VOLUNTEER VOSGES. 



849 



VOLUNTEER, in military language; one who 

 serves in the army, or undertakes a particular duty 

 without being obliged so to do : thus officers not 

 unfrequently take part in a campaign, as volunteers. 

 When an enterprise of peculiar danger is to be un- 

 dertaken, as the assault of a formidable battery, the 

 taking of a square, &c., a call is made for volun- 

 teers ; and those who survive receive rewards of 

 money, or medals, swords, &c., or promotion. 

 Sometimes there are also bodies of troops consist- 

 ing entirely of volunteers ; e. g. the Prussian volun- 

 teer riflemen, attached to each battalion in the cam- 

 paigns of 1813, 1814 and 1815, and the volunteer 

 companies of citizens raised, in 1794, in England. 

 These mostly laid aside their arms in 1801 ; but 

 when the war broke out again in 1803, and the 

 intention of the French to effect a landing was 

 announced, the inhabitants of Great Britain rose 

 anew, and the ministers spoke of nearly 500,000 

 volunteers being in arms. 



VOLUTES. See Architecture. 



VON ; a German preposition, meaning, in some 

 cases, from, or of. It is prefixed to the names of 

 the host of noblemen in that country ; in which 

 case it is equivalent to the French de, and the 

 Dutch van, which latter, however, does by no 

 means always indicate nobility. There are a few 

 cases, also, in Germany, in which von precedes the 

 name of a commoner. The origin of this significa- 

 tion of von was, probably, that the early noblemen 

 were called by their Christian name, with the addi- 

 tion of the castle or village which belonged to them. 

 Before family names became settled (see Names'), 

 it was very customary, on the European continent, 

 to call any person, commoner or nobleman, by his 

 Christian name, with the addition of the place in 

 which he resided, either changed into an adjective, 

 or with the preposition of, de, von. By degrees, 

 this became a distinction of the nobility in Germany, 

 but not in Holland. 



VONDEL, JOOST VAN DER, one of the most 

 celebrated poets of Holland, of which, however, he 

 was not a native, was born at Cologne, in 1587. 

 His parents, who were Anabaptists, removed to Hol- 

 land while he was a child, and the poet himself after- 

 wards went over to the Arminians, and finally died 

 in the bosom of the Roman Catholic church, in 1659. 

 Nature had endowed him with extraordinary talents, 

 and he derived little aid from education. He has 

 been called the Dutch Shakspeare. Devoting him- 

 self entirely to the cultivation of poetry, Vondel 

 first learned Latin and French in the thirtieth year 

 of his age, read the Roman and French writers, and 

 endeavoured to supply the deficiencies of his early 

 education. His works display genius and elevated 

 imagination; but the language is often incorrect. 

 His poems compose nine vols. quarto, and include 

 metrical versions of the Psalms, of Virgil and of 

 Ovid, together with satires and tragedies. Among 

 the latter, Palamedes, an allegorical piece relating 

 to the death of Barneveldt, and the Conquest of 

 Amsterdam, are considered the masterpieces of 

 Dutch tragedy. Camper has treated of Vondel, 

 in a Latin prize essay, published at Leyden, in 

 1818. 



VORARLBERG ; a mountainous district, now 

 forming a circle of the Tyrol, surrounded by the 

 Tyrol, Switzerland, lake Constance, and Bavaria. 

 It has its own separate constitution, and consists 

 of the lordships of Bregenz, Feldkirch, Pludenz, 

 and Hohenems, with a population of 86,754 souls, 

 on 1578 square miles. The Vorarlberg lordships 



derive their name from the Arlberg, or Adlersberg 

 (Eagle mountain), which belongs to the Noric Alps, 

 and separates them from the Tyrol. They we re 

 annexed to the Tyrol in 1782, and were ceded with 

 it, by the peace of Presburg, to Bavaria ; but, in 

 1814, were restored to Austria. The country is 

 mountainous, and watered by several small rivers, 

 among which, the Lech and the Iller take their rise 

 here. There is much wood and good pasturage, 

 and the raising of cattle is the chief occupation of 

 the inhabitants. The corn produced is not equal 

 to the consumption. There are cotton manufac- 

 tures here, and the making wooden ware, and the 

 building of boats and houses (the latter exported 

 to Switzerland), employ a great number of the in- 

 habitants. The chief town (Bregenz) has 2500 

 inhabitants. 



VORSTIUS, CONRAD, an eminent divine, born 

 at Cologne, in 1569, was the son of a dyer, who 

 secretly seceded to the Protestant communion. 

 Conrad was sent to Haerlem and Heidelberg, at 

 which university he was created a doctor of divinity. 

 After giving lectures on theology, at Geneva, in 

 1596, he accepted a professorship at Steinfurt, until 

 1610, when he received a call to succeed Arminius 

 in the professorship of theology at Leyden. Hav- 

 ing accepted this offer, he soon became involved in 

 the controversial war which raged in the Nether- 

 lands ; and the Gomarists, taking advantage of a 

 book which he had published, entitled Tractatus 

 Theologicus de Deo, accused him of heresy. James 

 I., on receiving the book of Vorstius, drew up a 

 catalogue of heresies from it, which he sent to his 

 minister at the Hague, with an order to certify to 

 the states how much he detested those alleged 

 errors. He also caused his book to be burnt in 

 London, and informed the states, who said they 

 would inquire into the case, that if they did not 

 dismiss Vorstius, none of his subjects should visit 

 Leyden. The appearance of a work, by some of 

 his disciples, entitled De Officio Christiani Hominis, 

 which contained some an ti- Trinitarian doctrines, 

 although formally disclaimed by Vorstius, excited 

 against him so much odium, that he was banished, 

 by the states of Holland, from their territories. 

 (See Arminius, and Arminians.) He lived for more 

 than two years in secrecy, frequently changing his 

 abode, in fear of his life, and died, in 1622, at the 

 age of fifty-three. 



VORTICES OF DESCARTES. See Descar- 

 tes. 



VOSGES ; a chain of mountains in the east of 

 France, extending from north to south, nearly par- 

 allel with the Rhine, and forming a continuation of 

 the Jura mountains, which separate France from 

 Switzerland. Beginning in the vicinity of Belfort, 

 in the ancient Sundgau, they divide Alsace from 

 Lorraine, and, bending towards the German pro- 

 vinces on the Rhine, they terminate, towards +he 

 north-east, on the Rhine and the Moselle, under 

 the name of Hundsruck (q. v.), and towards the 

 north-west, in the grand duchy of Luxemburg, un- 

 der the name of the Ardennes. Alsace, situated 

 on the German side of the Vosges, has been in the 

 possession of France for a century ; yet the lan- 

 guage is still German. The highest summits attain 

 an elevation of nearly 4500 feet above the surface 

 of the sea. They have a gentle declivity, and, on 

 the eastern and southern sides, are often covered 

 with vineyards. Great part of the Vosges moun- 

 tains are covered with forests : and they are rich in 

 game, wild fowl, silver, copper, iron, lead, coal and 



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