393 



VILLERS, CHARLES-FRANCOIS. 



VILLOISON, 



301 



1805 he was placed in command of a squadron, the main object of 

 which was to withdraw the British fleet from the shores of Europe. 

 With this view he sailed for the Antilles, where he did some mischief 

 among the English traders, and attacked the Diamond. As soon as 

 Villeneuve heard of the arrival of the English fleet at Barbadoes, his 

 mission being accomplished, he reimbarked his troops, and set sail for 

 Europe. On the 22nd of July 1805, he encountered, off Cape Finis- 

 terre, the English fleet under Sir Robert Calder. An engagement 

 took place, which continued till nightfall. Next morning, neither the 

 French nor the English admiral sought to renew the action, and for 

 failing to do so both were reprimanded by their respective govern- 

 ments. This reprimand so chafed the spirit of Villeneuve, that, when 

 he again put to sea, an instruction to his captains, issued on the 20th 

 October 1805, contained the remarkable expression " Every captain 

 who is not in action (dans le feu) is not at his post : and a signal of 

 recall will be a brand of dishonour to him." In the battle of Trafalgar, 

 Villeneuve was taken prisoner after displaying throughout the fight 

 the most perfect self-possession and high courage. He was carried to 

 England, and detained there till the month of April 1806. On his 

 arrival at Rennes, he .wrote to the minister of marine that he was in 

 France, and waiting the orders of the emperor in that town. This 

 was on the 17th of April. Four days elapsed, and he had received 

 no answer. Mindful of the rebuke he had received on a former 

 occasion, this delay appears to have unsettled the mind of Villeneuve. 

 On the 22nd of April he was found dead in his apartment by wounds 

 inflicted by his own hand. 



VILLERS, CHARLES FRANQOIS DOMINIQUE DE, had, next 

 to Madame do Stael-Holstein, the chief share in making German 

 literature known to the French at a period when the Freuch, clinging 

 to old prejudices and intoxicated by recent victories, treated Germany 

 with neglect and contempt. He was born on the 4th of November, 

 either of 1764 01- 1765 at Belchen, a small town in that part of 

 Lorraine which is inhabited by Germans. His father was chief receiver 

 of the taxes, and a royal counsellor ; by his mother's side, a baroness 

 de Lauuaguet, he is said to have been allied to the family Du Lys, 

 which is descended from the brothers of Jeanne d'Arc, the maid of 

 Orleans. He received a military education at Metz, and as early as 

 1782 was appointed lieutenant in the artillery. His first literary essay 

 was on magnetism, which was then the favourite science of the day. 

 He lived alternately at Strasburg and Metz, and he filled up his leisure 

 hours with studying history, ancient and modern literature, as well as 

 Greek and Hebrew, which he had hitherto neglected. Excited, though 

 not misled, by the Revolution, he wrote a witty political satire in verse, 

 entitled 'Les De"pute"s auxEtats Ge'ne'raux;' and in 1791 he published 

 his celebrated work ' De la Liberte.' In this work, which went through 

 three editions in the course of one year, he laid down political prin- 

 ciples which were very dangerous not only for those who published 

 them, but even for those who received them. At a period when the 

 bloody tyranny of the people began to be established in France, he 

 had the courage to place on the title of a work on liberty the motto, 

 " Aliud est, aliud dicitur ; " and in the face of the most fanatical 

 democrats he said " that it was dangerous to preach liberty to the 

 people, because they always confounded liberty with the desire of 

 indulging their will in everything; " and "that the people in insur- 

 rection were the worst tyrants of all." No sooner had the Jacobins 

 established their power, than they pursued Villers, who, after many 

 perilous adventures, escaped to Germany, and settled at Holzminden 

 on the Weser. Though acquainted with the German language, he had 

 the most unfavourable opinion of German literature, because he had 

 never read any good book in the language, and he had all the pre- 

 judices against the Germans which were then prevalent in France. At 

 Holzminden however he made the acquaintance of Dr. Brandis, known 

 by his excellent works on medicine and philosophy, who became after- 

 war js first physician to the king of Denmark. His intercourse with 

 this learned medical man, and his friendship with Kiistuer, Spittler, 

 Heeren, and Schlozer at Gottingen, where he stayed from 1794 to 

 1796, led Villers not only to abandon his prejudices against the 

 Germans, but to become the most active and generous defender of the 

 nation against his own countrymen, the French. His friendship with 

 the learned daughter of Schlozer, Mrs. Dorothea von Rodde, upon 

 whom the University of Gottingen had conferred the title of Poctor 

 in Philosophy, exercised still greater influence over him. In 1797 he 

 followed Mrs. Dr. von Rodde and her husband, to Liibeck. From this 

 time he lived alternately at Liibeck and Eutin, then the residence of 

 Voes, Count Stollberg, Jacobi, and other distinguished scholars, poets, 

 and philosophers. His chief object was to mediate between the French 

 and Germans, by eradicating their national prejudices, and by trans- 

 lating several of the best German works into French, among which 

 was Heeren's ' Essay on the Influence of the Crusades.' Reimarus 

 persuaded him to write for the ' Spectateur du Nord,' one of the best 

 newspapers of the time, which was published at Hamburg, and which 

 in the course of one year received sixty leading articles from Villers. 

 Hanover having been occupied by the French in 1803, he addressed a 

 letter to the French officers, urging them to spare and respect the 

 people. In 1804 he published his 'Essai sur 1'Esprit et 1'Influence de 

 la Reformation de Luther,' a masterpiece, which was crowned by the 

 Institut de France, and which was translated into English (by B. 

 Lambert, London, 1806, and again, with a preface and notes by James 



Mill), German (thrice), Dutch, and Swedish. In 1806 Liibeck was 

 taken by storm by the French, and Villers had to expose the brutality 

 and immorality of the French troops in his ' Lettre a Madame la 

 Comtesse Fanny de Beauharnois sur Liibeck.' This pamphlet caused 

 him much persecution, especially from Davout, in 1811. Although 

 he attacked the policy of Napoleon I. on several occasions, and 

 especially by his articles against the Continental System, Je"rome Bona- 

 parte, king of Westphalia, appointed him, in 1811, professor of philo- 

 sophy (for the branches of literature and history) in the University of 

 Gottingen. Jerome having ordered the abolition of this university, 

 Villers, at the request of Heyne, Heeren, and John von Miiller, repre- 

 sented to the king the consequences of this measure, and the king 

 countermanded his order. Villers waa esteemed and cherished both 

 by Frenchmen and Germans, and the Germans looked on him as their 

 trusty friend and protector. He had nevertheless many enemies, 

 especially among those who could or would not lay aside their pre- 

 judices ; and the frequent attacks which were made upon his character 

 gradually ruined his health. After the House of Brunswick had been 

 restored to the possession of Hanover in 1813, Villers was dismissed 

 from his post : he received a pension of 3000 francs, but he was 

 ordered to return to France. As he had committed no crime, he pro- 

 tested against this order, and it was discovered that he had been 

 calumniated to the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., who, at the 

 request of Count Miinster, augmented the pension of Villers to 4000 

 francs, and allowed him to live in Hanover; but he was not permitted 

 to continue his lectures. He had just been invited to the University 

 of Heidelberg, when he died of consumption, on the 26th of February 

 1815, with the reputation of having been one of the most enlightened 

 men of his time, who had in a measure sacrificed himself for the 

 good of others. Villers also wrote ' Philosophic de Kant, ou Prin- 

 cipes Fondamentaux de la Philosophic Transcendentale ; ' ' Lettre a 

 George Cuvier sur une Nouvelle The'orie du Cerveau par Gall ; ' 

 'Rapport sur 1'Etat de la Litte'rature Ancienne et de 1'Histoire en 

 Allemagne ; ' ' Pre"cis Historique de la Vie de Martin Luther, traduit 

 du Latin de Melanchthon, avec des Notes,' &c. He had begun the Life 

 of Luther, but death prevented him from finishing it. The authori- 

 ties cited below contain a list of his works. 



(Biographic Univer&dle ; Zeitgenossen, vol. ii. (1818), pp. 55-78.) 



VILLIERS, G. [BUCKINGHAM, DUKES OF.] 



VILLOISON, JEAN BAPTISTE GASPARD D'ANSSE DE, one 

 of the most eminent Greek scholars of modern times, was born at 

 Corbeil-sur-Seine on the 5th of March 1750. Among the scholars to 

 whose instruction ho was principally indebted we may mention Le 

 Beau and' Capperonnier, but Villoison soon surpassed all his fellow- 

 students, and his teachers also, and pursued his studies of the authors 

 of ancient Greece with such perseverance, that at the age of fifteen 

 he had read nearly all the Greek authors. He soon also gave evidence 

 that his extensive reading was not superficial, for he was scarcely 

 twenty-two years old when he published from a manuscript at St. 

 Germain the first edition of Apollonius's Lexicon on the ' Iliad ' and 

 ' Odyssey,' together with the fragments of Philemon (Paris, 2 vols. fol. 

 1773, reprinted at Leipzig in the same year in 2 vols. 4to), with very 

 valuable and learned Prolegomena and notes. Before the edition was 

 printed, he submitted it to the Academy of Inscriptions, which elected 

 him a member, although he had not yet attained the age at which this 

 honour could be conferred upon him according to their rules. He 

 was now looked upon not only in France, but in Europe also, as a 

 prodigy of learning, and he formed extensive literary connections 

 with scholars of various parts of Europe. But he did not allow him- 

 self to be dazzled by the fame thus early acquired, nor to sink into 

 inactivity ; he pursued his studies with the same ardour as before ; 

 and in 1778 he published a new edition of the pastoral poem of Longus 

 with a very learned commentary. His ambition however was rather 

 to publish such ancient works as had not yet appeared, than to prepare 

 editions of those authors which were already in print. The govern- 

 ment being informed of this desire of Villoison, he was sent in 1778, 

 at the expense of the state, to Venice, to search the library of St. 

 Mark. Here he formed an intimate friendship with the Abbe Morelli, 

 with whose assistance he discovered numerous rhetorical and gram- 

 matical works and fragments of works of that kind which had not yet 

 been printed. These, together with some other similar works which 

 he had before discovered at Paris, were published under the title 

 ' Anecdota Grjeca e Regia Parisiensi et e Veneta S. Marci Bibliotheca 

 deprompta,' Venice, 2 vols. 4to, 1781. Valuable as these anecdota are, 

 their publication was too hurried, and it was afterwards discovered 

 that Villoison had published some things as new, which had appeared 

 in print long before his time. Another more important discovery 

 which he made in the library of St. Mark, was a manuscript of 

 Homer's Iliad, which probably belonged to the 10th century, and con- 

 tained very ancient scholia (now known under the name of Scholia 

 Veneta), and marginal notes which pointed out such verses as were 

 supposititious, corrupt, or transposed. This valuable treasure, together 

 with very learned prolegomena by Villoison, appeared at Venice, folio, 

 1788. It was perhaps appreciated by no one so well as by F. A. Wolf, 

 whose theory of the Homeric poems is based in a great measure upon 

 the information derived from this discovery. Several years before the 

 printing of this work was completed he was invited by Amalia, 

 Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, aud her son Carl August, to pay them a 



