SGi 



XANTHUS. 



XAVIER, FRANCIS, SAINT. 



62 



Wyon's works may be divided into coins pattern pieces of coins 

 not used medals, and seals. His coins include those of the later 

 years of the reign of George IV., all those of William IV., and all 

 those of her present Majesty which appeared in Wyon's lifetime. He 

 followed Chautroy's models in the coins of both the kings, but was 

 his own designer in the coius of Victoria. The pattern pieces include 

 one of ten pounds for William IV., and one of five pounds (among 

 several others) for the present Queen, which bore a figure of Una on 

 the reverse. These pattern pieces did not become coins through the 

 influence of the body, who, at that time, under the title of moneyers, 

 were the privileged coiners of the country, and who knowing that 

 increased expense would be necessary, took care of their profits, and 

 did not trouble themselves about Wyon's disappointment or the inte- 

 rests of art. His medals include a great range of subjects, and were 

 produced for many different and admirable objects. There are war 

 medals for the Peninsular victories, for Trafalgar, for Jellalabad and 

 Cabul; scientific medals for the Royal Society, Royal and London 

 Institutions, Geological, Geographical, and similar societies, native 

 and foreign ; artistic medals, as for the Royal Academy and Art 

 Union; educational, as for Harrow, a gift by Sir Robert Peel; and 

 testimonial, as in the case of the Brodie medal, which bore a head 

 of the man in whose honour it was struck. Most of these medals 

 have for their obverses heads taken from the antique, a few modern, 

 and in some cases, then living personages ; and the author had gene- 

 rally aimed, as a matter of course, at a characteristic fitness betwixt 

 the portrait and the accompanying circumstances. Thus, Cicero 

 adorned the Peel-Harrow medal, while heads of Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac 

 Newton, Dr. Wollaston, and Sir Francis Chantrey, were respectively 

 and appropriately connected with the medals of the Royal Institute, 

 the University of Glasgow, the Geological Society, and the Art Union. 

 Many and among them some of the best of the reverses were from 

 his own designs ; while for others Wyon was indebted to Flaxman, for 

 whom he had an enthusiastic veneration, Howard, and Stothard, who 

 contributed the reverse to a medal of Sir Walter Scott. Wyon's in- 

 creasing eminence was shown in the various commissions he received 

 from foreign countries ; we may especially mention his engagement for 

 a series of Portuguese coins. 



The characteristics of Wyon are the combination of two (often 

 opposing) qualities, strength and delicacy, with the indispensable 

 merit of likeness in his portraitures ; taken for all in all, we have had 

 no such medal engraver since the days of Simon, the artist who shed 

 so much lustre on this department in the days of the Commonwealth. 

 Wyon died at Brighton, October 29, 1851, in his fifty-seventh year, 

 leaving a son, Leonard, who having aided him in his lifetime, inherited 

 much of his skill at his death. To the latter we owe the well-known 

 medal of Wordsworth ; and his name is honourably remembered in 

 connection with the awards of the Great Exhibition ; and is thus gra- 

 tifjingly associated in art as in 'blood with the subject of our present 



notice, whose latest works were in commemoration of that same 

 assemblage of the world's industrial and artistic fruits. 



WYTHER, GEORGE. [WITIIKR.] 



WYTTENBACH, DANIEL, was bora in 1746, at Bern, where his 

 father, Daniel Wyttcnbach, was then pastor. His father distinguished 

 himself by several theological works, and died, in 1779, being then 

 professor of theology in the University of Marburg. Young Wytten- 

 bach studied philology at Marburg, Gottingen, and Leyden, and in the 

 last place he was one of the pupils of Ruhnken, to whom he became 

 particularly attached. In 1771 he was appointed professor of Greek 

 and* philosophy in the Athenaeum of Amsterdam, which is now called 

 after him the Wyttenbach Athenaeum. From Amsterdam he was 

 transferred in 1779, to the chair of eloquence in the University of 

 Leyden, of which he and Ruhnken were the most illustrious scholars. 

 He remained in this office for a greaif number of years, until the 

 infirmities of old age and blindness compelled him to withdraw from 

 his functions. In 1816, at the age of seventy, he went to Heidelberg, 

 where, for a short time, he abstained from literary exertions. Two 

 years later he married Johanna Gallien, a woman of great acquire- 

 ments and talent, who distinguished herself as a writer, and was 

 created, in 1827, doctor of philosophy by the university of Marburg. 

 From 1818 Wittenbach had withdrawn from all public functions, and 

 weighed down by old age and the loss of his sight, he died at Oegs, on 

 the 17th of January 1820. Wyttenbach was one of the greatest 

 scholars of whom the University of Leyden can boast ; he possessed 

 extensive and refined learning and great critical skill. He always 

 wrote in Latin. His Latin composition, especially his 'Vita Ruhn- 

 kenii,' is among the best modern specimens of that language, both for 

 purity and elegance. We are indebted to Wyttenbach for some 

 excellent editions of ancient authors. The most important among 

 them are : 1, The 'Opera Moralia' of Plutarch, 6 vols. 4to, and 12 

 vols. 8vo, Oxford, 1795-1800. This is the best and most valuable 

 portion of Plutarch's works. 2, ' Selecta principum historicorum, 

 Herodoti, Thucydidis, Xenophontis, Polybii, Plutarchi vitas Demos- 

 thenis et Ciceronis,' with very useful notes, 8vo, Amsterdam, 1794. 

 New editions appeared in 1808, and at Leyden, 8vo, in 1829. From 

 1779 to 1808 Wyttenbach edited the ' Bibliotheca Critica/ 12 vols. 8vo, 

 Leyden. His smaller essays were collected after his death under the 

 title 'Opuscula varii Argument!, Oratoria, Historica, Critica,' 2 vols. 

 8vo, Leyden, 1821. His Life of Ruhnken is printed in Fr. Linde- 

 mann's 'Vitae Duumvirorum doctrina et meritis excellentium,' toge- 

 ther with Ruhnken's Life of Hemsterhuis, 8vo, Leipzig, 1 822. Wy tten- 

 bach's correspondence with the most eminent scholars of the time has 

 been edited by W. F. Mahne (3 parts, 8vo, Ghent, 1829-30), who has 

 also written a very good Life of Wyttenbach (' Vita Wyttenbachii'), 

 which forms part 1 of vol. ii. of Fr. Tr. Friedemann's 'Vitae Hominum 

 quocunque Literarum genere eruditissimorum ab eloquentissimis Viris 

 scriptae,' Svo, Brunswick, 1825, &c. 



X 



VANTHUS (ZdvOos), ono of the early Greek historians, was, accord- 

 ** ing to Suidas, a son of Candaulea, and born at Sardes. Strabo 

 (xiii. p. 628) admits, with other writers, that Xanthus was a Lydian, 

 but he says it is not known whether he was really a native of Sardes. 

 As to the time in which he lived, we know, from a fragment of 

 Ephorus, that he was older than Herodotus, who is even said to have 

 been induced by Xanthus to undertake his great historical work. But 

 it appears that Xanthus cannot have been much older than Herodotus, 

 since Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions him among those writers 

 who lived shortly before the Peloponnesian war, and from one of 

 Xanthus's own fragments it is clear that he wrote his work in the reign 

 of Artaxerxes I., who reigned from before B.C. 465 to 425. The state- 

 ment of Suidas, that he was born about the time of the taking of 

 Sardes (by the lonians, in B c. 499), also agrees with these facts. 

 Xanthus wrote a work on Lydia (AuSiarect), in four books, in the Ionic 

 dialect, of which however only a few fragments are extant, which are 

 preserved in Strabo and other writers. The genuineness of these 

 fragments has been the subject of much discussion, because Athenams 

 (xii. p. 515) states, on the authority of Artemon of Cassandrea, that 

 Dionysius surnamed Scythobrachiou forged a work on Lydia under the 

 name of Xanthus. But in the first place, the existence of Xanthus 

 the historian cannot be doubted, and secondly, most of the fragments 

 which are preserved under his name bear the strong internal evidence 

 of being genuine ; and lastly, there are scarcely any that can be de- 

 clared spurious with certainty. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who 

 appears to have had the work of Xanthus before him, speaks of it 

 with high praise, and calls the author a man most intimately ac- 

 quainted with the ancient mythological history, and not inferior to 

 any of those who had written on Lydia. So far as we can judge from 

 the extant fragments, which contain valuable information on various 

 points, especially the history and geography of Asia Minor, the work 

 of Xanthus seems to have been one of great merit. One Menippus, of 

 uncertain date, made an abridgment of the work of Xanthus. (Diog. 

 Laert., vi. 101.) The fragments of Xanthus's ' Lydiaca ' are collected 



in Creuzer's ' Historicorum Graecorum antiquissimorum Fragmenta,' 

 p. 191, &c., and in C. and Th. Miiller's 'Fragmenta Historicorum 

 Graecorum,' p. 36, &c. Some ancient authors attribute to Xanthus a 

 work on the Magi and the religion of Zoroaster, but the two fragments 

 which are quoted from it leave no doubt that this work was the pro- 

 duction of some late grammarian. 



(Museum Criticum, vol. i., pp. 80, 216 ; Creuzer, in the work cited 

 above, p. 135, &c. ; C. and Th. Miiller, p. 20, &c. ; Welcker, in Seebode's 

 Archivfiir Philol. for 1830, p. 70, &c.) 



XAVIER, FRANCIS, SAINT, was born at the castle of Xavier, in 

 Navarre, the 7th of April 1506. His father, Don John de Jasso, was 

 counsellor of state to the King of Navarre, and his mother, Maria 

 Azpilcueta, was heiress of the two illustrious houses of Azpilcueta and 

 Xavier. Francis was the' youngest of a large family of children, the 

 eldest of whom bore the surname of Azpilcueta, and the others that 

 of Xavier. Under the paternal roof he received all the advantages of 

 a careful education. His devotion to study, and the talents which he 

 manifested, induced his parents to send him at the age of eighteen to 

 the College de Sainte Barbe, at Paris. It was there that he first 

 became acquainted with Ignatius Loyola, and thenceforward to the 

 time when he set out on his missionary labours, the history of Xavier 

 is intimately blended with that of Loyola and his disciples. [LOYOLA, 

 IGNATIUS.] 



In 1538 he joined Ignatius Loyola at Rome, where he actively 

 assisted him in the furtherance of his great design of associating a 

 body of devoted men for the special service of the Church of Rome. 

 While in that city, he exercised the functions of the ministry in the 

 church of St. Lawrence in Damaso, and attracted to it large multi- 

 tudes by his zeal and talents. Among them was a Portuguese of the 

 name of Govea, who had been sent to Rome on a mission of import- 

 ance by King John III. In his communications with the king he had 

 expressed himself in terms of high commendation of the new society 

 which had lately sprung up under Loyola ; and had suggested the pro- 

 priety of selecting missionaries from among them to plant the standard 



