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fox-chace, he caught cold, which brought on a fever, that 

 confined him jr. a tenant's houfe at Kirkby-moor-fide, 

 wliere he was viAted by fome friends, and at their fuggeftion 

 he received the facrament according to the rite of the church 

 of England. On the third day of his illnefs he died, in 

 April°i688, in the-6ift year of his age, and was interred in 

 the family-vault at Weftminfter Abbey. He was an unfaith- 

 ful hufband, and had no iflue by his wife Hts amours were 

 numerous ; and of thefe, the principal was that with the 

 comitefs of Shrewfbury, who held lus horfe while he killed 

 her hufband in a duel. His writings, confifting of eflays, 

 poems, &G. have been collefted in 2 vols. 8vo. and have 

 pafTed through four editions. He is faid to have devoted 

 himfelf to chemical, or rather alchemical purfuits, in which 

 he was the dupe of interefted and defigning perfons ; and it 

 is added, that he introduced the art of making cryftal-glafs 

 from Venice. Biog. Brit. Hume. 



ViLLiERS DE l'Isle Adam, Philip de, was a defcendant 

 of an ancient French family, born in 1464, and elefted grand- 

 matter of the order of St. John of Jerufalem in 152 1. In 

 the year after his eleftion, the ifland of Rhodes, where he 

 refided, was invaded by 200,000 Turks, againft whom he 

 defended it with fuch vigour, that fultan Solyman came in 

 perfon to fuperintend the attack ; and after a fiege of fix 

 months, in which the Turks are faid to have loft j 00,000 

 mcH, he found it neceffary to furrender it. Solyman treated 

 him with great refpeA, declaring to one of his officers, that 

 it was not without regret he obliged this Chriftian to leave 

 his houfe at his age. Abandoning Rhodes in 1523 vpith 

 fifty veffels, his remaining knights, and about 4000 of the 

 inhabitants, he airived at Rome during the papacy of Cle- 

 ment Vn. ; who afligned to him for a prefent rcfidence the 

 town of Viterbo. In 1527 the emperor Charles V. offered 

 the illand of Malta, which in a general chapter it was de- 

 termined to accept. He then went to Syracufe, and in 1 530 

 received the donation by letters-patent of Malta, Gozo, 

 and Tripoli in Barbary. In this year he fortified Malta ; 

 and from that pei-iod, the knights of St. John affumed 

 the title of knights of Malta. After a life diftinguifhed 

 by piety, courage, and prudence, he died in 1534, at 

 the age of 70. Upon his tomb was infcribed this appro- 

 priate eulogy, " Here repofes Virtue vidlorious over For- 

 tune." Moreri. 



ViLLlERS, in Geography, a town of France, in the de- 

 partment of the Cote d'Or ; 6 miles N.N.W. of Chatillon- 

 fur-Seine. — Alfo, a town of France, in the department of 

 the Loire and Cher ; 4 miles W. of Vendome. — Alfo, a town 

 of France, in the department of the Mayne ; 6 miles N. of 

 Chateau Gontier. 



ViLLiERs en Vecevre, a town of France, in the depart- 

 ment of the Eure ; 15 miles E.S.E. of Evreux. 



ViLLiERS St. Benoit, a town of France, in the department 

 of the Yonne ; 15 miles W. of Auxerre. 



VILLIMPENTA, a town of Italy, in the department 

 of the Mincio ; 10 miles E. of Mantua. 



VILLINGEN, a town of the duchy of Baden, in the 

 Brifgau. This place, by means of the mountains and narrow 

 accefles leading to it, is extremely well fecured, and alfo 

 fomewhat fortified by art. It has always ferved the Auf- 

 trians as a magazine for thefe parts, as well for provifions as 

 military ftores. In it is an abbey of Benediftines ; and its 

 neighbourhood contains a good bath ; 52 miles S.S.W. of 

 Stuttgart. N. lat. 48° 4'. E. long. 8"^ 26'. 



VILLOA, a town of the duchy of Piacenza ; 10 miles 

 S. of Piacenza. 



VILLOISON, John-Baptist Gaspardd'Anse de, in 

 Biography, was the defcendant of a family originally Spanifli, 



4 



and born in 1750 at Corbdlle-fur-Seine, and after receiving 

 the rudiments of literature at feveral colleges, attended the 

 Greek lectures of M. le Beau at Paris, and enjoyed the 

 higher inftruftion in this department of MCapperonier, 

 Greek profeflbr in the royal college of France. Such were 

 his talents and appHcation, that with thefe advantages he 

 became acquainted, at the age of fifteen, with almoft all 

 the writers of antiquity in every clafs. In his refearches 

 among MSS. in the library of St. Germain -des-Pres, he 

 found a Greek lexicon of Homer by ApoUonius, which he 

 pubhfhcd in 1773, with prolegomena and notes, that dif- 

 played a very furprifing extent of erudition, confideriag his 

 early age, and that introduced him, out of the ufual form, 

 into the Academy of Infcriptions and Belles Lettres. His 

 next confiderable undertaking was an edition of the Paftoral 

 of Longus, which was publifhed in 1778. In 1781 he ob- 

 tained a miffion, at the king's expence, to examine the library 

 of St. Mark in Venice, where he found feveral inedited 

 works of rhetoricians, philofophers, and grammarians, a col- 

 leftion of which he publifhed in 2 vols. 4to. under the title 

 of " Anecdota Grsca." He alfo found a very valuable MS. 

 of Homer's Iliad, with fchoha by ancient grammarians, 

 which he committed to the prefsin 1788, accompanied with 

 learned prolegomena. About this time he received an 

 invitation from the duke and duchefs of Saxe-Weimar, to 

 vifit their court, the moft hterary in Germany ; and here 

 he collefted various readings and emendations of the text of 

 feveral Greek authors, which he printed at Zurich, under 

 the title of " Epiftolse Vimarienfes." Another of his publi- 

 cations is that of a trandation of part of the Old Teftament, 

 by a Jew of the ninth century, which he had found in the 

 Ubrary of St. Mark ; and of this he gave an edition, with 

 notes, at Strafturghin 1781. Soon after his return to Paris, 

 and his marriage of an interefting young woman, he formed 

 the pnrpofe of fearching for MSS. in the Eaft, and in 1785 

 he vifited Conltantinople, and afterwards Smyrna, and feveral 

 iflands in the Archipelago, and Greece ; and the refult of 

 his refearches and obfervations was read before the Academy 

 of Belles Lettres, on his return to Paris in 1787. At the 

 commencement of the Revolution he retired to Orleans, for 

 the purfuance of his literary plans ; and the fruits of his 

 confultations of ancient and modern authors were 15 large 

 volumes in 410. He alfo contemplated a larger work, 

 which was a new edition of father Montfaucon's " Palaeo- 

 graphia Grasca." When the revolutionary tempeft fubfided, 

 he returned to Paris, with literary treafure, in amafling which 

 he had expended three-fourths of his moderate fortune ; and 

 he was therefore under a neceffity of commencing a courfe 

 of leftures in the Greek language, which proved unfucceff- 

 ful. He therefore gladly accepted the profefTorlhip of mo- 

 dern Greek, which the government eftabhfhed, and dif- 

 charged its duties till it was fupprefTed by Napoleon. 

 From refpecl to his merit, a profeflbrfhip of ancient and mo- 

 dern Greek was created for him alone in the college of 

 France ; but he was carried off by a hngering malady in 

 April 1805, at the age of 55 years. In verbal knowledge 

 Villoifon was deemed a profound fcholar ; but to the higher 

 qualities of intelleft he is faid to have had no juft pretenfions. 

 Gen. Biog. 



VILLONA, in Geography, a town of Spain, in the pro- 

 vince of Leon ; 1 3 miles E. of Salamanca. 



VILLOSLADA, a town of Spain, in Old Caftile ; 

 20 miles S.E. of Najera. 



VILLOSUS, in Botany and Vegetable Phyfiology, ex- 

 preffes that kind of hairinefs which is longifh, foft, and 

 fnaggy, hke wool, yet does not amount to the thick en- 

 tangled coat of many plants, which is properly termed 



woolly, 



