VIE 
fields without any molestation from either. 
This, indeed, is only a permissive right, in- 
tended to excuse what, in strictness, is a 
trespass in both, and to prevent a multipli- 
city of suits ; and therefore either township 
may inclose and bar out the other, fhoTigh 
they have intercommoned time out of mind. 
Neither has any person of one town a right 
to put his beasts, originally, into the other’s 
common ; but if they escape and stray there 
of themselves, the law does not punish 
trespass. 
' VI ET ARMIS, vAth force and arms, in 
law, are words used in indictments, de- 
clarations, &e. to express the charge of 
forcible and violent committing any crime 
or trespass ; but on appeal of death, on a 
killing with a weapon, the w ords'ui et armis 
are not necessary, because they are im- 
plied; so in an indictment of forcibly en- 
try alleged to have been made manu forti, 
&c. 
VIETA (Francis), in biography, a very 
celebrated French mathematician, was born 
in 1540, at Fontenai, a province of France. 
Among other branches of learning in which 
he excelled, he was one of the most respec- 
table mathematicians of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, or indeed of any age. His writings 
abound with marks of great originality, and 
the finest geniu,«, as well as intense applica- 
tion. His application w'as such, that, it is 
said, he has sometimes remained in his stu- 
dy for three days together, witiiout eatmg 
or sleeping. His inventions and improve- 
ments, in all parts of the mathematics, were 
very considerable. He was in a manner 
the inventor and introducer of specious al- 
gebra, in which letters are used insteijd of 
numbers. He made also considerable im- 
provements in geometry and trigonometry. 
He gave some masterly tracts on trigonome- 
try, both plane and spherical, which may 
be found in the collection of his works, 
published at Leyden in 1646, by Schooten, 
besides another large and separate volume 
in folio, published in the author’s life time', 
at Paris,. in 1579, containing extensive tri- 
gonometrical tables, with the construction 
and use of the same. To this complete 
treatise on trigonometry, plane and spheri- 
cal, are subjoined several miscellaneous 
problems and observations, such as, the 
quadrature of the circle, the duplication (if 
tlie cube, &c. Computations are here 
given of the ratio of tiie diameter of a cir- 
cle to the circumference, and of the length 
of the sign of one minute, both to a great 
VOL. VI. 
VIL 
many places of figures ; by which he found 
that the sine of one minute is 
between 2908881959 
and 2908882056 ' 
also the diameter of a circle, being 1000, 
&c. that the perimeter of the inscribed and 
circumscribed polygon of 393216 sides, will 
be as follows, viz. the 
Perimeter of the inscribed ) 
polygon ‘ 
Perimeter of the circum- 
scribed polygon 
and that therefore the circumference of the 
circle lies between those two numbers. 
Vieta was also a profound decypherer, 
an accomplishment that proved very useful 
to his country. As the different parts of 
the Spanish monarchy lay very distant from 
one another, when they had occasion to 
communicate any secret designs, they 
wrote them in ciphers and unknown cha- 
racters, during the disorders of the league : 
the cipher was composed of more than 500 
different characters, which yielded their 
hidden contents to the penetrating genius 
of Vieta alone. His skill so disconcerted 
the Spanish councils for two years, that they 
published it at Rome, and other parts of 
Europe, that the French King had only dis- 
covered their ciphers by means of magic. 
He died at Paris, in the year 1603, in the 
sixty-third year of his age. 
VIEW, in law, is generally where a real 
action, or an action of trespass, is brought 
in any of the Courts of Record at West- 
minster, and it shall appear to the court to 
be proper and necessary tliat the jurors 
should have a view, they may order special 
writs of disMngas, or habeas corpora, to 
issue, commanding the sheriff to have six 
of the first twelve of the jurors therein 
named, or of some greater number of them, 
at the place in question, &c. This is done 
where it is of any importance to the deter- 
mination of tire cause, to be acquainted 
with the local situation and actual state of 
the place injured. _ 
VILLAIN, or Villein, in our ancient 
customs, denotes a man of servile and base 
condition, viz. a bondman or servant : and 
there were anciently two sorts of bondmen 
or villains in England : the one termed a 
villain in gross, who was imraediately'bound 
to the person of his lord and his heirs ; the 
ether a villain regardant - to a manor, he 
being bound to his lord as a member be- 
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