333 



VERUS, LUCIUS. 



VESALIUS, ANDREAS. 



331 



In 1737 he was employed by the Knaptons, the publishers of the 

 translation of Rapin, to engrave some of their series of illustrious 

 heads, the greater part of which were engraved by Houbraken. The 

 portraits of Houbraken are very superior to those by Vertue; yet, 

 says Walpole, his by no means deserved to be condemned, as they were, 

 and himself set aside. Vertue's fault was his scrupulous veracity, 

 which could not digest imaginary portraits, as are some of those 

 engraved by Houbraken, who, living in Holland, engraved whatever 

 was sent to him. The heads of Carr, Earl of Somerset, and secretary 

 Thurloe, by Houbraken, are not only not genuine, but do not in the 

 least resemble, the persons they are meant to represent, says Walpole. 

 " Vertue was incommode ; he loved truth." 



In 1740 he published proposals for the commencement of a seriea 

 of historic prints, of which he published only two numbers, containing 

 each four prints with explanations. In the first number there is a 

 print of Queen Elizabeth's procession to Hunsdon House ; the original 

 picture, of which Vertue made an exact copy in water-colours for 

 Lord Oxford, was, in Walpole's time, at Sherborne Castle, Dorsetshire. 

 In 1741 he lost his patron the Earl of Oxford, which so depressed 

 him, that "for two years." says Walpole, "there is an hiatus in his 

 story." In 1743 however he was a little revived by the notice of the 

 Duke of Norfolk, for whom he engraved the large plate of the Earl 

 of Arundel and his family, and performed other services. But in 1749 

 he found a more valuable patron in the then Prince of Wales, whose 

 taste coincided with his own, and whose patronage was all he could 

 desire. " He saw his fate," says Walpole, " linked with the revival of 

 the arts he loved ; he was useful to a prince who trod in the steps of 

 the accomplished Charles but a silent and unexpected foe drew a 

 veil over this scene of comfort." The prince died in March 1751 : 

 Vertue, after speaking of his character and accomplishments, alludes 

 to his death in the following words : " But alas, Mors ultima linea 

 rerurn ! God, thy will be done ! Unhappy day, Wednesday, March 

 20th, 1751 !" 



" Vertue lost his friends," says the same writer, " but his piety, 

 mildness, and ingenuity never forsook him." He worked almost to 

 the last, anxious to leave a competent support to his wife, with whom 

 he had lived many years in happiness. He died on the 24th of July 

 1756, and was survived by his wife nearly twenty years. He was 

 buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. His collection of books, 

 prints, and drawings was sold by auction in 1757 : Walpole purchased 

 several of his drawings. 



Vertue was a strict Roman Catholic ; yet he has preserved more 

 monuments of the reign of Queen Elizabeth than of any other, but 

 that of Charles I. was his favourite period. Walpole describes him as 

 "simple, modest, and scrupulous so scrupulous that it gave a peculiar 

 slowness to his delivery ; he never uttered his opinion hastily, nor 

 hastily assented to that of others. Ambitious to distinguish himself, 

 he took but one method application. Acquainted with all the arts 

 practised by his profession to usher their productions to the public, he 

 made use of none." 



Walpole's well-known work, entitled ' Anedotes of Painting in 

 England,' was written entirely from manuscripts which he bought of 

 Vertue's widow, although he recurred to the original sources when 

 Vertue drew his information from books. Vertue commenced his 

 compilations in 1713, and they amounted in the whole to nearly forty 

 volumes large and small. He visited and made catalogues of every 

 collection, attended sales, copied all papers he found relative to the 

 arts, searched registers, examined all English authors, and translated 

 many of other countries which related to his subject. And Walpole 

 observes in his preface : " One satisfaction the reader will have, in 

 the integrity of Mr. Vertue ; it exceeded his industry, which is saying 

 much. No man living, so bigoted to a vocation, was ever so incapa- 

 ble of falsehood. He did not deal even in hypothesis, scarce in 

 conjecture." 



The prints of Vertue are very numerous : Walpole has given a 

 complete list of them in his ' Catalogue of Engravers.' He has divided 

 them into eighteen classes, as follows : royal portraits ; noblemen ; 

 ladies; bishops and archbishops, of whom he engraved thirty-eight; 

 clergymen ; chancellors, judges, and lawyers ; ministers and gentle- 

 men ; physicians, &c. ; founders, benefactors, &c. ; antiquaries, authors, 

 and mathematicians ; poets and musicians ; foreigners ; historic prints, 

 and prints with two or more portraits ; tombs ; plans, views, churches, 

 buildings, &c. ; coins, medals, busts, seals, charters, gems, and shells ; 

 frontispieces, head- and tail-pieces ; and, lastly, miscellaneous pieces ; 

 besides many plates for the Society of Antiquaries, and a series of 

 Oxford almanacs. 



(Walpole, A Catalogue of Engravers who have teen "born or resided in 

 England, &c., constituting a fifth volume to the Anecdotes of Paint- 

 ing, &c.) 



VERUS, LU'CIUS, a Roman emperor who reigned as the colleague 

 of Marcus Aurelius, from A.D. 161 to 169. He was born at Rome,, 

 and was a son of yElius Verus, who had been adopted by the 

 emperor Hadrian and raised to the rank of Caesar. After the death of 

 .iElius Verus, in A.D. 138, Hadrian adopted T. Aurelius (Antoninus 

 Pius), on condition that he should adopt Marcus Verus (Marcus 

 Aurelius), the son of Annia Faustina, and Lucius Verus, the son of 

 -(Elius Verus. After the death of Antoninus Pius, in A.D. 161, Marcus 

 Aurelius, who succeeded him, and was of a weakly constitution, volun- 



tarily shared his imperial dignity with his adoptive brother L. Verus, 

 who was then about thirty-two years old, and whoso complete name is 

 Lucius Ceianus JElms Commodua Verus Antoninus. Up to this time 

 L. Verus had lived as a prince in a private station, with the title of 

 'August! filius' and without either the honours or burdens of 

 government. He had been educated by the most distinguished gram- 

 marians and philosophers of the time, but he had no taste for in- 

 tellectual occupations. So long as he remained at Rome and was 

 under the direct influence of M. Aurelius, his vicious character did not 

 fully disclose itself. Soon after his accession the Parthians had cut to 

 pieces a Roman legion stationed in Cappadocia, with its leader Servi- 

 lianus. L. Verus took the field against them, in A.D. 162, but instead 

 of conducting the war in person, he left it to his generals, who gained 

 brilliant victories, while the emperor revelled in the luxuries and 

 debaucheries with which he became familiar in the towns of Asia, 

 especially at Antioch. In A.D. 164 he went to Ephesus, where he 

 celebrated his marriage with Lucilla, the daughter of hia adoptive 

 father, or, according to others, of his adoptive brother. After the 

 close of the war he returned to Rome, accompanied by hosts of 

 actors, freedmen, and other low persons who ministered to bia vulgar 

 pleasures, and in A.D. 166 he and Marcus Aurelius solemnised a 

 triumph over the Parthians. Soon after this Rome was visited by a 

 fearful pestilence, and at the same time the Marcomanni and Quadi 

 invaded the enpire from the north. Both the emperors at the head 

 of their armies marched to Aquileia. Verus again took scarcely any 

 part in the war, but as usual gave himself up to his pleasures. At last 

 when hostilities had ceased, the two emperors returned to Rome. On 

 his way thither L. Verus was seized by a fit of apoplexy at Altinum in 

 the neighbourhood of Venice, where he died A.D. 169, in the forty- 

 second year of his age. 



A long catalogue of his vices is given by Julius Capitolinus in hig 

 ' Life of Verus.' Indeed Verus was one of the most contemptible 

 persons that have disgraced regal power. The only thing that can be 

 said in his praise is, that he did not oppose his adoptive brother hi his 

 administration, and that he did not, like most effeminate and licentious 

 rulers, aggravate his vices by acts of cruelty. The good understanding 

 between him and the noble Marcus Aureliua is almost unaccountable ; 

 but it appears to have been considerably diminished after the Parthian 

 war. There is a marble bust of Lucius Verus in the Townley Gallery 

 of the British Museum. [AURELIUS, MARCOS.] 



VESA'LIUS, AN'DREAS, the greatest anatomist of the 16th cen- 

 tury, was born at Brussels in 1514. His father, Andreas Vesalius the 

 elder, was apothecary to the Emperor Maximilian ; and his uncle 

 Everardus was a physician, and the author of some commentaries on 

 the works of Rhazes. He received from an early age his classical 

 and philosophical education at Louvain, and gained a degree of know- 

 ledge in physics which was unusual even with the best educated of 

 the time. From Louvain he proceeded, to study medicine, to Mont- 

 pellier, and thence to Paris, where he had for instructors Guntherus 

 ab Andernacb, Sylvius, and Fernelius. In 1526, distinguished already 

 by extraordinary zeal in the pursuit of anatomy, and exposing him- 

 self even to great personal danger in the obtaining of bodies for dis- 

 section, Guntherus made him his chief assistant; and in the same 

 year he discovered the origins of the spermatic blood-vessels. After 

 a long residence in Paris, he returned to Louvain, where he was soon 

 appointed to teach anatomy; but in 1535, in order tba.t he might 

 obtain better opportunities for learning it himself, he joined the army 

 of the emperor of Germany, who was then at war with France. In 

 1538 he was at Bologna, and in 1539 at Pavia, where in the following 

 year he was appointed professor of anatomy, having not long before 

 published his celebrated 'Epistola docens venam axillarem dextri 

 cubiti in dolore lateral! secundam,' Basel, 4to, 1539, in which he gave 

 an improved though imperfect anatomy of the vena azygos, and main- 

 tained that blood should always be drawn from the right arm, because 

 of the near connection between its vessels and that vein. Vesalius 

 remained professor at Pavia for nearly four years; in 1543 he held 

 the same office at Bologna; and not long afterwards he was appointed 

 professor of anatomy, with an annual stipend of 800 crowns, at Pisa. 

 His knowledge at this time is said to have been so unusual, that the 

 best anatomists of the day left his demonstrations silenced. He had 

 in 1539 published some anatomical plates ; and for the four succeeding 

 years he gave a great portion of his time to the preparation of a com- 

 plete work of the same kind, employing as his assistants some of the 

 most skilful artists of the day. Moehsen says that Titian was among 

 those whom he employed, but this is not certain ; for the name of 

 that great artist is not mentioned in Vesalius's works, and yet is not 

 likely to have been williuply suppressed. In 1542 a part of the work 

 was published, with the title ' Suorum librorum de Corporis Humani 

 fabrica Epitome,' Basel, folio; and in 1543 the whole appeared. It 

 was called ' De Corporis Humani Fabrica Libri Septem,' Basel, folio, 

 1543. Another and somewhat enlarged edition was published by 

 Vesalius at Basel, folio, 1555 ; and, after his death, numerous editions 

 appeared at various times and places. Haller calls it ' an immortal 

 work, by which all that had been written before was almost super- 

 seded.' Senae speaks of it as the discovery of a new world ; and 

 probably nothing has been written, either before or since which haa 

 had so great on influence on the progress of anatomy. The boldness 

 with which Vesalius attacked the accepted and long-reverenced 



