WEIMAR WELL. 



east, while the river winds along the south side of 

 the town. The prospect is agreeable, particularly 

 in summer, when the gardens surrounding the town 

 appear to encircle it with foliage. The houses are 

 tyiilt in a plain and somewhat antique style. The 

 grand ducal residence is a large castle, finely situ- 

 ated to the east of the town, with a park extending 

 to the banks of the Ilm, and open to the public. 

 The Belvidere, another residence of the reigning 

 family, is situated on a delightful eminence to the 

 south. The town contains two Lutheran churches, 

 a work-house, an. hospital, a gymnasium, a seminary 

 for school-masters, an academy for drawing, paint- 

 ing and sculpture, a theatre, erected in 1825, an 

 extensive institution connected with the study of 

 geography and statistics, and a public library of 

 upwards of 130,000 volumes. Weimar is a town 

 of literary celebrity, and long held the same rank 

 in Germany, for literature, as Dresden has for the 

 fine arts ; and, owing to the liberal patronage of the 

 court, a number of the best writers of the last and 

 present age have either been educated or residents 

 here. In the early years of the present century, 

 there were residing here more than twenty writers 

 of note, among whom were Schiller, Gothe, Herder, 

 Wieland and Kotzebue ; the last of whom was a 

 native. 



WEIMAR, ANNA AMALIA, duchess of Saxe. See 

 Amalia. 



WEIMAR, CHARLES AUGUSTUS, grand duke of 

 Saxe, born in 1756, and died in 1828, may well 

 boast of having done great things in a little state. 

 He was educated by his mother Amalia, who first 

 collected the lights of learning in the little court of 

 Weimar. The young prince was carefully instructed 

 oy able men, among whom was Wieland, and, after 

 travelling in France and Switzerland, assumed 

 the reins of government in 1775. During his 

 reign of fifty-three years, he was not only the father 

 of his people, but the patron of learning and the arts. 

 Gothe, Herder, Wieland, Schiller, von Voigt, von 

 Einsiedel, von Knebel, Musaus, and others, were 

 among the ornaments of his court ; and the univer- 

 sity of Jena/ experienced his patronage. In 1816, 

 he granted his people a representative constitution. 

 The jubilee of his accession to the government 

 was celebrated, in 1825, with delight by his grate- 

 ful subjects He was succeeded by his son Charles 

 Frederic, born in 1783, who married a sister of 



Alexander, emperor of Russia His second son, 



Charles Bernard, born in 1792, is major-general in 

 the service of the king of Netherlands. 



WEIMAR, BERNARD, duke of. See Bernard. 



WEINSBERG ; a town in the circle of the 

 Neckar, in Wiirtemberg, on the Sulm, with 1720 

 inhabitants. The ruins of the castle of Weibertreu 

 (Wives-faith) recall to mind its siege, in 1140, 

 when the emperor Conrad III. granted free egress 

 to the women only, who were allowed to carry off 

 the best of their possessions on their back. The 

 women came out, each carrying her husband on her 

 back. The emperor pardoned the men. See 

 Guelphs. 



WEISHAUPT, ADAM, born at Ingolstadt, in 

 1748, studied at the same place, became, in 1772, 

 professor extraor dinar ius of law, and, in 1775, pro- 

 fessor of natural and canon law. As the professor- 

 ship of canon law had, until then, always been given 

 to ordained clergymen, the clergy attacked him, 

 particularly as he, though a pupil of the Jesuits, 

 showed himself their bitterest enemy, after the 

 abolition of thpir order. He now formed a con- 



nexion with several able men, and strove to gain 

 them over to his system of cosmopolitism ; but, as 

 he went to work openly, the public authorities 

 could not be made to believe that his designs 

 were dangerous. The Jesuits, therefore, attacked 

 him the more bitterly in private. As a jurist, he 

 obtained much fame : his lectures attracted students 

 belonging to all the faculties ; and he made use of 

 this opportunity to propagate his cosmopolitism, 

 and for this purpose founded the order of Illumi- 

 nati, which afterwards became so famous. Weish- 

 aupt lost his professorship, in 1785, in consequence 

 of the persecutions of the Catholic clergy and his 

 own imprudence, and went to Gotha, where he 

 published several works 1. Complete History of 

 the Persecution of the Illuminati in Bavaria; 2. 

 System of the Illuminati; 3. Description of the 

 Illuminati; 4. Pythagoras, or Considerations on 

 the Secret Art of Ruling; 5. Materials for the 

 Advancement of the Knowledge of the World and 

 of Men. 



WEISSE, CHRISTIAN FELIX, a writer who has 

 done much for the improvement of children, was 

 born Feb. 8, 1726, at Annaberg, in the Saxon Erz- 

 gebirge. He went, in 1745, to the university of 

 Leipsic, where he studied philology. There he 

 became acquainted with Klopstock, Cramer, the 

 Schlegels, and others. With Lessing he formed an 

 intimate friendship, and wrote, in connexion with 

 him, for the German theatre. In 1759, he went, 

 as tutor of a young count, to Paris. He afterwards 

 produced songs and other poems, plays, &c., and, 

 in 1760, his Library of Polite Learning and the 

 Fine Arts. In 1762, he was appointed tax-gatherer, 

 which office he held till his death. After 1774 he 

 ceased to write for the stage, and chiefly turned his 

 attention to works for children. His Songs for 

 Children, and his ABC Book were received with 

 great applause. In 1775, he began his Children's 

 Friend, which, within six years, went through five 

 editions; and there are few Germans whose youth 

 has not been delighted and improved by this book. 

 His Correspondence of the Family of the Children's 

 Friend was a continuation of this. He died in 1804. 

 He has described himself with much candour in his 

 Autobiography, edited by E. C. Weisse and S. G. 

 Frisch (Leipsic, 1806). 



WELD. See Wold. 



WELDING is the intimate union produced be- 

 tween the surfaces of two malleable metals, when 

 heated almost to fusion and hammered. This union 

 is so strong that when two bars of metal are pro- 

 perly welded, the place of junction is as strong, re- 

 latively to its thickness, as any other part of the 

 bar. Only two of the old metals are capable of firm 

 union by welding, namely, platina and iron. The 

 same property belongs to the newly-discovered 

 metals potassium and sodium. To weld bar iron 

 to another piece of iron requires a heat equal to 

 8-877 Fahr. 



Welding Heat, in smithery ; a degree of heat 

 given to iron, &c., sufficient to make any two bars 

 or pieces of iron unite by a few strokes of the ham- 

 mer, and form one piece. 



WELL, in naval affairs ; an apartment formed 

 in the middle of a ship's hold, to enclose the pumps 

 from the bottom to the lower deck. Its use is to 

 defend the pumps from damage, and prevent the 

 entrance of ballast, &c., which would otherwise 

 choke the tubes in a short time, and render the 

 pumps incapable of service. By means of this en- 

 closure, the artificers may, likewise, more readily 



