850 



VOSGES VOSSIUS. 



antimony. They also contain excellent pasturage; 

 and the inhabitants breed many rattle, and make 

 large quantities of cheee, known under the name 

 of Mtinster cheete. The 111, Lauter, Moselle, 

 Meurthe, Saar and Saone rise in this chain of 

 mountains. 



VOSGES ; a department in the eastern part of 

 France. See Department. 



VOSS, JOHN HENRY, was born in 1751, in Meck- 

 lenburg. Till his fourteenth year, he was educated 

 in the small town of Penzlin. In 1766, he was 

 placed at the school of New Brandenburg. He 

 early devoted himself to the classical languages, 

 and made verses. Being without funds to support 

 him at the university, he accepted the place of tutor 

 in a private family, in order to obtain the necessary 

 means. After having been occupied with instruct- 

 ing five or six hours a day, he found recreation in 

 Greek, music and poetry. In 1772, he went to 

 Gottingen, where he joined a society of young men, 

 at the head of which were Boje and Biirger, and 

 which has since become important in the history of 

 German literature. Yoss studied theology, which, 

 however, he soon gave up, in order to devote him- 

 self entirely to philology. Heyne was one of his 

 chief teachers; but with him he quarrelled. In 

 1778, he was appointed rector at Ottendorf. In 

 1781, after the publication of several treatises, he 

 produced his German Odyssey, a work which, what- 

 ever may be the opinion of some respecting it, has 

 rendered this grand poem national with the Ger- 

 mans, and may be compared, in this respect, with 

 Schlegel's translation of Shakspeare. In 1782, the 

 state of his health obliged him to go to Eutin. His 

 disputes with Heyne continued. In 1793, appeared 

 his translation of the Iliad, and that of the Odyssey, 

 in a new form, in which, however, it did not please 

 so much as before, being more simple. Besides 

 many philological and antiquarian works, he pub- 

 lished an idyl in the epic form, called Lvise, in 1795. 

 It had previously appeared in 1783, but was now 

 produced with improvements. It is much liked by 

 many Germans : others consider it an unfortunate 

 attempt to give an epic character to the events of 

 an ordinary life. In 1799, appeared his translation 

 of the whole of Virgil into German. In 1801, he 

 added a volume of pastoral poems to a new edition 

 of Luise, and, in 1802, four volumes of lyric poems, 

 to which was added the Zeitmessung Deutscher 

 Sprache, a work of considerable importance. In 

 1802, his German Homer appeared anew, in an im- 

 proved form. In 1802, he went to Jena ; in 1805, 

 to Heidelberg, in order to aid the new organization 

 of the university. Here appeared, in 1806, his Ger- 

 man Horace, Hesiod, and Orpheus the Argonaut; 

 in 1807, a new edition of Luise, and of his Homer ; 

 in 1808, a German Theocritus, Bion and Moschus ; 

 in 1810, Tibullus and Lygdamus, in German ; in 

 1811, the Latin text of the same, prepared from 

 manuscripts. In 1814, he published a much-im- 

 proved edition of his German Homer. In 1821, 

 appeared his translation of Aristophanes; in 1824, 

 a translation of Aratus. He also undertook to 

 translate, with his sons Henry (died in 1822) and 

 Abraham, the whole of Shakspeare, of which the 

 three first volumes appeared in 18 19. This transla- 

 tion cannot stand a comparison with Schlegel's. 

 In 1823, Voss came out, in opposition to Creuzer 

 Cq. v.),- with his Antisymbolik (Stuttgart, 1823). 

 The second volume was published by his son Abra- 

 ham, from manuscript, in 1826. Almost at the 

 tame time, he made an attack on Catholic mysticism, 



principally in consequence of his friend count Sfol- 

 berg becoming a Catholic. He died in 18'Jti, in 

 Heidelberg. (See Paulus's Lebens-und Todeskun- 

 den von J. H. f'oss, 1826.) His translation? are 

 the best existing of classic authors, and have con- 

 tributed much to the advancement of German lite- 

 rature ; while Schlegel's translations of Shakspeare 

 and other modern writers, and his treatises on ro- 

 mantic literature, have prevented the classical ele- 

 ment from becoming excessive. 



VOSSIUS, OR VOS, GERARD JOHN, a celebrated 

 writer on criticism and philology, born near Heidel- 

 berg, in 1577, studied at Dordrecht and Leyclen. 

 At the age of twenty, he commenced his literary 

 career by the publication of a Latin panegyric on 

 prince Maurice of Nassau, and, two years after, be- 

 came director of the college of Dordrecht. In 1614, 

 the chair of philosophy was offered him at Stein- 

 furt ; but he preferred the direction of the theolo- 

 gical college established at Leyden ; and, after hav- 

 ing occupied that post four years, amidst the storms 

 of religious controversy, he procured the more peace- 

 able appointment of professor of rhetoric and chrono* 

 logy. Having declared himself in favour of the 

 Remonstrants, he became obnoxious to the prevail- 

 ing party in the church ; and, at the synod of Ter- 

 gou, or Gouda, in 1620, he was deprived of his of- 

 fice. Through the influence of archbishop Laud, 

 the patron of Arminianism in England, Vossius was 

 indemnified for his loss by a prebendal stall at Can- 

 terbury, with permission to continue his residence 

 in the Netherlands. In 1633, he was invited tc 

 Amsterdam, to occupy the chair of history, at the 

 schola illustris, and continued there till his death, 

 in 1649. Among his numerous works maybe speci- 

 fied the treatises De Origine Idololatrice ; De Hi- 

 toricis Gra-cis, et de Historicis Latinis ; De Poetis 

 Greeds et Latinis ; De Scientiis Mathematicis; De 

 Quatuor Artibvs popularibus ; Historia Pelagiana; 

 Instilutiones Historicce, Grammaticce, Poeticee ; Ety- 

 mologicon Lingua Latino: ; De t'itiis Sermonis ; 

 De Philosophorum Sectis. A collective edition of 

 his works appeared in 6 vols., folio (Amsterdam, 

 16951701). 



VOSSIUS, ISAAC, son of the preceding, was bom 

 at Leyden, in 1618, and, possessing great natural 

 talents, acquired early reputation among the learned. 

 At the age of twenty-one, he published an edition 

 of the Periplus of Scylax, with a Latin version, and 

 notes. Christina, queen of Sweden, invited him 

 to Stockholm, and chose him for her preceptor in 

 the Greek language. His quarrels with Saumsise 

 having rendered the court of Sweden disagreeable 

 to him, he quitted it in 1649, and returned to his 

 native country, where he employed himself in the 

 production of various learned works. In 1670, he 

 visited England, and was admitted to the degree of 

 LL.D. at Oxford ; and, in 1673, having been pre- 

 sented to a canonry, at Windsor, by Charles II., he 

 passed the remaining part of his life in that country, 

 where he died in 1688. Besides editing the works 

 of Scylax, Justin the historian, Catullus, Pomponius 

 Mela, St Barnabas, and St Ignatius, he published 

 Dissertatio de vera 2tate Mundi ; De Septuaginta 

 Interpretibus eorumque Translatione et Chronologia 

 Dissertationes, in which he defended the chronology 

 of the Septuagint version against the Hebrew text 

 of the Old Testament ; De Poematum Cantu et Viri- 

 bus Rhythmi, &c. Isaac Vossius was, while in 

 England, intimate with St Evremond and the 

 duchess of Mazarin ; but though he lived much in 

 the society of the great, his behaviour was some- 



