12 



WENTWORTH-.WESEL. 



hemians, and, at a later period, with the Hungari- 1 

 ans, until, in 934, Henry I. defeated them, at Merse- 

 burg, and Otho in 948. The German kings then 

 erected the margraviates of Misnia, Northern Saxony 

 and Lusatia, to keep these Sclavonians in obedience. 

 The religious foundations at Misnia, Merseburg, 

 /fit/,, and Magdeburg, were also established, partly 

 with a view to propagate the Christian religion 

 among the Wends. They were driven from their 

 towns to the villages ; the prisoners of war were 

 given to chapters, convents, and noblemen, as vil- 

 leins. All possible means were used to make the 

 Wends adopt the Christian religion, and to blend 

 them into one people with the Germans. In 1047, 

 Gottschalk established a Wendish or Obotritish 

 kingdom, consisting of eighteen provinces, under 

 the Saxon dukes and the German kings, and strove 

 to introduce German civilization, but, for that rea- 

 son, was murdered in 1066. His son Henry re- 

 established the kingdom in 1 105, which, at a later 

 period, Knud, duke of Sleswic, received as a fief, 

 after whose death it was broken up. The intro- 

 duction of Christianity among the Wends was 

 gradually effected, though traces of heathen wor- 

 ship long remained. The Wends of Lusatia at 

 present occupy a tract extending from Lobau to the 

 mark of Brandenburg. They are industrious, but, 

 in consequence of their former oppression, suspicious 

 and reserved. Their language enables them to 

 make themselves understood by the Poles and Rus- 

 sians. In Leipsic, there is a society in which 

 students from Lusatia practise preaching in Wen- 

 dish. It is a curious fact, that only about three 

 miles from Berlin there is a village called Rixdorf, 

 inhabited by Wends, many of whom, though in 

 constant intercourse with Germans, and going daily 

 to the market of Berlin to sell their produce, 

 nevertheless, were wholly ignorant of the German 

 language until lately, when their unwillingness to 

 intermarry with Germans has given way to more 

 rational notions. 



WENTWORTH. See Strafford. 



WERF, ADRIAN VAN DER, a Dutch painter, born 

 near Rotterdam, in 1659, of poor parents, was first 

 instructed in his art by Piccolett, a portrait painter, 

 and afterwards became a pupil of Van der Neer. 

 Having settled at Rotterdam, he obtained great re- 

 putation as a painter of portraits, and executed a 

 piece for Steen, a rich merchant of Amsterdam, 

 which procured him the patronage of the elector 

 palatine. That prince, having visited Holland with 

 his family in 1696, went to Rotterdam, and ordered 

 Van der Werf to paint for him the Judgment of 

 Solomon, and his portrait. The artist took the 

 pictures to Diisseldorf when they were finished ; 

 and the elector wished to retain him in his service, 

 but he only engaged himself for six months in the 

 year, receiving a handsome pension. In 1703, he 

 went to present to his patron his Christ carried to 

 the Sepulchre, which is regarded as his best pro- 

 duction. He was honoured with knighthood by 

 the elector, who treated him with great liberality, 

 augmenting his pension, and bestowing on him many 

 marks of his esteem. He died at Rotterdam, Nov. 

 12, 17*22. Van der Werf was particularly noted 

 for his small historical pieces, which are most ex- 

 quisitely finished, and which are still in high re- 

 quest, though his reputation is not quite equal to 

 what it was during his life His brother and pupil, 

 Peter van der Werf, painted portraits and conversa- 

 tion pieces, and was a very able artist. He died in 

 1718, aged fifty-five. 



WERNER, ABRAHAM GOTTLOB; a celsbrated 

 mineralogist, born in Germany, Sept. '25, 1750. His 

 father was overseer of iron works in Upper Lusatia; 

 and the son being intended for the same employ- 

 ment, was sent, after some previous education at 

 school, to the mineralogical academy at Freyberg. 

 Thence he removed to Leipsic, where he applied 

 himself to natural history and jurisprudence, but 

 more especially to the former, which he found the 

 most attractive. The external characters of mineral 

 bodies attracted much of his attention ; and, in 

 1774, he published a work on that subject, con- 

 sidered as the basis df his oryctognostic or mineral- 

 ogical system. It has been translated into various 

 languages, and adopted and commented on by other 

 writers; but the author could never be persuaded 

 to publish a new and enlarged edition. Soon after 

 this publication, Werner was invited to become 

 keeper of the cabinet of natural history at Frey- 

 berg, and to deliver lectures on mineralogy. In 

 1780, he published the first part of a translation of 

 Cronstadt's Mineralogy ; and, in his annotations on 

 this work, he gave the first sketch of his mineral- 

 ogical system, and published many descriptions in 

 conformity with the methods proposed in his trea- 

 tise on external characters. In 1791, appeared his 

 Catalogue of the mineral Collection of Pabst von 

 Ohain. Besides his lectures on mineralogy, he also 

 delivered lectures on the art of mining, which he 

 rendered peculiarly intelligible and interesting by 

 his simplification of the machinery, and by drawings 

 and figures. His system of geognosy, or geology, 

 was unfolded only in his lectures; but those he 

 caused to be written out by his approved pupils, and, 

 revising them himself, he communicated authority 

 to their manuscripts. Many parts of these lectures 

 have been published in different countries. Wer- 

 ner himself likewise published some mineralogical 

 papers in the Miner's Journal; and, in 1791, ap- 

 peared his New Theory of the Formation of Metal- 

 lic Veins, which was translated both into French 

 and English. He was nominated counsellor of the 

 mines of Saxony in 1792, and had a great share in 

 the direction of the academy of mineralogy, and in 

 the administration of public works. The cabinet 

 of minerals which he had collected was unrivalled 

 for its completeness and arrangement, consisting 

 of one hundred thousand specimens. This he sold 

 to the mineralogical academy, for about 6300, 

 reserving the interest of 5175 as an annuity to 

 himself and his sister, who had no children, and at 

 her death to revert to the academy of Freyberg. 

 He died, unmarried, in August, 1817. A know- 

 ledge of the Wernerian mineralogy was first intro- 

 duced into England by Kirwan ; but a more com- 

 plete view of it is exhibited in professor Jameson's 

 System of Mineralogy, 1804, second edition, 1817. 

 As a geologist, Werner is scarcely entitled to the 

 merit of originality, as his geognosy consisted more 

 in the invention of a new language adapted to sup- 

 port a theory, than in the exhibition of novel facts, 

 or the discovery of a new and practical method of 

 investigation. (See Geology.) But the science of 

 mineralogy is highly indebted to his labours ; and 

 in having given a definite and systematic arrange- 

 ment of mineral bodies, showing their characteristic 

 analogies, he has done that for the branch of natural 

 knowledge he cultivated, which Linnaeus did for the 

 science of botany, and thus attached a permanent 

 celebrity to his name. See Mineralogy. 



WESEL ; a fortified town in the government of 

 Cleves, in the Prussian dominions on the Rhine at 



