Dictionary of English literature, being a comprehensive guide to English authors and their works / [William Davenport Adams].

  • William Davenport Adams
Date:
[1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dictionary of English literature, being a comprehensive guide to English authors and their works / [William Davenport Adams]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Vitalis, Ordericus. See Ordericus Vitalis. Vivian. The pseudonym adoptod by George Henry Lewes (q.v.) in various contributions to The Leader. Vivian Grrey. A novel by Benjamin Disraeli (q.v.), published ml826—7. The writer is supposed to have indicated, if nothing more, his own character in that of the hero, who is represented as being, like himself, the son of a literary man, and between whose career and that of the subsequent Lord Beacons- field there are certain points of likeness. Among the other characters in the book are the Marquis of Carabas, Mrs. Felix Lorraine, Stapylton Toad, Mrs. Million, and many others. In one of his prefaces to the work, the author describes Vivian Grey as a youthful production, having all the usual faults of youth. It was highly popular when first published, and is still widely read, chiefly, however, for the light it is supposed to throw upon the author’s life and character. Vivien. The title of one of Tennyson’s Idylls. “ The wily Vivien ” is she who ensnares the prophet Merlin in “ the hollow oak.” “For Merlin once had told her of a charm. The which, if any wrought on any one With woven paces and with waving arms. The man so wrought on ever seem'd to lie Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower. From which was no escape for evermore, And none could find that man for evermore, Nor could he see hut him who wrought the charm. “ Coming and going, and he lay as dead And lost to life and use and name and fame. And Vivien ever sought to work the charm Upon the great Enchanter of the time. As fancying that her glory would he great According as his greatness whom she quenched.” “ Vocal spark.”—Wordsworth, A Morning Exercise. “Voice of the sluggard, ’Tis the.” First line of some verses by Dr. Watts. “Voiceful sea, The.”—Coleridge, Fancy in Nubibus. Voices of the Night. Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b. 1807), published in 1841. They include the Prelude, the Hymn to the Night, A Psalm of Life, and Flowers. “Violet by a mossy stone, A.” A line in Wordsworth’s poem, beginning— “She dwelt among the untrodden ways.” The whole verse runs— “ A violet hy a mossy stone. Half-hidden from the eye! Fair as a star when only one Is shining in the sky.” Volpone : “ or, the Fox.” A comedy by Ben Jonson (1574—1637), written in 1605. Hazlitt calls it his best play; “ prolix and improbable, but intense and powerful. It seems formed on the model of Plautus in unity of plot and in- terest.” The principal character is represented as a wealthy sensualist, who tests the character of his friends and kinsmen by a variety of stratagems, obtains from them a large addition to his riches by the success of his impostures, and finally falls under the vengeance of the law. ‘‘Vol- pone,” says Campbell, “is not, like the common misers of comedy, a more money-loving dotard, a hard, shrivelled old mummy, with no other spice than his avarice to preserve him—he is a happy villain, a jolly misanthrope, a little god in his own selfishness; and Mosca [q.v.] is his priest and pro- phet. Vigorous and healthy, though past the prime of life, he hugs himself in his harsh humour, Iris successful knavery and imposture, his sensuality and his wealth, with an unhallowed relish of selfish existence.” Volscius, Prince, in the Duke of Bucking- ham’s farce of The Iiehearsal (q.v.), is in love with Parthenope (q.v.). Voltaire. The Life of this French writer was written by Oliver Goldsmith in 1759. See the essay by Thomas Carlyle, included in his Miscel- laneous Works ; and the Life hy Francis Espinasse (1866); the biographical study by John Morley, published in 1871; also Foreign Classics for English Readers, in which is included a work on Voltaire by Colonel Hamley. Voltimand. A courtier, in Hamlet (q.v.). Vortigern and Eowena. A drama written by William Henry Ireland (q.v.), and put for- ward by him as the work of Shakespeare. It was brought out at Drury Lane, with Kemble as the leading character, but was immediately condemned, the line, “And when this solemn mockery is o’er,” significantly emphasised by the actor, being taken up by the pit, and received with a roar of ironical approval which sealed the fate of the drama. Vox Clamantis. The second part of a great poem by John Gower (1320—1402), written in Latin, and never printed. It is in seven books, of alternate hexameter and pentameter verse, and “ treats,” according to a contemporary chroni- cler, “ of that marvellous event which happened in England in the time of King Richard II., in the fourth year of his reign, when the servile rustics rose impetuously against the nohles and gentles of the kingdom, pronouncing, however, the innocence of the said lord the king, then under age, his case therefore excusable. He declares the faults to be more evidently from other sources by which, and not by chance, such strange things happen among men. And the title of this volume, the order of which contains seven sections, is called Vox Clamantis: the Voice of one Crying.” This, of course, refers to the insurrection of Wat Tyler, in 1381. Many years later, after the accession of Henry IV., Gower added to this poem a supple- ment called The Tripartite Chronicle (q.v.). See Confessio Amantis and Speculum Meditantis.