777 



WITTE, PIETER DE. 



WODROW, ROBERT. 



773 



brothers in the works of Sir William Temple and Ramsay's * Memoirs 

 of Turenue.' 



WITTE, PIETER DE, or PIETRO CANDIDO, as the Italians 

 have translated his name, or he for them, was born at Bruges in 1548. 

 He went early with his parents to Florence, and studied as an his- 

 torical paiuter there, in fresco and in oil. He was probably the 

 scholar of Vasari, for he assisted that painter in Florence, and in his 

 works in the Vatican at Rome. He made for the Duke of Tuscany 

 many cartoons to be worked in tapestry. He was afterwards invited 

 while in Italy, by the Elector of Bavaria, to go to Munich and enter 

 his service, which he did, and ho remained there many years, until his 

 death in 1628, and all works of art produced in his time were executed 

 under his direction. He painted, under the arcade of the long gallery 

 of the Hof-garteu at Munich, a series of frescoes, representing the 

 deeds of Otto of Wittelsbach, and the departure of the Emperor 

 Ludvvig IV. for Rome in 1327. These paintings were whitewashed 

 over ; the designs however are preserved in the tapestries which were 

 worked from them, and in the engravings which were made by Atnling 

 from the tapoatries : the prints are marked with the name of Pietro 

 Candido as the painter. Amling engraved thirteen plates from these 

 tapestries, representing the histories of the Emperor Otho, Louis of 

 Bavaria, and Otho of Wittelsbach, according to Huber. 



WITTGENSTEIN is the name of a noble German family, which is 

 probably descended from one of those Prankish nobles upon whom 

 Charlemagne conferred extensive estates in Saxony. This family has 

 assumed the name of Sayn- Wittgenstein, although it never possessed 

 the county of Sayn. The former county of Wittgenstein was situated 

 in the southern corner of Westphalia, about the sources of the Sieg 

 and the Lahn, a mountainous tract renowned for its rich iron-mines, 

 and which exports great quantities of scythes and sickles. The counts 

 of Wittgenstein were sovereign members of the German empire. They 

 were early divided into two branches, the elder of which was sub- 

 divided into two under-branches the counts of Sayn-Wittgensteiu- 

 Berleburg and those of Sayn- Wittgenstein of Hohenstein, both of which 

 acquired the title of Prince. The younger of the two branches above 

 mentioned was raised to the rank of prince in 1834, on account of the 

 military reputation of one of its members, Louis Adolphus, and who 

 was one of the chief commanders of the Russian army in the wars 

 against Napoleon. 



Louis ADOLPHUS, COUNT OF WITTGENSTEIN, born in 1769, entered 

 the Prussian army, and made his first campaign against France in 

 1793. He afterwards entered the Russian service, and fought with 

 great distinction against the French and the Turks. In the campaign 

 of 1807, in Prussia and Poland, he commanded under Benningsen, the 

 Russian field-marshal, and was highly distinguished by the Emperor 

 Alexander. Napoleon having invaded Russia in 1812, Count Witt- 

 genstein was intrusted with the command of the right wing of the 

 Russian army, which was to cover St. Petersburg, and the head- 

 quarters of which were at Riga. He defended his position success- 

 fully, during the whole war, against Marshal Macdonald, whom he 

 finally drove back towards the Prussian frontier. The corps of Witt- 

 genstein having suffered less than the rest of the Russians, it was 

 employed as vanguard, and Wittgenstein entered Berlin on the llth 

 of March 1813. Kutusow, the Russian field-marshal, having died 

 early in 1813, Wittgenstein was appointed commander-in-chief of the 

 combined Russian and Prussian forces. In this situation he issued 

 those famous but bombastic proclamations by which he intended to 

 rouse the German nation, and, in particular, the Saxons, to make 

 common cause with the allied powers. He lost the battles of Lutzen 

 and Bautzen, but effected his retreat so well that Napoleon could not 

 derive any benefit from his victories. When Austria adhered to the 

 coalition (August 1813), Prince Schwarzenberg was invested with the 

 command-in-chief of the united forces of the allies, and Wittgenstein 

 was superseded in his command by Barclay de Tolly for the Russian 

 forces, and by Bliicher for the Prussian army. He nevertheless con- 

 tinued in command of a strong division of the Russian army, and in 

 the battle of Leipzig (16th-18th October 1813) was at the head of 

 70,000 men, with whom he occupied the position round the villages 

 of Mark-Kleeberg, Wachau, and Liebertwolkwitz. In the campaign 

 of 1814, in France, Wittgenstein, in the beginning of February, had 

 penetrated as far as the neighbourhood of Paris, but Napoleon defeated 

 him in the battles of Mormant and Nangis. After the war with 

 Napoleon was terminated by the two peaces of Paris, Alexander 

 rewarded him with extensive estates in Podolia, and put on the 

 count's coat of arms the inscription "Meine ehre geb' ich Niemand" 

 (" I give my honour to nobody"). The merchants of St. Petersburg 

 presented him with the sum of 150,000 silver rubles (30,000.). In 

 1826 Wittgenstein was created a field-marshal, and, in 1828, the 

 Emperor Nicolas gave him the command-in-chief against the Turks. 

 The first campaign resulted in the passage of the Pruth and the 

 Danube, and the conquest of Braila, Isakcha, Varna, and other for- 

 tresses, which were taken by the Russians. These advantages how- 

 ever were balanced by some severe losses, and Wittgenstein was 

 recalled on the 18th of February 1829; but the emperor did not 

 dismiss him without giving him new proofs of his esteem. Wittgen- 

 stein retired to his estates in Podolia, where he died in the beginning 

 of the summer of 1843. In 1834 the King of Prussia conferred upon 

 him. and hia successors the title of prince. 



WITZLEBEN, KARL AUGUST FRIEDRICH VON, better 

 known as a writer by his literary pseudonym of Von Tromlitz, the 

 name of hia father's estate near Weimar, where he waa born March 

 17, 1772. At the ago of nine he was enrolled among the pagea 

 at the court of Weimar, and there had Musseus and Herder for his 

 instructors. Having entered very early into the Prussian service he 

 obtained advancement in it, and distinguished himself in the Rhine 

 campaigns of 1792-95. It was about the eame time that he made his 

 first literary attempt, being engaged by a publisher to complete a 

 work entitled ' Avanturen der Deutschen am Rhine,' the author of 

 which lived only to finish the first volume ; and he also wrote several 

 political pamphlets, at that period, and his romance, ' Das Stille Thai.' 

 Though Schiller encouraged him to cultivate his literary talent, that 

 production was his last, until about twenty years afterwards, when he 

 again appeared as a writer. 



During that interval he was constantly engaged in military service, 

 of which he experienced a great deal in various campaigns ; was at 

 the battle of Jena ; was taken prisoner at Prenzlau ; became a com- 

 mander of infantry in the army of the grand-duke of Berg (Murat); 

 had a regiment in the Peninsular war, in 1811, when he was posted 

 near Burgos j afterwards entered the allied army against France ; and 

 in 1813 became a colonel in the Russian service. At the general peace 

 his military career terminated, and he retired to Beuchlitz near Halle 

 where he followed farming for about the next seven years, when he 

 went to Berlin, an 1 at the age of forty-nine made literature his sole 

 occupation. He did not however remain at Berlin many years, but 

 hi 1826 removed to Dresden, in which city and its neighbourhood he 

 continued to reside till his death, July 9, 1839. 



That ' Tromlitz ' was both a fertile writer and a favourite one with 

 the public, is tolerably evident from three editions of his collected 

 tales and novels two in 36, and one in 27 volumes having passed 

 through the press between 1833 and 1840. He distinguished himself 

 chiefly by his historical romances a species of literature greatly in 

 vogue, and in which he took Scott for his model, and with perhaps as 

 much success as any other of his imitators. Interest of story, clever- 

 ness of invention, and an agreeable style of narrative, sufficiently re- 

 commended his productions of that class to readers in general, though 

 it has been alleged that they show no very great knowledge of history 

 or deep insight into human nature. Those of most note among them 

 are: 'Die Pappenheimer,' 'Franz von Sickingen,' ' Mutius Sforza,' 

 ' Das Leben des Markgrafen Albrecht von Brandenburg,' and ' Die 

 Carracas.' He also displayed some dramatic talent in his ' Douglas ' 

 (1826), but not with such success as to encourage him to pursue 

 that career. 



WODROW, ROBERT, an antiquary and ecclesiastical historian, 

 second son of James Wodrow, professor of divinity in the University 

 of Glasgow, was born in that city in 1679. He studied at his native 

 university, which he entered in 1691. While studying theology under 

 his father, he was appointed librarian of the college, an office very con- 

 genial to his pursuits. He was licensed as a preacher in March 1 703, 

 and in the summer of that year he was ordained minister of Eastwood 

 in Renfrewshire, a parish situated between Glasgow and Paisley. His 

 history from this period to his death is almost entirely that of his 

 literary labours. He felt that the seclusive and light duties of a 

 retired and small parish gave him the best chance of leisure for the 

 accomplishment of his projected works, and though repeatedly invited 

 to accept of more important ministerial charges, in Glasgow and in 

 Stirling, he spent the remainder of his days at Eastwood. He was 

 however an active church politician ; he punctually attended the eccle- 

 siastical courts, and had much influence on their deliberations. He 

 was chosen one of a committee of Presbytery to act with the com- 

 mission of the Assembly in Edinburgh for the protection of the Church 

 of Scotland, on the occasion of the Union of 1707. He exerted him- 

 self in opposing the Act of 1712 for re-establishing patronage, the 

 same which, after having been for 130 years a source of division in the 

 Church of Scotland, caused the great secession of 1843. Wodrow was 

 the most prominent member of a committee of five clergymen who, on 

 the accession of George I., were deputed by the General Assembly to 

 proceed to London, and urge the repeal of the obnoxious Patronage 

 Act. Defeated in his object, he became conspicuous among his 

 brethren in recommending submission to the law as it stood, and in 

 giving a beneficial effect to its operations. Yielding however on this 

 point, he was one of those clergy who steadily resisted the imposition 

 of the oath of abjuration ; a test which gradually fell into desuetude, 

 as those who refused to submit to it were at the same time among the 

 best friends of the Hanover succession. Though he objected to the 

 tendering of tests involving a principle of civil government, to church- 

 men, he was a zealous supporter of the principle of subscribing articles 

 of faith that is to say, the articles of faith of his own church ; and he 

 conducted a long and laborious written controversy on the subject with 

 the supporters of the independent principle in England and Ireland. 



He died on the 21st of March 1734. It remains to give a cursory 

 notice of his literary labours. His ' History of the Sufferings of the 

 Church of Scotland, from the Restoration to the Revolution,' was pub- 

 lished hi two volumes, folio, in 1721-22. A fesv years ago it was a 

 scarce and high-priced book, and in 1829 it was republished in four 

 volumes 8vo, with a memoir of the author, by the Rev. Robert Burns 

 of Paisley, now of Toronto, in Canada. Wodrow contemplated a 



