263 



VALOIS, HENRY DE. 



VALSAtVA, ANTONIO MAtUA. 



264 



museums of objects in natural history wliich they contained. He took 

 an especial interest in mineralogy, and vi.-ited mines and metallurgic 

 establishments for the purpose of increasing his knowledge in this 

 department of science. During his travels, of which he published an 

 account, he visited Lapland and Iceland, and returned, laden with 

 objects of natural history, to Paris in 1756. In 1758 he published a 

 list of objects in natural history, under tlie title 'Catalogue d'un 

 Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle,' 12mo. In 1761 and 1762 he published 

 a large work on minerals generally, in 2 vols. 8vo, entitled ' Nouvelle 

 Exposition du R6gne Mineral.' His greatest work was a dictionary 

 of natural history, entitled ' Dictionnaire Raisoiinc* Universel d'His- 

 toire Naturelle,' in 6 vols. 8vo. This work was one of very consider- 

 able merit, and gave descriptions of the various objects in the three 

 kingdoms of nature, and of their uses in the economy of the arts. It 

 has gone through a great number of editions, printed at various 

 places, and is the basis of more modern dictionaries on the same 

 subject. He gave courses of lectures on natural history in Paris from 

 1756 to 1788. He had offers to accept chairs of natural history in 

 I ; us.-iii and Portugal, but refused. He died at Paris, in August 1 807. 

 (Haller, Bib. Bot. ; Sir J. E. Smith.) 



VALOIS, HENRY DE, commonly called by his Latinised name, 

 Henricus Valesius, a celebrated French scholar, was born at Paris on 

 the 10th of September 1603, and was descended of an ancient noble 

 family of Normandy. Ho was educated at Verdun, in the college of 

 the Jesuits, and afterwards at Paris in the college of Clermont, where 

 he had the instruction of Petavius and Sirmond, both of whom enter- 

 tained a high opinion of his talents. In 1622 he went to Bourges to 

 study jurisprudence, and after- the completion of his studies he 

 practised for several years as a lawyer, but more to please his father 

 than from his own inclination, for the study of the ancient authors 

 was his favourite pursuit. At last however he gave up his pro- 

 fessional occupations altogether, and devoted himself entirely to 

 literature. He worked very hard and without any intermission, 

 except on a Saturday afternoon, which he used to devote to his 

 friends. His excessive study cost him his right eye, and the left was 

 BO much weakened that he could not continue his studies without a 

 reader. But his father was too economical to allow his eon any sum 

 of money for this purpose, and De Valois would have had a miserable 

 existence, had not a friend, M. de Mesmes, given him a handsome 

 pension. De Valois enjoyed this until the death of his father in 

 1659, which placed him in independent circumstances. The repu- 

 tation which he acquired by this time as a scholar and a critic induced 

 the French clergy to apply to him for a new edition of the Greek 

 writers on ecclesiastical history. De Valois, who had before been 

 requested to lend his assistance in this undertaking, had refused to 

 do EO; but now, when the whole was left to him, he readily undertook 

 the task. By way of encouragement he received from the clergy an 

 annual pension, which was afterwards considerably increased by the 

 liberality of Cardinal Mazarin. In 1660, while De Valois was still 

 engaged upon this great undertaking, he was honoured with the 

 title of historiographer to the king. Two years after this he became 

 completely blind. Until the year 1664 he had devoted himself to 

 literature, but now he surprised his friends by marrying a handsome 

 young woman, who bore him seven children. He died on the 7th of 

 May 1676, after having suffered very much during the last few years 

 from the infirmities of old age. 



Henry de Valois was one of the last of that race of great scholars 

 who adorned France during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth 

 centuries. He possessed very extensive learning and great critical 

 sagacity, but he knew his powers, he was vain and proud, and 

 resented any neglect of the respect which he thought due to him. 

 His ill temper increased as he advanced in years. His works are still 

 very useful. The following list contains the most important among 

 them : 1. ' Excerpta Polybii, Diodori, Nicolai Damasceni, Dionysii 

 Halicarnassensis, Appiani Alexandrini, Dionis et Joannis Antiocheni, 

 ex Collectaneis Constantini, August! Porphyrogenitae, nunc primum 

 Qraecc edita, Latine versa, cum Notis,' Paris, 1634, 4to. These are 

 the so-called ' Excerpta de Virtutibus et Vitiis,' or ' Excerpta Peires- 

 ciana,' after M. Peiresc, to whom the MS. of the 'Excerpta' belonged, 

 and to whom De Valois dedicated his edition. 2. An edition of 

 Ammianus Marcellinus, with critical and explanatory notes, Paris, 

 1636, 4to. A second edition, with additional notes by H. de Valois, 

 Lindebrog, and the editor, was published by Adrien de Valois, the 

 brother of Henry, Paris, 1681, fol. ; and a third, containing the notes 

 of the Valesii and Lindebrog, with some of his own, by J. Qronoviu?, 

 Ley den, 1693. 3. A series of the Greek Ecclesiastical Historians, in 

 3 vols. fol., with notes and Latin translations. They appeared in the 

 following order : Eusebius (Paris, 1659), Socrates and Sozomen 

 (Paris, 1668), Theodoretus, Evagiius, and Philostorgius (Paris, 1673). 

 This edition of the Ecclesiastical Historians was afterwards reprinted 

 at Amsterdam, 1699, and at Cambridge, in 1720. 4. After his 

 death there appeared his ' Notae et Animadversiones in Harpocra- 

 tionem et P. J. Mauseaci Nota?,' edited by J. Gronovius. They are 

 reprinted in Blancard's edition of Harpocration, Leyden, 1683, 4to. 



The Life of H. de Valois was written by his brother Adrien. It 

 is printed in Bates' s ' Vitae Selectorum aliquot Virorum,' and 

 some additions to it were afterwards published by P. Burmaun, in 

 1739. 



VALOIS, ADRIEN DE, commonly called Adrianus Valesius, a 

 younger brother of Henry de Valois, was born at Paris on the 14th of 

 January 1607. He received the same education as his brother, but 

 devoted himself principally to the study of poetry, oratory, and 

 listory. History, and more especially the history of his own country, 

 engaged his attention for many years, and in 1646 he published the 

 irst volume of his great historical work of France, under the title 

 'Gesta Francorum, seu de Rebus Francicis.' The whole work consists 

 of 3 vols. fol., and the last two appeared in 1658. This extensive and 

 very learned work comprises the history of France only during the 

 short period from A.D. 254 to 752. It raised his reputation so much, 

 that in 1660 he received the title of historiographer to the king, with 



pension of 1200 livres. The minister Colbert wished him to 

 continue the work, but De Valois declared that he could not, the 

 difficulties being insurmountable. In 1675 he published a very useful 

 work on the state of ancient Gaul, entitled ' Notitia Galliarum Ordine 

 Alphabetico digesta,' in fol. His edition of Ammianus Marcellinus 

 and his ' Life of Henry de Valois' are noticed in VALOIS, HENKY DE. 

 His other works are now of little importance, and a list of them is 

 Found in the works cited below. He died at Paris, on the 2nd of July, 

 1692. A collection of some minor works of A. de Valois was afterwards 

 published by his son under the name of ' Valesiaua.' 



(Perrault, Les Hommea Illustres qui out paru en France; Niceron, 

 Memoires des Hommea Illustres, voL iii. ; Chaufepie 1 , Nouveau Diction- 

 naire Historique.) 



VALPY, REV. RICHARD, D.D., was born December 7, 1754, in 

 the island of Jersey, where his father, Richard Valpy, possessed an 

 estate. He was the eldest of six children, all of whom died before 

 they attained middle age except himself and the Rev. Edward Valpy 

 of Norwich. He was sent at an early age to one of the foundation 

 schools of his native island, whence at the age of ten years he was 

 removed to the college of Valognes in Normandy. There he remained 

 five years, during which he acquired the French language, which he 

 ever afterwards spoke with facility. At the age of fifteen he was sent 

 bo the grammar-school at Southampton, and afterwards went to the 

 University of Oxford, having been appointed to one of the scholarships 

 founded in Pembroke College for natives of Jersey and Guernsey. 

 Having taken his degree of B.A. he was ordained in 1777, and removed 

 first to Bury St. Edmunds, and afterwards in October 1781 to Reading 

 in Berkshire, having been unanimously elected by the corporation 

 bead-master of the grammar-school there. 



In the performance of his duties as master of Reading School Dr. 

 Valpy spent nearly the whole of his subsequent life. To elevate the 

 school from the low state in which he found it was the first wish of 

 his youth, and to maintain it at the height of reputation to which he 

 had raised it was the great object of his later years. He was twice 

 married, first in 1778, and secondly in 1782. He survived his second 

 wife by a few years, and left a family of eleven children, all of whom 

 were married and established in life before his death. In 1787 he 

 was presented to the rectory of Stradishall in Suffolk, and as he was 

 obliged to pass the greater part of the year at Reading he visited his 

 parishioners regularly at the Midsummer and Christmas vacations. 

 About six years before his death the infirmities of age, and particularly 

 dimness of sight, compelled him to withdraw from the mastership of 

 Reading School, when his youngest son, the Rev. Francis Valpy, was 

 unanimously elected by the corporation to succeed him. Another of 

 his sons, A. J. Valpy, was for many years a printer and publisher in 

 London ; and a great number of valuable editions of Greek and Latin 

 works issued from his press, of which perhaps the most important was 

 the new edition of Stephens's ' Thesaurus,' by Barker, 7 vols. folio, 

 1815-28. Dr. Valpy died March 28, 1836, at the residence of his son, 

 Kensington, London. 



From his youth to old age Dr. Valpy was an admirer of poetry and 

 the drama. The tragedies of the Greek dramatists were occasionally 

 represented at Reading school by his pupils, and he also adapted some 

 of Shakspere's Plays for performance there. He composed several 

 elementary works to facilitate the attainment of different branches of 

 education, among which a Greek Grammar and a Latin Grammar have 

 had a very large circulation. 



VALSA'LVA, ANTO'NIO MARPA, was bom of a noble family at 

 Imola, in 1666. After a preliminary education by private tutors, he 

 was sent to the University of Bologna, where he studied medicine, 

 and especially anatomy, under Malpighi, Salini, and others. He 

 received his doctor's degree in 1687, and was even at that time 

 distinguished for his industry and learning. After this, he devoted 

 himself with extraordinary zeal to the study of both normal and 

 morbid anatomy ; dissecting night and day, preparing the dis- 

 sected parts, and performing experiments ; aiid all this, although he 

 was of a weakly constitution, and was much occupied in private 

 practice. He was equally excellent in surgery and medicine. In the 

 former he is celebrated for having first in Bologna discarded the 

 cautery and adopted the ligature of the arteries in amputation ; for 

 having materially improved the whole practice of aural surgery ; and 

 for his inventions and improvements of many surgical instruments. 

 He also described the true nature of the steatomatous tumours 

 formed by diseased hair-follicles, the morbid anatomy of apparent 

 glaucoma from amber-cataract, and the constancy of the seat of 

 cataract in the lens or its capsule. In medical practice, applying his 





