WEBSTER WEEK. 



mentioned, his published compositions comprise a 

 number of instrumental pieces especially for con- 

 tvrtundo instruments, and calculated for accom- 

 plished performers (concerts, concertinos, pot-pour- 

 ris and harmony pieces for the piano-forte, clarionet, 

 bassoon, horn, violoncello, sonatas, variations, polo- 

 naises and dances, some symphonies, and a quintet- 

 to for the clarionet), various cantatas, vocal pieces 

 for four voices, and songs (particularly the composi- 

 tions of Korner's Lyre and Sword, which have be- 

 fome truly national songs of the Germans). The 

 Posthumous Works of Ch. M. von Weber (Dres- 

 den, 1828), containing the results of his views and 

 experience, are of much interest. Weber was an 

 excellent man, a kind husband, a careful father, and 

 a faithful friend. 



WEBSTER, JOHN, a dramatic poet of the seven- 

 teenth century, was clerk of the parish of St 

 Andrew, Holborn, and a member of the company 

 of merchant tailors. His works are the White 

 Devil, or the Tragedy of P. Giordano Ursini, Duke 

 of Brachiano, with the Life and Death of Vittoria 

 Corombona, the famous Venetian Courtesan (1612); 

 the Devil's Law-Case, a tragi-comedy (1623) ; the 

 Duchess of Malfy, a tragedy (1623) ; Appius and 

 Virginia, a tragedy (1654) ; the Thracian Wonder, 

 a comical history (1661) ; and a Cure for a Cuckold, 

 a comedy (1661). He was also the author of a 

 pageant, exhibited in 1624, by the tailors' company ; 

 and he assisted Dekker in writing Wyatt's History. 

 WECHABITES. See Wahabees. 

 WEDDERBURN, ALEXANDER, earl of Rosslyn, 

 a distinguished English lawyer, eldest son of Peter 

 Wedderburn, one of the senators of the college of 

 justice in Scotland, was born in 1733, and bred to the 

 law in his native country, but early removed to the 

 Middle Temple, by which society he was called to 

 the bar in 1757. He rapidly acquired reputation, 

 and also obtained the patronage of the earls of Bute 

 and Mansfield. He was appointed solicitor-general 

 in 1771, in which office he insulted Franklin, in 

 arguing before the privy council on American af- 

 fairs. In 1778, he was made attorney-general, and, 

 in 1780, chief justice of the common pleas, with 

 the title of lord Loughborough. He adhered to 

 the party of Mr Fox when Mr Pitt first came into 

 power ; but joined the administration, with many 

 others, under the alarm produced by the French 

 revolution in 1793, when he succeeded lord Thurlow 

 as chancellor, which office he held until 1801, when 

 he retired with the title of earl of Rosslyn. As a 

 lawyer, he was able, plausible, subtle and eloquent ; 

 as a politician, rather a partisan than a statesman, 

 but serviceable to the side which he espoused. He 

 died without issue, January 3, 1805. Lord Rosslyn 

 wrote a work on the management of prisons. 



WEDDING, WEDLOCK. See Marriage, and 

 Husband and Wife. 



WEDGE. See Mechanics. 

 WEDGWOOD, JOSIAH, an ingenious improver 

 of the pottery manufacture, was born in August 

 1730, and was the younger son of a potter, a' 

 Burslem, in Staffordshire, to whose business he 

 succeeded. He soon distinguished himself by his 

 discoveries of new species of earthen ware and 

 porcelain, as well as by the taste and fancy dis- 

 played in the forms and decorations of the various 

 results of his ingenuity. So important was the 

 result, that in a very few years he turned the cur- 

 rent of importation of the finer earthen wares into 

 that of exportation. In 1763, he obtained a patent 

 lor a new specie? of warp, which received the name 



of queen's ware, and, continuing his experimental 

 researches, added six other different species of ware 

 to the English manufacture. He was versed in 

 several branches of natural philosophy, and invented 

 a pyrometer for measuring the higher degrees of 

 icat employed in the various arts. He was also the 

 jroposer of the Grand Trunk canal, uniting the 

 Trent and Mersey, and subsequently communicat- 

 ng with the Severn and the Grand Junction canal. 

 To this navigation, which was of the greatest bene- 

 it to the pottery district, he added a turnpike-road, 

 ten miles in length, which gave still greater facili- 

 ties to that extensive branch of manufacture. His 

 own pottery was near Newcastle-under-Line, in 

 Staffordshire, where he built a village, which he 

 called Etruria. In 1786, he was the promoter of 

 an association in London, denominated the general 

 chamber of the manufactures of Great Britain ; and 

 he much distinguished himself by opposing Mr Pitt's 

 proposition for adjusting the commercial intercourse 

 between Great Britain and Ireland. His death 

 took place January 3, 1795, in his sixty-fourth year. 

 To great public spirit and an open hand in the dis- 

 tribution of the large fortune which he acquired by 

 his spirit and enterprise, in beneficial objects and 

 institutions, Mr Wedgwood united great priv:ilr 

 benevolence, and was a benefactor to the poor in 

 the most enlarged sense of the term. He was a 

 member of the royal and antiquarian societies. A 

 striking bust, of him, by Nollekins, is placed in the 

 chancel of the parish church of St Peter, Stoke- 

 upon-Trent. See China Ware and White Ware. 



WEDNESDAY ; the fourth day of the week 

 (in Latin, dies Mercurii, whence the French Mcr- 

 credi, the Italian Mercoledi, &c.). The Germans 

 call it Mittwoche (mid-week). The English name 

 is derived from the old Scandinavian deity Odin or 

 Woden. In Anglo-Saxon, it is Vodensdag ; in 

 Swedish, Odensdag ; in Dutch, Woensdag. We 

 find the same prefix in the name of some English 

 towns : Wednesbury, Wednesfield, &c. See Week. 

 See, also, Ash-Wednesday. 



WEEK. The week approaches pretty nearly to 

 a quarter of a lunation ; but this division of time 

 has no obvious foundation in nature. It appears, 

 notwithstanding, to have prevailed very extensively 

 over the world from the earliest times ; and, what 

 is remarkable, the days of the week are generally 

 named after the sun and planets, only six planets 

 having been known to the ancients. This manner 

 of distinguishing a series of seven days is found to 

 be the same among the ancient Egyptians, Indians 

 and Chinese. Still the order is not that of the dis- 

 tances, magnitude or brightness of the planets. 

 The following ingenious conjecture has been adopted 

 to account for the origin of the names and arrange- 

 ment of the days of the week : The planetary ar- 

 rangement of Ptolemy was thus: 1. Saturn; 2. 

 Jupiter ; 3. Mars ; 4. the Sun ; 5. Venus ; 6. 

 Mercury ; 7. the Moon. Each of these planets 

 was supposed to preside successively over each hour 

 of the twenty-four of each day, in the order above 

 given. In this way, Saturn would preside over 

 the first hour of the first day, Jupiter over the se- 

 cond hour, Mars over the third, the sun over the 

 fourth, and so on. Thus the sun, presiding over 

 the fourth, eleventh and eighteenth hours of the 

 first day, would preside over the first hour of the 

 second day ; and, carrying on the series, the moon 

 would preside over the first hour of the third day, 

 Mars ovei the first hour of the fourth day, Mercury 

 over the first hour of the filth day, Jupiter over 



