779 



WOELFL, JOSEPH. 



WOLCOTT, JOHN. 



780 



complete History of the Church of Scotland, in a series of lives of 

 individuals conspicuously connected with it. The manuscript of this 

 large work, not finally corrected for press, is in the library of the 

 University of Glasgow. A considerable number of the Lives have 

 been printed by the Maitland Club, and a portion of the work is 

 among the publications of the Wodrow Society. 



Wodrow was a zealous and minute historian. In narrating the per- 

 secutions of the Presbyterian nonconformists during the reign of 

 Charles II., he undertook a subject in relation to which the bitterest 

 feelings of indignation were still alive in the circle of society to which 

 he belonged. The book is written in a purely partisan spirit. It con- 

 tains a good deal of gossiping scandal, pays little respect to the 

 characters of individuals of the Episcopal party, and invariably adopts 

 the very worst view of their motives. It is generally admitted how- 

 ever to be faithful as a narrative of public occurrences, and few strictly 

 party narratives can be so safely relied upon as the ' history of the 

 troubles.' But the author is wholly wanting in toleration. Presby- 

 terianism /he looked upon as the truth ; oppressing it he considered 

 equivalent to making war on the Deity, and the toleration of any other 

 form of worship ho viewed as something only a degree less wicked. 

 " The king's softness," he says, speaking of James VI. of Scotland, " as 

 to Papists, and his carelessness to execute the laws, not only against 

 them, but against every branch of wickedness now abounding, brought 

 him into great contempt, and every one did according to his own 

 eyes, as if there had been no king or settled government." (' Life of 

 Bruce," p. 25.) In the Advocate's Library there are six closely- written 

 volumes called ' Wodrow's Analecta,' a diary and collection of anec- 

 dotes, commencing with the year 1701. It is partly written in a 

 secret hand, which has however been deciphered. This curious work 

 has been printed by the Maitland Club. It exhibits a mind deeply 

 tinged with a sort of dubious superstition many spectral and pro- 

 phetic stories such as the following are given, not as events for which 

 the narrator " pledges his belief," yet always as told him by some 

 person worthy of credit : " Mr. John Welsh was preaching at a con- 

 venticle, and ther was one cast a loafe at him when preaching. Mr. 

 Welsh stopped, and told them he knew not the person that had done 

 soe, but he was persuaded ther would be moe persons at that person's 

 death then ther wer hearing him preach that day ; and everybody 

 knowes what a confluence ther was at Philip Stainfield's execution for 

 murdering his father, and this Philip was the person that thus mocked 

 Mr. Welsh in his youth." Of course all the miraculous interpositions 

 and special providences act in favour of the narrator's own side in 

 church politics. The 'Wodrow MSS.' in the Advocates' Library 

 amount to several hundred volumes. They are the collections made 

 by the historian for the prosecution of his intended works. Many of 

 them are original state-papers and letters, English and Scottish, bound 

 up in volumes, with contents in Wodrow's hand-writing. Others are 

 copies taken by himself of documents of which the originals in many 

 cases are not now to be found. This collection, with his printed 

 works, and many hundreds of long letters on ecclesiastical matters, are 

 a striking illustration of his zeal and untiring industry. In May 1841 

 the ' Wodrow Society,' already referred to, was instituted " for the 

 publication of the works of the fathers and early writers of the 

 Reformed Church of Scotland." 



WOELFL, JOSEPH, a distinguished composer and a performer on 

 the pianoforte, was born at Salzburg in 1772, where he received 

 instructions from Leopold Mozart, father of the illustrious Wolfgang, 

 and from Michael Haydn, brother of the no less illustrious father of 

 modern symphony. After a short musical tour he reached Vienna in 

 1795, and there successfully produced his first opera. He then visited 

 Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, &c., and arrived in London in 1799, where 

 he remained, composing and giving tessons, two years, then proceeded 

 to Paris, and in all those cities excited great admiration by his powers 

 of execution. He returned to England in a few months, and resided 

 in its capital till his death, which took place in 1811. 



As a pianist, Woelfl exhibited very extraordinary powers. His 

 hands, which were of gigantic dimensions, enabled him to do, by 

 means of their capacious grasp and strength, what none of his con- 

 temporaries could accomplish, thus making him, as it were, the 

 precursor of the living Thalberg; and his profound knowledge of 

 harmony qualified him to turn to the best advantage the prodigality 

 of nature, if it may be so considered. His compositions are numerous, 

 extending to nearly every branch of the art, and all prove him to have 

 been a thorough-bred musician, though many were written principally 

 with a view to sale, and several are too elaborate and too difficult to 

 be popular. Nevertheless, had he not indulged to excess in that habit 

 which in his day was so prevalent with his countrymen, and which 

 brought his life to a close at the premature age of thirty-nine, he pro- 

 bably would have made a reputation little inferior to that of the great 

 musical triumvirate of modern Germany. 



WOHLGEMUTH, MICHAEL, a celebrated old German painter 

 and engraver on copper and in wood, was born at Niirnberg in 1434. 

 He was the first German artist who attained any degree of excellence 

 in painting, and he has the additional honour of having been the 

 master of Albert Diirer. Wohlgemuth's wood-cuts are the oldest 

 prints of that class in Germany of which the artist is known, and they 

 are extremely ecarce. Wohlgemuth's paintings are likewise scarce; 

 there are two ia the Augustine church at Niirnberg, another in Our 



Lady's chapel, and a Last Judgment in the town-house of the same 

 place ; and one in the church of Schwabach for which he was paid, in 

 1507, 600 florins, for that period a very great Bum : some years after 

 this the celebrated Amberger charged the Emperor Charles V. for his 

 portrait only 35 florins. There is also a valuable work by him in the 

 Imperial Gallery of Vienna, painted in 1511 ; another in the Louvre 

 at Paris ; in the Pinakothek at Munich there are five pieces by Wohl- 

 gemuth ; and the Liverpool Royal Institution possesses five pictures 

 attributed to him. He died in 1519, aged eighty-five. The king of 

 Bavaria possesses a portrait of Wohlgemuth, painted in 1516, in his 

 eighty-second year, by his pupil Albert Diirer ; this is inscribed upon 

 the back of the picture. 



Wohlgemuth's style has the defects of the works of art of his age, 

 especially in design ; his works however are finished with extreme 

 minuteness and accuracy of details, exhibit much expression, and in 

 the draperies are superior to the works of many of the eminent Ger- 

 man painters who succeeded him. 



Wohlgemuth and Pleydenwurff cut in wood the illustrations of a 

 curious and celebrated old work in folio, known as the ' Niirnberg 

 Chronicle ' of Hartmann Schedel, a physician. It was published first 

 in Latin, in 1493, eight years after the death of its author, and was 

 translated into German in the following year. The cuts consist of 

 views of towns and portraits of eminent men. The Latin edition is 

 the better ; the title commences ' Liber Chronicorum per viam Epi- 

 tomatis et Breviarii compilatus,' &c. 



There are several old prints and wood-cuts marked W., which have 

 been attributed to Wohlgemuth, but from their inferiority it is very 

 doubtful whether he was the author of them : two other old engravers, 

 Wenceslaus and J. Walch, marked their prints with a W, but it is not 

 known that Wohlgemuth ever did. 



WOIDE, CHARLES GODFREY, was a native of Holland, or of 

 Poland according to Lefebvre-Cauchy, in the ' Biographic Universelle,' 

 who also says that he was born in 1725, and that he studied at Frank- 

 fort-on-tbe-Oder and at Leyden. In 1770 he was invited to Eng- 

 land, being appointed preacher at the German Royal Chapel, St. 

 James's, where he afterwards became reader also. In 1782 he was 

 appointed assistant-librarian at the British Museum, in the depart- 

 ment of natural history, and soon afterwards in the department 

 of printed books. The University of Copenhagen conferred upon 

 him the degree of D.D., and in 1786 the University of Oxford the 

 degree of Doctor in Civil Law. In 1788 he was chosen a fellow of the 

 Royal Society. On the 6th of May 1790, he was seized with an 

 apoplectic fit in the house of Sir Joseph Banks, and he died on the 

 following day, in his apartments in the British Museum. Dr. Woide 

 left two daughters by his wife, who died in 1782. His principal 

 literary productions are : 1, ' Mathurin Veyssiere la Croze, Lexicon, 

 yEgyptiaco-Latinum ex veteribus illius Linguae Monumentis, quod in 

 Compendium redegit Christianus Scholtz ; Notulas quasdam et Iiidi- 

 cem adjecit C. G. Woide,' e Typographia Clarendon. Oxford, 1775, 

 4 to. This is a dictionary of the Coptic language, which was made at 

 the beginning of the 18th century by the learned French refugee La 

 Croze, who published his preface to it in 1772, in the ' Bremer Ephe- 

 meriden.' The work however remained in manuscript, which was 

 revised, abridged in some places, and completed in others by Scholtz. 

 The revised manuscript became the property of the library of Leydeu, 

 where it was examined by Woide, who conceived the idea of pub- 

 lishing it. It is said that there was then no printing office in this 

 country provided with Coptic characters, and the University of Oxford 

 liberally undertook to bear the expense. Part of the work was already 

 printed, when Woide was requested to make some additions to it, 

 which he could only do for the three last letters of the Coptic 

 alphabet : he also added an index. 2, ' Christianus Scholtz, Gram- 

 matica .^Egyptiaca utriusque dialecti, edita h, C. G. Woide,' Oxford, 

 1778, 4to. This was a manuscript of the learned Scholtz, who had 

 revised the dictionary of La Croze : it was very voluminous, and 

 Woide abridged it so as to come into one printed volume 4to. He also 

 made additions, and that part of the grammar which relates to the 

 Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language is entirely by Dr. Woide. 3, 

 ' Novum Testamentum Grsecum, Ji Codice MS. Alexandrine qui Lou- 

 dini in Bibliotheca Musei Britannici asservatur, descriptum Ji C. G. 

 Woide,' &c., ex Prelo Joannis Nichols, Typis Jacksoniauis, 1786, folio. 

 The Alexandrine manuscript of the Bible in the British Museum 

 (King's MS., 1, D. viii.) is of great value. As Dr. Woide required the 

 collation of the Vatican and; other manuscripts made for Dr. Bentley, 

 he addressed himself to the doctor's son, the Rev. Dr. Richard Bentley, 

 rector of Nailston near Ashby in Leicestershire, who was in possession 

 of those collations, and who allowed Woide to collate them during a 

 fortnight in the house of the Rev. J. C. Gallaway, the vicar of Hinck- 

 ley. Dr. Woide transcribed the part of the Alexandrine manuscript 

 which he intended to publish with his own hand, and he collated it 

 twice with the original : Dr. John Butler, the bishop of Oxford, 

 assisted him hi the transcription, and Mr. Harper, of the British 

 Museum, in the collating. Woide wrote a Latin preface to this work, 

 in which he gives a critical investigation of the history and merits of 

 the Alexandrine manuscript. (Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the 

 Eighteenth Century, voL ix., p. 9-14.) 



WOLCOTT, JOHN, better known by his assumed name of Peter 

 Pindar, was born at Dodbrooke in Devonshire, about the beginning of 



