VERNIER-VERONA. 



noisseurs, and have a vivacity and boldness of con- 

 ception in which his only rival was his son Horace 

 Vernet. The twenty-eight plates, in folio, illus- 

 trating the campaign of Bonaparte in Italy, are 

 considered as some of his most successful efforts. 

 He was a knight of the legion of honour and of St 

 Michael. 



Horace Vernet, son of the preceding, and heir of 

 his father's and grandfather's talent, was born in 

 1789, in the Louvre. The feeling of the great 

 and patriotic, which animated so many hearts in 

 the time of his youth, is expressed in all his works. 

 He began with battle pieces (Jemappes, Montmi- 

 rail, Hunau), which acquired him reputation. His 

 pictures are praised for giving prominence to the 

 chief aim of the victorious army, and for indicating 

 the event of the battle by the movements of the 

 lines. He laboured with equal success in his 

 father's branch. In fact, he seems to have ex- 

 celled in many departments. His domestic scenes, 

 rural feasts, huntings, caverns of robbers, &c., ex- 

 cel all those of his contemporaries, notwithstanding 

 the amount of talent which, of late years, has been 

 turned in this direction. His pictures are the more 

 impressive on account of their freedom from affec- 

 tation. France yet speaks with delight of his 

 Soldat Laboureur, Soldat de Waterloo, &c., o often 

 repeated in lithographic sketches. His Le Chien 

 du Regiment is another, we might almost say, na- 

 tional production in France. He also made the 

 lithographic sketches for the magnificent edition of 

 the Henriade, by Dupont, in 1824. But there 

 would be no end were we to enumerate all the dis- 

 tinguished works of this excellent artist. 



VERNIER (also called Nonius, after the in- 

 ventor, whom some believe to have been the 

 Frenchman Peter Vernier, chaplain at Ornans, in 

 Tranche Comte, about 1630, others the Portuguese 

 Nunez or Nonius, died 1577). It is an ingenious 

 instrument, intended to give, in cases of divisions, 

 the value of fractions which fall between two of 

 the smallest divisions. Imagine, e. g. a rule, on 

 which there are eleven inches divided into twelve 

 equal parts : each of these parts is, of course, =-H 

 inches, i. e. = 1 1 lines.* If, now, the above-men- 

 tioned rule were so made that it might be moved 

 along another one divided into inches, it is easily 

 seen that if the first line of division on the one rule 

 coincides with that on the other, the second line of 

 the vernier stands -fa of an inch from the second 

 line on the other rule, the third -fa, and so on ; and 

 thus we are enabled, by merely moving the vernier, 

 to give fractional parts of inches, without being 

 obliged actually to make the difficult subdivision 

 on the rule. In a similar way, this contrivance is 

 attached to circles, quadrants, &c., e. g. by divid- 

 ing nine minutes on the vernier into ten equal parts, 

 according to which each part is = -$/, so that the 

 parts upon the vernier and the arc stand respec- 

 tively -jij', ft, -,2j', &c., from each other. For par- 

 ticular information on this subject, see Biot's Traite 

 d 'Astronomic (2d. ed., Paris, 1810). 



VERNON, EDWAED; a distinguished English 

 admiral, descended from a Staffordshire family, but 

 born in Westminster, in 1684. He adopted the 

 naval profession, in opposition to the wishes of his 



* "ITiirteen inches, might as well have been divided, on the 

 vernier, into twelve parts. In general, the rule is, the number 

 of parts on the vernier must be equal to the denominator of the 

 fraction which expresses the required subdivision, and the 

 number of the standard divisions of mea^um which it contains 

 .mist be one larger or lews. In both cases the object is ob- 

 tainwl. 



father, who held the post of secretary of state to 

 William III. He first went to sea with Admiral 

 Hopson, and, in 1704, served under Sir George 

 Rooke at the battle of Malaga. He was also em- 

 ployed on many other occasions, and gradually ar- 

 rived at the rank of vice-admiral. In 1739, when 

 the treatment of the English traders by the 

 Spaniards in America had excited great indignation 

 in England, admiral Vernon, who was a member of 

 the house of commons, spoke warmly against the 

 indifference of the ministry to the complaints of 

 the merchants, and pointed out the means of re- 

 dressing or avenging the injuries which they had 

 suffered. In consequence of these representations, 

 he was sent with a squadron to the West Indies. 

 where he took the town of Porto Bello, in 1739, 

 and destroyed the fortifications. In 1741, he was 

 sent out again to attack Carthagena ; but the ex- 

 pedition proved unsuccessful. In both of these 

 expeditions, the British forces were joined by 

 American troops ; and, in the latter case, there was 

 a great mortality among the troops, who were un- 

 accustomed to the tropical climate of New Gren- 

 ada. Admiral Vernon had the honour of giving 

 his name to the seat of general Washington, at that 

 time in possession of his brother, who had served 

 under the admiral. During the rebellion, in 1745, 

 he was employed in defending the coasts of Kent 

 and Sussex ; but, on account of his opposition to 

 the ministry, he was subsequently superseded, and 

 even struck off the list of admirala. His death took 

 place Oct. 29, 1757. 



VERNON, MOUNT. See Mount Vernon, and 

 Washington. 



VERONA ; a delegation of Austrian Italy, in 

 the government of Venice, watered by the Adige, 

 and, though partly mountainous, having an agree- 

 able climate and a fertile soil. The productions 

 are corn, wine, oil, flax and silk : in the mountains 

 is beautiful marble. Population, 285,000 ; square 

 miles, 1330. 



VERONA ; an ancient city, formerly belonging 

 to Venice, now to the Austrian Lombardo- Vene- 

 tian kingdom, capital of the above delegation, for- 

 merly capital of a district called the Veronese, on 

 the Adige, eighteen miles north-north-east of Man- 

 tua, and sixty miles west of Venice; Ion. 11 1' E.; 

 lat. 45 26' N.; population, 55,000. It is a bishop's 

 see. It has a pleasant and picturesque situation, 

 partly on a declivity and partly on the border of a 

 large plain. The Adige flows through it in a rapid, 

 full stream, dividing it into two unequal parts, and 

 is crossed by four stone bridges. The form of the 

 city is irregular, its circuit about six miles. It re- 

 tains its old fortifications of a moat and earthen 

 mound, and has two castles on high ground, with 

 a third on the plain. The interior of the city does 

 not correspond with the beauty of its position, most 

 of the streets being narrow and dirty ; several, how- 

 ever, are spacious and well paved. The houses are 

 in an antique style, but of good appearance, from 

 the quantity of marble employed in their construc- 

 tion. It contains a Gothic cathedral, ninety-three 

 churches, forty-one convents, eighteen hospitals, a 

 town-house, a museum, a gymnasium, a lyceum, a 

 public library, an academy of painting, also the ac- 

 caderma philarmonica&ndthe philoli, both remark- 

 able for a number of ancient monuments. Some 

 of the churches are noted for their paintings, others 

 for their architecture. The town-house has on 

 the outside niches, containing busts of the distin- 

 guished natives of Verona, Pliny the elder, Catullus, 



