultimate abandonment of the Sovereignty was a settled point. In fulfilment of their settled policy to keep the British South African dominions within the smallest possible limits, the cabinet decided to recognize the independence of the Boers living beyond the Vaal. This recognition, the necessary preliminary to the abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty, was made in the Sand River Convention on the 17th of January 1852. The Transvaal thus became an independent state, or rather it formed a number of mutually jealous communities, and it was not until 1864 that they were all united. Despite their distracted condition the Transvaal Boers had no sooner obtained their independence than they began to make claims to authority in Bechuanaland. But the championship of the Bechuanas by Moffat, Livingstone and other missionaries, and their determination that the road to the interior should not be closed by the Boers, had its effect, and the Boers did not succeed in making themselves masters of the country (see : History, and ). The British government meantime pursued its policy of abandonment, and in February 1854, by the Bloemfontein Convention, forced independence upon the people of the Sovereignty, which now became the Orange Free State. A clause was inserted in the Bloemfontein Convention stating that Great Britain had no alliance with any native chiefs or tribes to the north of the Orange, with the exception of the Griqua chief Adam Kok. Numerous protests were made by many of the inhabitants of the Orange River Sovereignty against the abandonment of it by the British government, but the duke of Newcastle, who was then colonial secretary in Lord Aberdeen's administration, replied that the decision was inevitable (see ).

The abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty marked the close of the eventful period in South African history which began eighteen years before with the Great Trek. At the beginning of that time there was but one civilized government in South Africa—Cape Colony; at its close there were five separate states or provinces, three, the Cape, Natal and British Kaffraria, owning allegiance to Great Britain, and two forming Boer republics—the Transvaal and Orange Free State. While vast additional territories had been occupied by British or Boers the unity of administration, which had marked the previous stages in the expansion of the white races in South Africa, had been lost. Whether or not a wiser policy on the part of Great Britain would have secured the continued allegiance of all the Boers it is impossible to say; the fact that numbers of Boers remained in Natal under British rule, and that the majority of the Boers who settled between the Orange and the Vaal desired to remain British subjects, points to that conclusion. With justice the Boers complained of the course actually adopted by the British authorities. They might at the outset either have let the trek Boers go, and given them their blessing and liberty, or they might have controlled the trek and

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 was placed in the office of a solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields. His name was Alfred Peck Stevens. After some efforts in the country as an actor, he accepted an engagement of fifty shillings a week at the Preston theatre, under [q. v.], to play secondary parts, including harlequin. He then went on the Northampton circuit and elsewhere, and engaged under Copeland at Liverpool, where he opened a dancing academy. He is said also to have kept a dancing and fencing school in Carlisle. Vance then took on tour an entertainment after the manner of [q. v.], visiting most country towns. A monologue entertainment, entitled ‘Touches of the Times,’ in which he presented many different characters, obtained much popularity. On the suggestion of J. J. Poole, at one time manager of the South London Music-hall, Vance adopted the ‘variety’ stage, appearing at the Metropolitan and South London music-halls. He was a poor singer but a clever dancer, and his sketches of character took a firm hold upon the public. All London rang with the words and tune of his ‘Chickaleery Cove,’ and other Cockney songs were only less popular. In 1864 he was at the London Pavilion Music-hall, and he was at various periods associated with the Strand Music-hall, on the spot now occupied by the Gaiety Theatre, and with the Canterbury Music-hall. For many years he travelled round the country with what was called Vance's Concert Company. He also played the clown at the St. James's Theatre, and under Chatterton's management appeared at other houses. Among the songs which obtained much public favour and secured him royal recognition were ‘Jolly Dogs’ and ‘Walking in the Zoo.’ He was known latterly as the ‘Great Vance.’ On Wednesday, 26 Dec. 1888, at the Sun Music-hall, Knightsbridge, when he had given two songs and had sung in the wig and robes of a judge three verses of a third, called ‘Are you Guilty?’ Vance, who suffered from heart disease, fell down at the wing, and was found to be dead, the cause being rupture of the aorta. Vance was buried at Nunhead cemetery.

VAN CEULEN, CORNELIUS JANSSEN (1593-1664?), portrait-painter. [See .]

VANCOUVER, CHARLES (fl. 1785–1813), agriculturist, was an American by birth, though he can hardly have been, as is sometimes stated, ‘Of Vancouver's Island,’ as that island was named after [q. v.] in 1794. His first book, ‘A general Compendium of Chemical, Experimental, and Natural Philosophy, with a complete System of Commerce,’ was published at Philadelphia in 1785 (see Catalogue of the Boston Athenæum), and in 1786 he is described as ‘Vancouver of Philadelphia’ in Young's ‘Annals of Agriculture,’ to which he contributed an account of the farming of Kentucky. Kentucky was being settled at this time chiefly by emigrants from Virginia and Maryland, and Vancouver had taken up fifty-three thousand acres in that district. His letter to Young is practically an invitation to English settlers to come out to America and farm portions of this vast area (Annals of Agriculture, 1786, vi. 405).

Between 1786 and 1793 he came to England, and, on the establishment of the board of agriculture, he was engaged by Sir John Sinclair [q. v.] to write reports on the state of agriculture in different English counties.

The board published in 1794 an account of Vancouver's tour in Cambridgeshire, and in 1795 an account of a similar tour in Essex. He also visited Sussex for the purpose of a survey. Maria Josepha Holroyd, daughter of Lord Sheffield, speaks of him in July 1795 as a sensible well-informed man, who had visited several countries and profited by his travels (Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, 1896, p. 326).

Apparently about the end of the century Vancouver returned to his American estates, and he says in 1807 that he has been long engaged in ‘cutting down the woodland and clearing the forests in Kentucky.’ In 1806 he was again in England, and Arthur Young mentions that he was consulted by the secretary of the treasury, (afterwards Baron Bexley) [q. v.] concerning his tour scheme, of which Vancouver did not approve (Autobiography of Arthur Young, 1898).

Vancouver wrote two more county reports for the board of agriculture: on the county of Devon, 1808 (republished in 1813); and on Hampshire, 1813. (1745–1818) [q. v.], who criticised most severely the majority of the board's reports, spoke of Vancouver's ‘Cambridgeshire’ with approval, but regarded his Essex report with less favour, and was yet more qualified in his praise of the Hampshire and Devonshire reports (Marshall, Review, vol. iii., Eastern Department, 1818, pp. 226–7, 473; Gent. Mag. 1818, i. 59). Vancouver also wrote, in 1794, a paper on the drainage of the fens of the Great Level, and especially of


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 . This remained unprinted for seventeen years, and was finally issued as an appendix to the octavo Huntingdon report. The date of Vancouver's death is unknown.

VANCOUVER, GEORGE (1758–1798), captain in the navy, born in 1758, entered the navy as a boy of thirteen, with the rating of ‘able seaman,’ on board the Resolution, with Captain [q. v.], for Cook's second voyage. He continued with Cook as A.B., and afterwards midshipman of the Discovery in the last voyage, returning in her in October 1780. On 19 Oct. he passed his examination, and on 9 Dec. was made lieutenant into the Martin sloop. From her he was moved into the Fame, one of the ships that sailed with Rodney for the West Indies in December 1781, and took part in the battle of 12 April 1782; she returned to England in the summer of 1783, and in the following year Vancouver was appointed to the Europa, which, in 1786, went out to Jamaica with the broad pennant of Commodore [q. v.] From her he was paid off in September 1789, and he was then, at Gardner's suggestion, appointed to go out with Captain Roberts as second in command of an exploring expedition in the South Sea. For this purpose a ship, then building by Messrs. Randall, was bought, named the Discovery at her launch, and fitted out under Vancouver's superintendence. She was nearly ready, when the dispute about Nootka Sound [see ] caused the organisation of the fleet known as ‘the Spanish armament;’ the Discovery's men and officers were distributed in the fleet, and the exploring expedition was necessarily postponed. Vancouver himself was appointed to the Courageux, commanded by Gardner, and on her being paid off was promoted to the rank of commander on 15 Dec. 1790.

It was then judged expedient that an officer should be sent out to Nootka Sound ‘to receive back in form the territory on which the Spaniards had seized,’ and also to make an accurate survey of the coast northwards from the 30th degree of north latitude. Vancouver was selected for this duty, and, as the Discovery was ready fitted, he was at once appointed to her. His instructions were dated 8 March 1791, and the Discovery finally sailed from Falmouth on 1 April, having in company the Chatham tender, commanded by Lieutenant [q. v.] As the route was left to his own judgment, he followed Cook's teaching and went westward, touching at the Cape of Good Hope, surveying the south-west coast of Australia, where he discovered and named King George's Sound, Mount Gardner, Cape Hood, and other points in that neighbourhood. Then passing on to New Zealand, he examined the recesses of Dusky Bay, and where Cook had marked on the chart ‘Nobody knows what,’ he substituted a correct coast-line and the name ‘Somebody knows what.’ He reached Tahiti on 30 Dec. 1791, and in the following year, after the necessary formalities at Nootka, he examined the strait of San Juan de Fuca, discovered the gulf of Georgia, and, passing on, circumnavigated the large island which has since borne his name. The two following years he continued his examination of the coast from San Francisco, northwards, which, for the first time he accurately delineated. In 1795 he returned to England by Valparaiso, Cape Horn, and St. Helena, falling in, off the Cape Verd Islands, with the Sceptre and the St. Helena convoy, and so being conducted home in safety—for, contrary to international usage, no order to consider the scientific expedition as neutral had been issued by the French Directory on the outbreak of war between France and England. The Discovery arrived in the Thames on 20 Oct. 1795, and was paid off a few weeks later. Vancouver, who had been advanced to post rank on 28 Aug. 1794, now devoted himself to preparing his journals for publication. This occupied the whole of his time. He had corrected the proofs of all but the few last pages, when he died at Petersham, on 10 May 1798. The work was finished off by his brother John, assisted by Captain Puget, who had sailed from England as a lieutenant of the Discovery, and had succeeded Broughton in command of the Chatham. It was published a few months after the author's death, as ‘A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and round the World in the Years 1790–1795 in the Discovery Sloop of War and Armed Tender Chatham, under the Command of Captain George Vancouver’ (3 vols. 4to, 1798, with atlas of plates, fol.).

A portrait of Vancouver, ‘painted probably by Lemuel F. Abbott,’ was purchased in 1878 by the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

It has been said, and recorded by Sir Joseph Banks on what he considered sufficient evidence, that Vancouver's discipline during his voyage was harsh in the extreme; and Lord Camelford—whom he flogged three times, put in the bilboes, and finally discharged


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 to the shore—bitterly resented the treatment [see, second ]. But even according to the favourable statement given by Banks, Camelford's conduct appears to have been irregular, insubordinate, and insolent; and Vancouver, thrown entirely on his own resources, without possibility of support, may have honestly thought strong measures to be necessary, as in fact several of our most distinguished explorers have done—from Drake to McClure.

[Passing Certificate, and Commission and Warrant Books in the Public Record Office; Voyage of Discovery, especially the introduction and editor's advertisement; manuscript note by Sir Joseph Banks, by favour of Sir Clements Markham; Gent. Mag. 1798, i. 447.]

 VANDELEUR, JOHN ORMSBY (1763–1849), general, colonel of the 16th lancers, born in 1763, was grandson of John Vandeleur of Kilrush, and son of Captain Richard Vandeleur (d. 1772), 9th lancers, of Rutland, Queen's County, by Elinor, daughter of John Firman of Firmount. He received a commission as ensign in the 5th foot in December 1781, and was promoted to be lieutenant in the 67th foot in 1783. He served with his regiment in the West Indies, and, exchanging in 1788 into the 9th foot, was promoted on 9 March 1792 to be captain. In October of the same year he again exchanged into the 8th light dragoons, and was promoted to be major on 1 March 1794.

In April 1794 Vandeleur went with his regiment to Flanders to serve under the Duke of York, took part in the principal actions of the campaign, and accompanied the army in its retreat across Holland to Bremen. On the embarkation of the British army for England in April 1795 Vandeleur remained with a small corps under General Dundas until December. In August 1796 he went to the Cape of Good Hope, and served in the operations against the Dutch under Generals Craig and Dundas. On 1 Jan. 1798 he was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel in the 8th light dragoons. In October 1802 Vandeleur went with his regiment to India, and served as lieutenant-colonel with local rank of colonel in command of a brigade of cavalry under Lord Lake in the Maratha campaigns of 1803–5. At the battle of Laswari on 1 Nov. 1803 Vandeleur turned the enemy's left flank and took two thousand prisoners, receiving the thanks of Lord Lake. He was similarly distinguished in November 1804 for the cavalry affair at Fathghar, where the Maratha chief Holkar was surprised and defeated. Equally brilliant were his charge and recapture of artillery at Afzalghar on 2 March 1805.

In 1806 Vandeleur returned to England. On 16 April 1807 he exchanged into the 19th light dragoons, and on 25 April 1808 was promoted to be brevet colonel. On 4 June 1811 he was promoted to be major-general, and appointed to command an infantry brigade of the light division in the Peninsula.

Vandeleur led the division, after Craufurd received his mortal wound, to the assault of the breach of Ciudad Rodrigo on 19 Jan. 1812, when he was severely wounded. He nevertheless took part in the battle of Salamanca on 22 June. In June of the following year he intercepted a French division and cut off one of its brigades, taking three hundred prisoners and forcing the remainder to disperse in the mountains. On 21 June 1813 he was at the battle of Vittoria, and in the following month was appointed to command a brigade of light dragoons under Sir Thomas Graham (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) [q. v.], and later under Lord Niddry, and he was engaged in all the operations of that column, including the battle of the Nive. At the close of the Peninsular war he was selected to conduct a division of British cavalry and artillery from Bordeaux to Calais.

In October 1814 Vandeleur was appointed to the staff of the British army in Belgium. He was given the colonelcy of the 19th light dragoons on 12 Jan. 1815. He commanded the fourth cavalry brigade, consisting of the 11th, 12th, and 16th light dragoons, at the battle of Waterloo, and from the time that Lord Uxbridge was wounded and had to leave the field he commanded, as next senior, the whole of the British cavalry at Waterloo, and during the advance on Paris until Louis XVIII entered the capital. For his services in the Peninsula and Belgium he was made a knight-commander of the order of the Bath (military division) on 3 Jan. 1815, and received the gold cross with clasps for Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca, Vittoria, and the Nive, and the silver medal for Waterloo. He was also nominated a knight of the second class of the Russian order of St. Vladimir, and a commander of the Bavarian order of Maximilian Joseph.

The 19th light dragoons were disbanded in 1820, and in 1823 Vandeleur was given the colonelcy of the 14th light dragoons, from which on 18 June 1830 he was transferred to the colonelcy of the 16th lancers. He was promoted to be lieutenant-general on 19 July 1821, and general on 28 June 1838. He was made a grand cross of the Bath in 1833. He died on 1 Nov. 1849 at his house in Merrion Square, Dublin.

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 of the Rev. John Glasse, by whom he left a son and a daughter Ellen, wife of Colonel (afterwards General) Richard Greaves, for some twenty years assistant military secretary to the commander of the forces in Ireland, and afterwards colonel of the 40th foot.

Vandeleur's portrait (Kit-Cat size) was in possession of Captain Hector S. Vavasour of Kilrush House, co. Clare, and at one time of 72 Cadogan Square, London; it was engraved by Z. Belliard.

[War Office Records; Despatches; Siborne's History of the Waterloo Campaign; Napier's Peninsular War; Thorn's Memoir of the War in India 1803–6; United Service Journal, 1849; Gent. Mag. 1850; Royal Military Calendar, 1820; private sources; Burke's Landed Gentry.]

VANDENHOFF, JOHN M. (1790–1861), actor, was born in Salisbury—where his family, of Dutch extraction, coming over, it is said, in the train of William of Orange, appear to have been dyers—on 31 March 1790, and was educated at the Jesuits' college, Stonyhurst, with a view to the priesthood. For a year he taught classics in a school. His first appearance on the stage was at Salisbury, on 11 May 1808, as Osmond in the ‘Castle Spectre.’ After playing at Exeter, Weymouth, and elsewhere, with Edmund Kean, and at Swansea with John Cooper, he made his first appearance at Bath on 9 Oct. 1813 as Jaffier in ‘Venice Preserved,’ to the Pierre of Young and the Belvidera of Mrs. Campbell [see ]. During the season 1813–14 he played Alcanor in ‘Mahomet,’ Freehold in ‘Country Lasses,’ Malvogli in the ‘Doubtful Son,’ and King Henry in the ‘First Part of Henry IV,’ and was the first Fernando in ‘Zulieman, or Love and Penitence,’ a two-act musical drama, on 12 March 1814, and Prince Palatine in Reynolds's ‘Orphan of the Castle’ on 17 March. In 1814 he was a member of the company at the English Opera House (Lyceum) under Arnold, where, on 4 Aug., he was the original Count d'Herleim in ‘Frederick the Great.’ The same year he made, as Rolla, his first appearance in Liverpool, where he became a great favourite, playing also in Manchester, Dublin, and elsewhere. On 9 Dec. 1820, as Vandenhoff from Liverpool, he made as Lear his first appearance at Covent Garden. He had got rid of an awkwardness that before had afflicted him, and made a good impression. During the season he was seen as Sir Giles Overreach, Coriolanus, Pizarro, and Rolla. Rob Roy, Gambia in the ‘Slave,’ and Mirandola were played for Macready, who was ill. He was also the first Durard in ‘Henriette, or the Farm of Senange,’ on 23 Feb. 1821, and Leicester in ‘Kenilworth’ on 8 March. He retired in some disgust at the treatment he received from his manager, and his name does not appear the following season. On 6 Jan. 1822 he appeared in Edinburgh as Coriolanus, returning on 2 Jan. 1826 as Macbeth, and again in February 1830, when he played Cassius and Othello. He was a favourite in Edinburgh, where his Coriolanus inspired great enthusiasm. He appears to have played there many consecutive years between January and March, his characters including, in addition to those named, Brutus, Cato, Creon, Adrastus, and Macheath. In 1834 he was seen at the Haymarket in Hamlet. In 1835–6 he played at both Drury Lane and Covent Garden, alternate nights being given to opera. On the transference of Talfourd's ‘Ion’ from Covent Garden to the Haymarket, 8 Aug. 1836, he played Adrastus—on the whole, according to Macready, a ‘very tiresome’ performance. Among his original characters were Eleazer in the ‘Jewess’ in the season of 1835–6, Louis XIV in Bulwer's ‘Duchesse de la Vallière’ (Covent Garden, 4 Jan. 1837), and Pym in Browning's ‘Strafford’ on 1 May. Of his performance in the character last named John Forster in the ‘Examiner’ said that ‘he was positively nauseous with his whining, drawling, and slouching.’ The same critic said, however, of Vandenhoff's Creon in ‘Antigone’ that it was performed with ‘solid dignity and picturesque effect.’ Later in 1837 Vandenhoff fulfilled an engagement in America.

When Macready opened Covent Garden on 24 Sept. 1838, Vandenhoff was a member of the company. He played Penruddock, The Stranger, Virginius, Master Walter in the ‘Hunchback,’ Richelieu, Falconbridge, Cassius, Hotspur, and many other parts. After 1839, when Macready's management of Covent Garden closed, Vandenhoff played chiefly in the country, although he was seen occasionally at Drury Lane.

In January 1857 Vandenhoff, with his daughter, paid a starring visit to Edinburgh, bidding it farewell on 26 Feb. as Wolsey in ‘Henry VIII,’ Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Irving playing Surrey. On 29 Oct. of the next year (1858), at Liverpool, he took farewell of the stage as Brutus and Wolsey, and died on 4 Oct. 1861 at North Bank of paralysis.

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 of a coarse quality.’ His Overreach was said to be pitched in too low a key, but to display judgment. His Coriolanus and Rolla were praised highly; but he was declared to be an imitator of Kemble. The ‘Literary Gazette’ ‘damns with faint praise’ his Richard III. Westland Marston credits him with great dignity, and with thinking out happily his characters, praising highly his Coriolanus and Creon, but speaking of his Othello and Macbeth as deficient in pathos and passion. His Iago is said to have had a mask of impulsive light-heartedness and bonhomie, and a ‘sort of detestable gaiety in his soliloquies and asides.’ The portraits in theatrical papers of the first half of the century convey no idea of Vandenhoff's appearance. His face is said to have been fair and somewhat expressionless.

Vandenhoff left several children, most of whom appeared sooner or later upon the stage. A son George, born on 18 Feb. 1820, acted at Covent Garden (1839–40), and in 1853 he appeared for a short while as Hamlet at the Haymarket; but he soon migrated to America, and obtained a reputation in New York as an actor and teacher of elocution, and as the writer of a volume of theatrical anecdotes, ‘Dramatic Reminiscences’ (London, 1860; New York, 1860, with the title ‘Leaves from an Actor's Note Book’).

The only one of Vandenhoff's children to obtain celebrity upon the English stage was his daughter, (1818–1860), who made her first appearance at Drury Lane as Juliet on 11 April 1836. She went thence to Covent Garden and the Haymarket, and succeeded in establishing herself as a capable actress in parts in which delicacy and feeling rather than strength or passion were required. She won acceptance as Imogen, Cordelia, Pauline in the ‘Lady of Lyons,’ Julia in the ‘Hunchback,’ and Margaret Elmar in ‘Love's Sacrifice;’ was in 1837 at the Haymarket the first Lydia in Knowles's ‘Love Chase,’ had an original part in Henry Spicer's ‘Honesty,’ and was in 1851 the original Parthenia in Mrs. Lovell's ‘Ingomar.’ Her chief triumph was as Antigone in a translation from Sophocles at Covent Garden on 2 Jan. 1845, in which her father played Creon. She was taxed with being stilted in the early scenes, but in the later made a creditable display of pathos. On 15 Jan. 1855 she was at the St. James's Alcestis in a translation by Spicer from Euripides. She was fair in hair and complexion, symmetrical, with gentle mobile features, and was taxed, perhaps unjustly, with imitating Helen Faucit. Miss Vandenhoff retained her maiden name to the last, though she married, on 7 July 1856 by license at St. Mary's Church, Hull, Thomas Swinbourne, an actor well known in the country, and not unknown in London. This marriage she sought within a month to repudiate. She was taken ill in Birmingham, and died on 26 July 1860. She was the author of ‘Woman's Heart,’ produced in 1852 at the Haymarket, a comedy in which she herself played the heroine.

[Tallis's Dramatic Mag.; Vandenhoff's Dramatic Reminiscences: Scott and Howard's Blanchard; Macready's Reminiscences; Mrs. Baron Wilson's Our Actresses; Actors by Daylight; Archer's Macready; Westland Marston's Our Recent Actors; Stirling's Old Drury Lane; Era Newspaper, 13 Oct. 1861, 5 Aug. 1860; Dramatical and Musical Review, various years; Era Almanack, various years; Clark Russell's Representative Actors; Forster and Lewis's Dramatic Essays; New Monthly Mag. 1820; Men of the Reign; Dibdin's Edinburgh Stage; The Players, 1860; Gent. Mag. 1861, pt. ii. p. 376; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. xii. 147, 210, 270.]

VANDENPUT, GEORGE (d. 1800), admiral, was illegitimate son of Sir George Vandeput, bart. (d. 1784) (, Extinct Baronetcies). While serving as a midshipman of the Neptune, flagship of Sir Charles Saunders in the St. Lawrence, he was on 24 Sept. 1759 promoted to be lieutenant of the Shrewsbury, commanded by Captain (afterwards Sir) Hugh Palliser [q. v.] With Palliser in the Shrewsbury he continued till the peace in 1763. On 17 April 1764 he was promoted to the command of the Goree sloop, and on 20 June 1765 was posted to the Surprize of 20 guns. In August 1766 he was moved to the Boreas, and in June 1767 to the 28-gun frigate Carysfort for the Mediterranean, where he was for the next three years. He was then for another three years in the Solebay, on the home station, and, after a couple of temporary commands, in December 1773 commissioned the Asia for the North American station. Here he remained for three years, for the most part at, or in the neighbourhood of, Boston and New York. It appears to have been off New York in 1776—the details are only vaguely given—that a tender of the Asia captured a small vessel laden with gunpowder. Whether by accident or caution, Vandeput ordered her to lie off for the night at some little distance; and this led to one of the prisoners, in his terror, confessing that in one of the barrels was a musket-lock, which would be fired by clockwork at a given time. It had been hoped that the barrels of powder would be at once put into the Asia's magazine and the coasting vessel allowed to go free. In 1777


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Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb

KLOPSTOCK, FRIEDRICH GOTTLIEB , a German poet; born in Quedlinburg, July 2, 1724. In freeing German poetry from the exclusive reign of the Alexandrine verse, he was the founder of a new era in German literature. His great epic “Messiah” (1748-1773), at first partly written in prose and changed afterward to hexameters, made him famous. His most finished work, however, was doubtless his “Odes.” Schiller and Goethe were artistically indebted to him. He died in Hamburg, March 14, 1803.


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F the Domesday student were asked to name the feature of most interest to himself in the survey of Bedfordshire, he would probably name its 'hidage." For it ranks next to its neighbour Cambridgeshire as a county illustrating the system of hidation, that is assessment, which was based on a unit of 'five hides.' This, which is the true key to Domesday, is a discovery of our own time. It was formerly supposed that the Domesday, is a discovery of our own time. It was formerly supposed that the Domesday hide was either an actual measure of area or at least the representative of some definite value. But it is now known that manors (or more correctly vills) were assessed to the 'geld,'t that is the land ta, in purely arbitrary multiples of the 'five-hide unit.' A small matter, it may seem, and of no general interest. We have, however, to remember what Domesday really was, and why the survey was made. 'One great purpose,' Professor Maitland says of Domesday, 'seems to mould both its form and its substance; it is a geld-book.' And because it was the chief purpose of the survey to record assessment, we will deal with the assessment of the county first of all.

The large number of assessments recorded as exactly ten or five hides can hardly fail to strike the intelligent observer; but these are usually those of a vill (roughly speaking, a parish) in the hands of a single holder. When a vill was divided between two or more distinct tenants-in-chief, the assessment of each portion is recorded separately, and the total therefore is not obvious. Where, as at Husborne Crawley, a vill was divided into moieties, the assessment of each, it is true, is entered as five hides; but in several cases the portions were unequal and the assessment consequently fractional. To ascertain the amount at which the whole vill was assessed we have to reconstitute the total by adding up the fractions, a task often of difficulty and sometimes open to doubt. In Feudal England (pp. 55-7) I adduced illustrations from Mr. Airy's 'digest' of the Bedforshire survey, and these I may here repeat:—

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Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Kluck, Alexander von

KLUCK, ALEXANDER VON, a German general. Born at Münster in 1846; he enlisted in the Prussian army in time to serve in the seven weeks' war against Austria in 1866. In the Franco-Prussian War he served with great gallantry being twice wounded. He was made a general of infantry in 1906. At the opening of the World War he was given command of a group of Army Corps composing the extreme right wing of the German Army invading France. Apparently with irresistible force he swept the English and French forces in front of him until he was considerably S. W. of Paris. The check given the other German armies on the Marne left von Kluck almost surrounded, a position from which he extricated himself by hard fighting and superior strategy. When the French and English attacked him in his intrenched positions on the Aisne they received a severe check. His later career in the Army was relatively unimportant.


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Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Knapp, Martin Augustine

KNAPP, MARTIN AUGUSTINE, an American jurist and public official, born at Spafford, N. Y., in 1843. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1868. He was admitted to the bar in the following year. He served as corporation counsel for the city of Syracuse, from 1877 to 1883. In 1891 he was appointed a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission and was re-appointed successively by Presidents Cleveland and Roosevelt. From 1898 he was chairman of the commission. He was appointed circuit judge in 1910. He served as mediator in several disputes between the public and the railroads. He was a member of several economic societies.


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THE CITY OF SATURN, and Augustus visited here his son-in-law, the local governor. It was in Beirut that Herod the Great appeared as the accuser of his two sons, who were thereupon convicted of conspiracy and put to death by strangling. Vespasian passed through its streets in triumphal progress on his way to assume the imperial crown, and in its immense amphitheater Titus celebrated his capture of Jerusalem by a magnificent series of shows and gladiatorial contests. During the First Crusade, Baldwin, Count of Flanders and ruler of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, wrested the city from the Moslems after a long siege and put its inhabitants to the sword. Seventy years later, the greatest of all Saracen leaders, Saladin, recaptured the city from the Christians. The names of the mighty warriors who since then have fought for the possession of this old, old seaport are less familiar to Western readers; yet few cities have had for so many centuries such intimate association with the most renowned characters of history. There is a local tradition that Christ Himself visited Beirut on the occasion of His journey "into the borders of Tyre and Sidon," and during the Middle Ages there was exhibited here a miracle-working picture of Him, which was said to have been painted by Nicodemus the Pharisee.

The inner harbor, still known as Mar Jurjus or "St. George," is associated with what is perhaps the oldest of all myths. This took on varying forms [ 27 ]


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SYRIA, THE LAND OF LEBANON during the millenniums of its progress westward from the Euphrates to the Atlantic. We find it first in the Babylonian Creation Epic, which tells of the destruction of the chaos-monster by the solar deity, Marduk. When the Greeks took over the ancient Asiatic mythology, it was Perseus, child of the sun-god, who slew the dragon at Jaffa and released the beautiful Andromeda. In the sixth century A. D., the exploit was transferred to St. George, whose victory over the sea-monster was perhaps an unconscious parable of the overthrow of heathenism by Christianity.

St. George appears to have been a real person, who suffered martyrdom about the year 300, possibly at Lydda in Palestine, where his tomb is still shown. Singularly enough, this Syrian Christian has not only been the patron saint of England since Richard Cœur de Lion came to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade, but is also a very popular hero of the Moslems.

The historic character had, of course, nothing to do with any dragon, and it was only many centuries after his death that he became identified with the hero of the ancient Semitic myth, under its Perseus form. A mighty monster, so the story runs, had long terrified the district of Beirut, and was prevented from destroying the city only by receiving the annual sacrifice of a beautiful virgin. One year the fateful lot fell upon the daughter of the governor. When [ 28 ]


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 Vanderbank the Asia returned to England, and having been refitted was sent to the East Indies. She came home with convoy in the beginning of 1781, and in the following year Vandeput, in the 98-gun ship Atlas, took part in the relief of Gibraltar and the desultory action off Cape Spartel on 20 Oct. He is said by Burke to have assumed the title of baronet after his father's death, 17 June 1784. If so, it was not acknowledged by the admiralty, nor in his official position. After the peace, Vandeput commanded the Princess Augusta yacht till, on 1 Feb. 1793, he was promoted to be rear-admiral. On 4 July 1794 he was made vice-admiral, and through 1795 had command of a small squadron in the North Sea. In 1796, with his flag in the St. Albans, he was employed on convoy service to Lisbon and the Mediterranean; and in 1797, still in the St. Albans, he commanded the squadron on the coast of North America. Towards the end of the year he shifted his flag to the Resolution, and in 1798 to the Asia. He was promoted to the rank of admiral on 14 Feb. 1799. He died suddenly, on board the Asia, at sea on 14 March 1800. The body was sent, by the Cleopatra, to Providence, and there buried. He left an illegitimate son, George, who is also said to have called himself a baronet.

[Charnock's Biogr. Nav. vi. 572; Schomberg's Naval Chronology; Commission and Warrant Books in the Public Record Office; Gent. Mag. 1800, i. 488.]  VANDERBANK, JOHN (1694?–1739), portrait-painter, son of Peter Vanderbank [q. v.], was born in England about 1694. He was a highly gifted painter, and for a short time during the reign of George I enjoyed a great reputation; but his career was marred and his life shortened by vicious and extravagant habits. Soon after 1724 he opened a drawing academy in rivalry with that of Sir James Thornhill [q. v.], introducing a female model, but it proved a failure. In 1729 he went to France to avoid his creditors, and on his return entered the liberties of the Fleet. He died of consumption in Holles Street, Cavendish Square, London, on 23 Dec. 1739, aged about 45, and was buried in Marylebone church. Vanderbank's portraits, among which are those of many eminent persons, are skilfully drawn and full of character, but slight and careless in execution. He had a great talent for historical composition, and Vertue speaks highly of some of his works of this class. He furnished a set of clever designs for the illustrations to the edition of the Spanish text of ‘Don Quixote’ published in London under Lord Carteret's patronage in 1738; also those for ‘Twenty-five Actions of the Manage Horse, engraved by Josephus Sympson,’ 1729. Vanderbank's portraits of Sir Isaac Newton and Samuel Clarke are in the National Portrait Gallery, and that of Thomas Guy is at Guy's Hospital; two others of Newton belong to the Royal Society. Many of his portraits were engraved by John Faber and George White. An album containing his original sketches and finished drawings for the ‘Don Quixote’ plates is in the print-room of the British Museum. His portrait occurs in the group of artists painted by Hogarth, now in the university galleries at Oxford, of which there is an engraving by R. Sawyer.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Vertue's Collections in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 23076 f. 13, 23079 f. 11); Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Gent. Mag. 1739, p. 660.]  VANDERBANK or VANDREBANC, PETER (1649–1697), engraver, was born in Paris in 1649, and studied his art there under Nicolas Poilly. About 1674 he accompanied Henri Gascar [q. v.] to England, and gained a reputation as an engraver of portraits, which he executed on a larger scale than any previously produced in this country. He worked with great mechanical skill, but his plates are deficient in the higher qualities of the art. They include portraits of Charles II, James II, Mary Beatrix, the Prince and Princess of Orange, Louis XIV, the Duke of Monmouth, Sir William Temple, Sir E. Berry Godfrey, and other prominent persons, chiefly from pictures by Lely, Kneller, and Gascar; also a ‘Holy Family’ and ‘Christ on the Mount of Olives,’ after S. Bourdon, and three plates from Verrio's ceilings at Windsor. Vanderbank engraved, from drawings by Lutterell, the earlier portraits in Kennett's ‘History of England.’ On his prints his name is always spelt ‘Vandrebanc.’ He received very inadequate remuneration for his work, and at the end of life was in reduced circumstances. He died in 1697 at Bradfield, Hertfordshire, the residence of John Forester, whose sister he had married, and was buried on 4 Oct. in the church of Cottered-cum-Bradfield. After his death his widow sold his plates to Abraham Browne, a print-dealer, to whom they proved a source of great profit. A mezzotint by George White, inscribed ‘Peter Vanderbank, engraver,’ has been assumed to be a portrait of him, and copied by A. W. Warren for the 1849 edition of Walpole's ‘Anecdotes;’ but the costume is of a somewhat later date, and it may possibly represent one of his sons, who is said to have


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THE CITY OF SATURN the poor girl was taken to the appointed place, she knelt in prayer and besought God to send her a deliverer. Whereupon St. George appeared in shining armor and, after a tremendous battle, slew the monster, delivered the maiden, and freed the city from its long reign of terror. Whether, like his prototype Perseus, he married the rescued virgin, the story does not relate. We are told, however, that the grateful father built a church in honor of the valiant champion and also instituted a yearly feast in commemoration of his daughter's deliverance. During the Middle Ages, this was celebrated by Christians and Moslems alike. Beside the Dog River can still be seen the ruins of an ancient church and a mosque, both of which marked the supposed locality of the contest; and here also is a very old well, into which the body of the slain dragon is said to have been thrown.

The word Beirût is doubtless derived from the ancient Semitic place-name Beeroth, which means, "wells," and throughout the Arab world such a designation immediately calls up a picture of fertile prosperity. The triangular cape on whose northern shore the city is situated projects from the foot of Lebanon five miles into the Mediterranean and has an area of about sixteen square miles. This level broadening of the coastal plain appears in striking contrast to the country just north and south of it, [ 29 ]


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 practised engraving, though his works are not known. He appears to have had four other sons, one of whom, John Vanderbank [q. v.], is separately noticed.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; Vertue's Collections in British Museum (Addit. MS. 23073, f. 15); Cottered parish register.]

VAN DER DOORT [DORT], ABRAHAM (d. 1640), medallist and keeper of Charles I's collections, was a native of Holland, and was at first employed as a modeller in the service of the emperor Rudolph II. It is uncertain when he came to England, but it must have been previous to 1612, when he appears to have been in the service of Henry Frederick, prince of Wales [q. v.] The prince having wished to possess ‘an Imbost in coloured wax so big as the life, a woman's head laid in with silver and gold, made by Vanderdoort for the Emperor Rodolphus,’ had promised Van der Doort the post of keeper of the prince's cabinet and medals in the newly erected palace of Whitehall. Henry died before the promise could be carried out; but his brother Charles appears to have retained Van der Doort's services. On Charles's accession to the crown in 1625 he appointed Van der Doort designer for his coinage with a salary, and three years later added the post for life of keeper of his majesty's cabinet-room with an additional salary. The king took a great personal interest in his collections, and there are notes of his visits to Van der Doort and conversations about the medals, coins, and other rarities. In 1638 and the following year Van der Doort compiled a catalogue of the royal collections of pictures, limnings, statues, bronzes, medals, and other curiosities. The original manuscript appears to be that among the Ashmolean manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, comprising a first draft with corrections and additions by Van der Doort himself (Ashmol. MS. 1514) and a fair copy (Ashmol. MS. 1513). This catalogue was transcribed and prepared for press, not very correctly, by George Vertue [q. v.], the engraver, and was finished and published by W. Bathoe in 1757. A fair copy, made by Van der Doort for the king's own use, formerly in Horace Walpole's library, was acquired in 1874 for the royal library at Windsor Castle. Van der Doort's catalogue forms the most precious record of Charles I's splendid collection, which was dispersed by the Commonwealth a few years later. So keen was Van der Doort's interest, and so strong his sense of responsibility for the valuable collections under his charge, that in 1640, when the king asked for a miniature of the ‘Lost Sheep’ by Gibson, and it could not be found, Van der Doort committed suicide by hanging himself. After his death the miniature was found and restored by his executors. In November 1628 Secretary Conway tried to negotiate a marriage between Van der Doort and Louisa, relict of James Cole, presumably an eligible widow. It is not recorded whether the result was successful. The poet George Rodolph Weckherlin [q. v.] wrote an epigram on Van der Doort's death. A portrait of Van der Doort, painted by W. Dobson, was formerly in the Houghton collection.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; Fine Arts Quarterly Review; Sanderson's Graphice, 1658; Rye's England as seen by Foreigners; Catalogue of Charles I's Collection, ed. Bathoe, 1757.]

VAN DER EYDEN, JEREMIAH (d. 1695), portrait-painter, a native of Brussels, came to England and was employed by Sir Peter Lely to paint the draperies in some of his portraits. On his marriage he settled in Northamptonshire, where he obtained much employment as a portrait-painter, especially from the Earls of Rutland and Gainsborough. He was also patronised by Lord Sherard of Stapleford, Leicestershire, at whose house he died in September 1695. The parish register for that year contains the entry ‘Mr. Jeremiah Vandroyden was buried Sept. ye 17.’ Walpole gives the name as ‘John.’

[Walpole's Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, ii. 455; parish register of Stapleford, Leicestershire.]

VAN DER GUCHT, MICHAEL (1660–1725), engraver, born in 1660, was a native of Antwerp. He studied engraving there under Philibert Bouttats, the leading member of a large family of engravers, and in 1673 was admitted to the guild of St. Luke in that city. He came to London about 1690, and was largely employed in engraving title-pages, portraits, and other illustrations for the booksellers, all done with the burin. He engraved a large print of the royal navy from a pen drawing by T. Baston. Van der Gucht died at his house in Bloomsbury on 16 Oct. 1725, aged 65, and was buried in St. Giles's Churchyard. Among his pupils were his two sons, Gerard and Jan Van der Gucht, and George Vertue [q. v.]

(1696–1776) engraver, eldest son of the above, born in London in 1696, studied engraving with his father. He also studied drawing under Louis Cheron at the academy in St. Martin's