352 
YEN 
V E R 
Chance ; hap.—The king resolved with all speed to assail 
the rebels, and yet with that providence and surety, as should 
leave little to venture or fortune. Bacon. —The thing put 
to hazard; a stake. 
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted. 
Nor to one place. Shakspeare. 
At a Venture. At hazard; without much consideration; 
without any thing more than the hope of a lucky chance,— 
You have made but an estimate of those lands at a venture, 
so as it should be hard to build any certainty of charge upon 
it. Spenser. 
To VE'NTURE, v. n. To dare.—A man were better rise 
in his suit; for he that would have ventured at first to have 
lost the suitor, will not in the conclusion lose both the 
suitor and his own fonner favour. Bacon. —To run a 
hazard. 
Nor is indeed that man less mad than these. 
Who freights a ship to venture, on the seas, 
With one frail interposing plank to save 
From certain death, roll’d on by every wave. Dryden. 
To Ve'nture at, or To Ve'ntvrk on ov upon. To en¬ 
gage in; or make attempts without any security of success, 
upon mere hope. 
That slander is found a truth now; and held for certain. 
The king will venture at it. Shakspeare. 
To VE'NTURE, v. a. To expose to hazard. 
In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, 
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight; 
By vent'ring both, I oft found both. Shakspeare. 
To put or send on a venture.—The fish ventured for 
France, they pack in staunch hogsheads, so as to keep them 
in their pickle. Carew. —To trust; to rely on. Not pro¬ 
per. Hurd. —A man would be well enough pleased to buy 
silks of one, whom he would not venture to feel Ins pulse. 
Addison. 
VENTURER, s. One who ventures. 
Remember, you’re all venturers, and in this play 
How many twelve-pences ye have ’stow’d this day. 
Beaum. and FI. 
VENTURESOME, adj. Bold; daring. 
VENTURESOMELY, adv. In a bold or daring manner. 
VENTURING, s. The act of putting to hazard; the act 
of running risk.—Wise venturing is the most commendable 
part of human prudence. Ld. Halifax. 
VENTUROUS, adj. Daring, bold, fearless; ready to 
run hazards. 
He paus’d not, but with vent'rous arm 
He pluck’d, he tasted. Milton 
VENTUROUSLY, adv. Daringly ; fearlessly ; boldly. 
—Siege was laid to the fort by the Lord Gray, then deputy, 
with'a smaller number than those were within the fort; ven¬ 
turously indeed; but haste was made to attack them before 
the rebels came in to them. Bacon. 
VENTUROUSNESS, s. Boldness; willingness to hazard. 
—Her coming into a place where the walls and cielings were 
whited over, much offended her sight, and made her repent 
her venturousness. Boyle. 
VENUE, s. [vicinium, Lat.] [In law.] A neighbour¬ 
ing place.—Twelve of the assise ought to be of the same venue 
where the demand is made. Cowel. —A thrust; a hit. See 
Veney. 
VENUS, s. [Latin.] One of the planets. 
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear, 
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere. Shakspeare. 
VENUS’ BASIN, [cliusacus major, Lat.] Ve'nus’ Comb 
[pectcn Veneris, Lat.], Ve'nus’ Hair [ adiantum ], Ve'¬ 
nus’ Looking-glass, Ve'nus’ Navel-wort, s. Plants. 
—Botanists show a very particular regard to the fair sex;— 
as we may well conclude from so many names they give to 
plants; ladies’ fingers, ladies’ traces, ladies’ linen, Venus' 
glass, Venus' basin, &c. Stukeley. 
VENUS, Cape, a cape on the coast of Otaheite. Lat 
17.29. N. long. 149.36. W. 
VENUS, Point, a cape on the west coast of the island 
of Otaheite, so called by Captain Cook, being the spot chosen 
to obtain the transit of Venus on the 3d of June 1769. 
VENU'ST, adj. [venustus, Lat.] Beautiful; amiable.— 
As the infancy of Rome was venust, so was its manhood 
notably strenuous. Waterhouse. 
VENZONE, a town of Austrian Italy, in the government 
of Venice, situated on the Tagliamento; 18 miles north- 
north-west of Udina. 
VEPRINITZ, a small town of Austrian Illyria, on the 
coast of Istria. It stands in a quarter which, though rocky, 
produces very good wine, olives, and chesnuts; 9 miles 
west of Fiume. 
VERA, a small town of the Austrian states, in Sclavonia; 
9 miles south of Essek. 
VERA, a sea.port town in the south of Spain, on the 
coast of Granada; 40 miles south-by-west of Lorca. 
VERA, a town in the north-east of Spain, in Navarre, on 
the borders of France; 6 miles south-south-east of Fonta- 
rabia. 
VERA CRUZ, a province of Mexico, situated under 
the burning sun of the tropics, and extending along the 
Mexican gulf, from the Rio Baraderas (or de los Lagartos) 
to the great river of Panuco, which rises in the metalli¬ 
ferous mountains of San Luis Potosi. Hence this inten¬ 
dancy includes a very considerable part of the eastern coast 
of New Spain. Its length, from the bay of Terminos near 
the island of Carmen, to the small port of Tampico, is 210 
leagues; while its breadth is only in general from 25 to 28 
leagues. It is bounded on the east by the peninsula of 
Merida; on the west by the intendancies of Oaxaca, Puebla, 
and Mexico; and on the north by the colony of New San¬ 
tander. 
There are few regions in the new continent where the 
traveller is more struck with the assemblage of the most 
opposite climates, than in this province. All the western 
part of the province of Vera Cruz forms the declivity of 
the Cordilleras of Anahuac. In the space of a day the 
inhabitants descend from the regions of eternal snow, to the 
plains in the vicinity of the sea, where the most suffocating 
heat prevails. The admirable order with which different 
tribes of vegetables rise above one another by strata, as it 
were, is nowhere more perceptible than in ascending from 
the port of Vera Cruz to the table-land of Perote. We see 
there the physiognomy of the country, the aspect of the sky, 
the form of plants, the figures of animals, the manners of 
the inhabitants, and the kind of cultivation followed by 
them, assume a different appearance at every step of our 
progress. As we ascend, nature appears gradually less ani¬ 
mated, the beauty of the vegetable forms diminishes, the 
shoots become less succulent, and the flowers less coloured. 
The inferior limit of the Mexican oak warns the colonist 
who inhabits the central table-land, how far he may descend 
towards the coast, without dread of that mortal disease the 
yellow fever. Forests of liquid amber, near Xalapa, an¬ 
nounce by the freshness of their verdure that this is the 
elevation at which the clouds suspended over the ocean 
come in contact with the basaltic summits of the Cordillera. 
A little higher, near La Banderilla, the nutritive fruit of the 
banana tree comes no longer to maturity. At the height of 
San Miguel, pines begin to mingle with the oaks, which 
are found by the traveller as high as the elevated plains of 
Perote, where he beholds the delightful aspect of fields 
sown with wheat. Twenty-six hundred feet higher, the 
coldness of the climate will no longer admit of the vegetation 
of oaks; and pines alone there cover the rocks, whose sum¬ 
mits enter the limit of eternal snow, 'fhus, within the 
compass of not many miles, the naturalist in this miraculous 
country ranges through the whole scale of vegetation. 
The smilax, of which the root is the true sarsaparilla, 
grows in the humid and umbrageous ravines of the Cordil¬ 
lera. The cotton of the coast of Vera Cruz is celebrated for 
its fineness and whiteness. The sugar-cane yields nearly as 1 
much 
