Elsie, a New England girl, is a modern Lamia, whose moral and physical system have absorbed the poison of a rattlesnake that had bitten her mother just prior to her birth. The serpent nature, which overshadows her womanly qualities, expresses itself outwardly in a peculiar undulating walk, in the pattern of her dress, in her habit of coiling and uncoiling a gold chain about her wrist, in the mysterious fascination that dwells within the strange cold glitter of her eyes, compelling involuntary obedience. The story shows the gradual humanizing of Elsie, chiefly through the influence of an absorbing love. But the struggle has been too protracted and too severe. Life perishes with it.

Venus, Mr., in Our Mutual Friend, a preserver of animals and birds and an articulator of human bones. Rather against his will, he joins Wegg in his plan of blackmailing Mr. Boffin, but repents and reveals the conspiracy. According to Percy Fitzgerald, the prototype of this character (whose shop was at 42 St. Andrew's Street, London) was introduced to the author by his illustrator, Marcus Stone, after the completion of the first three numbers of Our Mutual Friend.

"This original character," writes Mr. Fitzgerald, "excited much attention, and a friend of the great writer, as well as of the present chronicler, passing through this street, was irresistibly attracted by this shop and its contents, kept by one J. Willis. When he next saw Mr. Dickens, he said, I am convinced I have found the original of Venus; on which said Mr. Dickens, 'You are right."" Any one who then visited the place could recognize the dingy, gloomy interior, the articulated skeleton in the corner, the genial air of thick grime and

dust.

Venus of Ille, in Merimée's short story of that name. The basic legend is versified by William Morris in The Ring given to Venus in the Earthly Paradise. On the day of his nuptials, a bridegroom, in thoughtless sport, placed his spousal ring on a golden statue of Venus. Seeking later to recover it, he found, to his horror, the finger of the image crooked and the ring immovable.

Vernon

Verisopht, Lord Frederick, in Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby (1838), a young and foolish nobleman under the thumb of Sir Mulberry Hawk, whom eventually he turns against, and who kills him in a duel.

Vernon, Diana, in Scott's novel Rob Roy (1818), the brilliant, dashing, and beautiful mistress of Osbaldistone Hall, who by popular acclaim stands peerless among all Scott's heroines. Brought up apart from her sex, she is hoydenish and even boyish in the display of her exuberant spirits, but her excellent natural sense and her maidenly dignity shield her from misunderstanding. Captain Basil Hall thought he had found her original in Jane Anne Craunston, an old Scotch gentlewoman whom, in 1834, he had found nearing her end in a medieval castle in Styria. She had married its owner, Count Wenzel Purgstall, who had left her a widow in 1812. In youth she had been a friend and confidante of Scott's. Her playful allusions to her independent ways in young womanhood, her fondness for horseback riding, and the fact that Scott had sent her all the Waverley novels as they appeared with the single exception of Rob Roy, all seemed to confirm the captain's suspicions. (See S. R. CROCKETT: The Scott Originals.)

Vernon, Dorothy, heroine of an historical romance, Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1902), by Charles Major. A compound of sweetness and savagery, she is madly in love with Sir John Manners, the son of her father's bitterest enemy, and defies everybody and everything, the pro

prieties included. She makes all the advances, she lies appallingly; she threatens, bullies, wheedles, and sets two kingdoms by the ears, until she succeeds in having her own way. The story is founded upon fact. Dorothy, the daughter and heiress of Sir George Vernon, eloped with Sir John Manners and became ancestress of the present dukes of Rutland, to whom Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, former seat of the Vernon family, has passed. The door through which Dorothy eloped is still called after her, and the Vernon name is commemorated at Haddon by engravings of their arms.

Vernon, Madame de, in Mme. de Stael's Delphine (1803), the intriguing mother of Matilda. In this, the most original and thoroughly finished character in the book, the French public were quick to recognize a caricature of Talleyrand. The feminine Machiavelism, the supreme yet indolent egotism, the cool, systematic dissimulation and passionless dissipation of the character, were all seized upon as so many points of resemblance. Mme. de Staël herself told Sir James Mackintosh the famous bon-mot of Talleyrand's: " I understand," he said to her," that we are both introduced in your book, disguised as women?"

Vidal, Julia, heroine of Adolphe Belot's Drame de la Rue de la Paix. Like Fedora in the later play by Sardou, she encourages the devotion of her husband's supposed murderer, Albert Savari, in order to betray him into an avowal of his crime. He does indeed end by confessing, but the motive is less heroic than in the case of Sardou's hero. Savari has killed Maurice because the latter has injured him in some money transaction. The honor of Julia is not concerned, and the questions of casuistry in which Sardou delights have no place in the distress of the heroine. Albert has only to kill himself, and Julia to keep silence, and the curtain falls.

Village Master, The, in Goldsmith's idyllic poem, The Deserted Village (1770), an amusing type of the rustic pedagogue, who astonishes the com

Vincy

munity with" words of learned length and thundering sound,"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew

That one small head could carry all he knew. The Deserted Village, 1. 212.

Irving, in his Life of Goldsmith, suggests that the original of this character was Goldsmith's own teacher in the village school at Lissoy, a certain Thomas Byrne (nicknamed Paddy), an old soldier who had seen service, and who consequently may have furnished a hint for the wandering beggar who

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow

done,

Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.

The Deserted Village, 1. 157.

Village Preacher, The, in Goldsmith's Deserted Village (1770), a sketch, exquisite alike in its gentle humor and its immanent pathos, of a Protestant parson in an Irish village. Mrs. Hodgson, Goldsmith's sister, took this to be a portrait of their father; others have identified him as Henry Goldsmith, the brother, and even as the uncle Contarine. They may all have contributed, each a touch, to the fully rounded portrait.

Vincentis, in Shakespeare's comedy, Measure for Measure (1603), the Duke of Vienna. Being anxious to learn the truth about the officials that surround him, he delegates his powers for a period to Angelo and feigns to go on a journey, but really disguises himself as Friar Lodowick. Thus he unearths many abuses in his court and unmasks a few hypocrites. He is described as one that above all other strifes contended especially to know himself."

Vincy, Rosamund, in George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch (1871-72), a beautiful young woman who under a veil of perfect delicacy and refinement conceals a selfish, self-occupied, and obstinate spirit. Her marriage to Lydgate is fatal to the development of his higher self. George Eliot is reported to have said that the character which she found most difficult to support was that of Rosamond Vincy.

Rosamund Vincy is a mood of one of the forms of stupidity against which the gods fight in vain. Being utterly incapable of even understanding her husband's aspirations, fixing her mind on the vulgar kind of success, and having the strength of will which comes from an absolute limitation to one aim, she is a most effective torpedo, and paralyses all Lydgate's energies. He is entangled in money difficulties; gives up his aspirations; sinks into a merely popular physician, and is sentenced to die early of diphtheria.-LESLIE STEPHEN: George Eliot. Viola, heroine of Shakespeare's comedy, Twelfth Night. Having been shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, she assumes male attire to protect herself in this strange country, and under the name of Cesaria enters the service of the duke, with whom she falls deeply in love. Like another and a different John Alden, she is made the confidante of his passion for Olivia and his messenger to her. Olivia, mistaking her sex, falls in her turn in love with Viola.

How careful has Shakespeare been in Twelfth Night to preserve the dignity and delicacy of Viola under her disguise! Even when wearing a page's doublet and hose, she is never mixed up with any transaction which the most fastidious mind could regard as leaving a stain on her. She is employed by the Duke on an embassy of love to Olivia, but on an embassy of the most honorable kind. Wycherley borrows Viola (in The Plain Dealer] and Viola forthwith becomes a pandar of the basest sort.—MACAULAY, Essays: Leigh Hunt.

Volpone

brought up in pastoral simplicity and ignorance of the outer world. The boy and girl idyl is rudely interrupted when a letter arrives from Madame La Tour's aunt, who proposes to adopt Virginia if she will come over to France to be educated. So Virginia sails away, leaving Paul disconsolate on the island. Two years pass. Virginia is disowned by the aunt because she will not marry at her dictation. The ship that bears her back to her old home is heralded. Paul in a frenzy of delight rushes down to the shore. A sudden storm arises; the ship goes down in sight of the island. Virginia might have been saved but for the maidenly modesty that made her refuse the proffered assistance of a naked sailor. body is washed ashore, and two months later Paul follows her to the grave.

Her

The story has furnished the subject for various musical scores,-notably a three-act opera by Rudolph Kreutzer (1791), a lyrical drama in three acts by Lesueur (1794), and an opera in three acts and seven tableaus (1876), libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, music by Victor Massé.

Vogler, George Joseph, usually known as Abbé or Abt Vogler (1749

ing's poem, Abt Vogler, in Dramatis Persona (1864). He was a German organist, composer, teacher, and inventor, playing on his own instrument, the "orchestrion." The poet puts in his mouth a monologue, taking as its main theme that some soul of permanence lies behind the transitoriness of musical sounds, for the good and the beautiful are lasting, while all negations, such as evil, darkness, ugliness, are non-extant, eternal substance. the shifting shadow cast by the

Volpone, hero of Ben Jonson's comedy, Volpone, or the Fox (1605).

Volpone, a miser and sensualist, works on the greed of his acquaintances and, by cites their hopes of inheriting his fortune. false reports of his sickness and death, ex

and lures them into all kind of intolerable

Wakefield, Vicar of. See PRIMROSE, DR. CHARLES.

Wakem, Philip, in George Eliot's novel, The Mill on the Floss, the crippled son of a lawyer who had helped to ruin old Mr. Tulliver. Hence Tom Tulliver, the son, hates him and all his race, and Maggie is forced to give up Philip just at the crisis, when a motherly pity for his deformity and a keen sympathy with his high ideals had combined to produce something dangerously akin to love.

Waldbourg, Count, hero of Kotzebue's melodrama, Menschenhasz und Rene (1787), called The Stranger in the English adaptation (1808) by Benjamin Thompson. He had married the sixteen-year-old Adelaide, who eloped with a lover after bearing him two children. He then wandered around the world incognito, known only as the Stranger wherever he happens to be. She herself, repentant, discards her lover, and under the name of Mrs. Haller enters the service of Countess Wintersen. See HALLER, MRS.

Waldfried, Heinrich, in Berthold Auerbach's Waldfried (1874), the head of the Waldfried family, a South German whose journal forms the book. An old man who has been through a great deal and has seen many changes since 1848, when the journal begins, he still retains an enthusiastic temperament, a keen humor, and a deep fund of pathos. His account of his wife's death and his subsequent grief are vividly affecting.

Wall, in the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream, is enacted by Snout, a tinker: In this same interlude it doth befall, That I, one Snout by name, present a wall.

Act v

Wandering Willie

Wallace, Sir William, the friend of Robert Bruce and one of the great national heroes of Scotland, is celebrated in a poetical chronicle, The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace (circa 1460), by the wandering minstrel called Blind Harry. This is said to have been mainly founded on a Latin Life of the hero by his schoolfellow, John Blair

The man

That first compild in dyt the Latyne buk Off Wallace lyff, rycht famous of renoune. It was republished in 1869.

Wallace is one of the heroes of Jane Porter's historical novel, The Scottish Chiefs (1809). Infuriated by the murder of his wife by English soldiers, he rouses his countrymen against the English king, Edward I, captures castles, fights bloody battles, and, going in disguise as a harper to Edward's court, assists Bruce to escape therefrom, and accompanies him to France to rescue the abducted Helen Mar.

Walpurga, in Berthold Auerbach's novel, On the Heights (Auf der Höhe, 1865), the wet-nurse for the crown prince, an upright and forthright German peasant, whose shrewd sayings are the salt of the book. She rejoins her people laden with presents, and she and her husband Hansei buy a farm among their native mountains. Hither comes the Countess Irma (q.v.), to work out her own salvation on the heights.

Walter, marquis of Saluzzo, in Chaucer's The Clerk's Tale (1388), the husband of Griselda (q.v.).

Walter, Master, the titular hero of Knowles's drama, The Hunchback. See JULIA.

Walter of Vanila, in Charles Kingsley's dramatic poem, The Saint's Tragedy, a vassal of the Landgrave Lewis, representing the healthy animalism of the Teutonic mind, with its mixture of deep earnestness and hearty animalism.

Wandering Willie, in Scott's Redgauntlet, the blind fiddler, William Steenson, who tells Darsie Latimer, as they tramp together across the lea,