878 



WARP WARTENBURG. 



of the woof to form a clotb, riband, fustian, or other 

 stuff. 



WARP ; a rope or hawser, employed occasionally 

 to remove a ship from one place to another, in 

 a port, road, or river. Hence to warp is to change 

 the situation of a ship, by pulling her from one part 

 of a harbour, &c., to some other, by means of warps 

 which are attached to buoya, to other ships, to an- 

 chors sunk in the bottom, or to certain stations 

 upon the shore, as posts, rings, trees, &c. 



WARREN, SIR PETER, an English admiral, dis- 

 tinguished for his professional talents and his pri- 

 vate virtues, was descended 'from an ancient family 

 in Ireland, and received an education suitable to the 

 employment for which he was destined. Having 

 entered young into the navy, he gradually rose to 

 the rank of commodore, which he held in 1745, 

 when he was appointed commander of an armament 

 destined for the attack of Louisburg, North Ame- 

 rica, then belonging to the French. He was joined 

 by the fleet of transports from Boston, containing 

 the New England troops under Sir W. Pepperell, 

 in Canso bay, on the 25th of April ; and the com- 

 bined forces took possession of Louisburg on the 

 19th of June. The French considered the loss of 

 this place of so much importance, that, in 1747, they 

 fitted out a powerful fleet for the purpose of retak- 

 ing it ; and, at the same time, another squadron 

 was sent to the East Indies. The views of the 

 French government were rendered abortive by the 

 courage and activity of admiral Anson and Sir Peter 

 Warren. The latter, who had been made a rear- 

 admiral, with a large fleet, fell in with the French 

 squadron, completely defeated them, and captured 

 the greater part of their men-of-war. Peace being 

 concluded the succeeding year, he was elected mem- 

 ber of parliament for Westminster. He died in 

 1752. 



WARRINGTON ; a thriving town of England, 

 in Lancashire, on the Mersey : eighteen miles east 1 

 of Liverpool. By the reform act of 1832, it was con- ' 

 stituted a borough, returning one member to par- 

 liament. Population in 1841, 21,116. 



WARSAW (Polish Warszawa ; called by the 

 Germans Warschau, and by the French Varsovie) ; 

 capital of the late kingdom, formerly capital of the 

 whole country of Poland, on the west bank of the 

 Vistula, 300 miles east of Berlin ; Ion. 20 3' E. ; 

 lat. 52 14' N. The population, which in 1830, 

 was 140,000, is now reduced to about 60,000. 

 Warsaw has a pleasant situation, not very elevated 

 yet sufficiently so to be secure against the over- 

 flowings of the Vistula. It is an open town, having 

 neither gates nor walls, but is enclosed with lines. 

 It covers a great extent of ground, being between 

 three and four miles long, including its four suburbs, 

 and between two and three broad ; but this extent 

 includes large spaces occupied by gardens. The city, 

 formerly but little better than a collection of cot- 

 tages, received considerable improvements from its 

 Saxon sovereigns of the last century. Still it was 

 an irregular and unpleasant place, exhibiting a sin- 

 gular contrast of ostentation and poverty, having \ 

 in a few quarters, mansions of such splendour as to ! 

 be entitled to the name of palaces ; in others a suc- 

 cession of miserable hovels. The streets were for- 

 merly wholly without pavements, and exceedingly 

 filthy; but several of them have been paved, kept | 

 clean, arid well lighted. The town is divided into 

 old and new, exclusive of the four suburbs, one of 

 which, Praga, lies on the east bank of the river, i 

 The old town, with the exception of a few public 



edifices, is miserably built ; but there is a greater 

 proportion of good houses in the new town and sub- 

 urbs. The largest edifice is the palace of the 

 kings of the house of Saxony, the residence of the 

 viceroy, who represents the emperor of Russia. 

 The city was in an improving state, and increasing 

 in population, and trade, previously to the insur- 

 rection of 1830. It then contained thirty-nine 

 churches, six hospitals, a military academy, a gym- 

 nasium, a lyceum, and a university, founded in 1816, 

 consisting of five faculties, theology, jurisprudence, 

 political economy, philosophy, and the fine arts, 

 with a library of 150,000 volumes, among which 

 were 15,000 Polish works, 7000 incunabula, and 

 1260 manuscripts. Its situation, for an inland town, 

 is favourable for trade. The Vistula is navigable 

 to a great extent, upwards as well as downwards. 

 It has manufactures of woollen stuffs, soap, tobacco, 

 gold and silver wire, carriages, harness, and carpets. 

 Since 1817, two great annual fairs have been estab- 

 lished. In 1566, the diet of Poland was transferred 

 from Cracow, the old capital of Poland, to War- 

 saw. (For an account of the insurrection of 1830, 

 and the war which followed, see Poland and Rus- 

 sia.) Warsaw was captured by Paskiewitch, Sept. 

 7, 1831, after two days' fighting. The scenes of 

 horror exhibited there need not to be detailed. 

 The Russians have erected a citadel at Warsaw, 

 to overawe the country, the cost of erecting which 

 (20,000,000 florins) was extorted from the unhappy 

 citizens. 



WART (verruca); a thickening or induration 

 of the cuticle. These little tumors form most 

 commonly on the face and hands, and either drop 

 off spontaneously or may be removed by the appli- 

 cation of caustics. 



WARTBIJRG ; an ancient mountain castle, half 

 a league from Eisenach, belonging to the grand duke 

 of Saxe- Weimar. It was built between 1069 and 

 1072, was the residence of the landgraves of Thur- 

 ingia, and famous for its tournaments, especially 

 in the first half of the thirteenth century. The 

 elector Frederic the Wise, of Saxony, caused Luther, 

 who had been outlawed by the diet of Worms, to 

 be carried thither, where he lived from May 4, 1521, 

 to March 6, 1522, engaged in the translation of the 

 Bible. The room in which he laboured is yet seen. 

 The disorderly conduct of Carlstadt induced him to 

 leave this place. (See Carlstadt, and Luther.) -For 

 the meeting of the German students here, October 

 18, 1817, see Eisenach. 



The War of the Wartburg, one of the earliest 

 dramatic poems, or dialogues in verse, in the Ger- 

 man language, grew out of a poetical contest which 

 took place about 1207, between six of the most 

 distinguished German poets Henry the Clerk 

 (Henry von Rispach), Walther von der Vogel- 

 weide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Bitterolf, Henry 

 von Ofterdingen and Reimer von Zweten or Zwet- 

 zen, assembled at the Wartburg, under the protec- 

 tion of the landgrave. This poem exists, in two 

 manuscripts, in the Manesse collection, and in the 

 Jena manuscript of the Minnesingers; from which 

 Zeune printed it in 1808. Opinions differ respect- 

 ing the writer. 



WARTENBURG, BATTLE OF, October 3, 1813. 

 Wartenburg is a small place on the left bank of the 

 Elbe. Bliicher having resolved to give a turn to 

 the war, by transferring the scene of conflict to the 

 left bank of the Elbe, left his camp at Bautzen, 

 Sept. 26, and made a memorable march to the Elbe. 

 The river was wide and rapid, and the pontons 



