Amadis, in 1771, a poem which celebrates the triumph of intellectual over mere physical beauty. The poet treated this subject again, in the latter part of his life, in his Crates and Hipparchia. In 1765, Wieland married, and, in 1769, was appointed professor primarius of philosophy at the university of Erfurt. From this time, he no longer occupied himself exclusively with amatory poetry. In his Cupid Accused, he defends this kind of poetry; and in the Dialogues of Diogenes of Sinope (1770), he gave a general vindication of his philosophical views. Under the title Contributions to the secret History of the human Understanding and Heart, from the Archives of Nature (1770), he wrote against Rousseau. The many improvements and noble plans of Joseph II of Austria gave occasion, in 1772, to his Golden Mirror. In 1772, he went to Weimar, in consequence of an invitation from the duchess Anna Amalia of Weimar, to superintend the education of the two princes, her sons. Here he had leisure for literature; and a moderate salary, and the promise of a pension for life, set him at ease. He now turned his attention to dramatic poetry, and wrote his Choice of Hercules, and his Alceste. He also undertook the superintendence of the German Mercury, a monthly journal, which he continued to edit to the end of his life. His views, as exhibited in this journal, showed too much of the narrow conventional spirit of French criticism, and he was, therefore, attacked by Göthe and Herder. The first wrote a satire against him under the title of Gods, Heroes and Wieland, which Wieland answered with his characteristic mildness. Göthe and Herder were soon drawn to Weimar, where the duchess Amalia formed a galaxy of talent and genius, such as has seldom been witnessed. In company with them, Wieland here labored with great activity for more than twenty years. His philosophy breathes the spirit of Socrates, sometimes with a mixture of that of Aristippus. He has enriched German literature with works which have made known to his countrymen the merits of the French and English writers. His historical productions do not constitute large works, but they please by the lively imagination, knowledge of languages, sound judgment and benevolent spirit which they display. These graver occupations did not diminish his poetical fertility, which appeared to great advantage in his History of the Abderites (1773), a delightful work, in which the muse of wisdom appears disguised in the garments of satire. He also wrote tales, partly after foreign originals, partly from his own invention. But Oberon, a romantic epic, is the most successful of his larger works, though the tone and the form are both liable to censure. In addition to his original works, Wieland prepared translations of Horace and Lucian; and, though the scholar will often meet with paraphrases which he may not like, these translations have been of much service to the public at large. Wieland himself declared his Letters and Commentaries on Horace those of his works on which he placed the greatest value, and from which his head, heart, taste, conceptions and character could be best known. From his constant study of Lucian originated (1791) an original work, Peregrinus Proteus, to which his Agathodæmon may be considered a pendant. A uniform edition of his works was published at Leipsic, in two editions, 4to. and 8vo., 36 vols., with six supplementary volumes, 1794, et seq. (new edition by Graber, begun in 1820; a pocket edition, in 16mo., 51 vols., was begun in 1824). The author was enabled, by the sale of this edition of his works, to buy an estate, called Osmannstädt, near Weimar, where he intended to spend the evening of his life. As his manner of living was simple, his moderate income was adequate to his wants, though his wife bore him fourteen children within twenty years. From 1798 to 1803, he continually lived in Osmannstädt, and occupied himself with literary labors, among which his Attic Museum should be mentioned. Aristippus and some of his Contemporaries also belongs to this period. In 1803, he sold his estate, from views of economy, and lived again in Weimar, where he now found Schiller, with whom he soon became intimate. After the death of the duchess Amalia, of Schiller, and many of his other friends, he sought to divert his melancholy by literary labors. We owe to this circumstance his translation of Cicero's Letters. The emperor Alexander gave him the order of St. Anne, and Napoleon that of the legion of honor. He was elected a member of the French institute, and died Jan. 20, 1813: his wife had died in 1801. The remains of both rest in the same tomb, which bears an inscription, composed by Wieland himself, commemorative of the love which had united them throughout life. Wieland became, at a late period of his life, a free-mason. WIELICZKA; a town of Austrian Po land, in the kingdom of Galicia, seven WIER'S CAVE. (See Cave.) WIFE. (See Husband and Wife.) WIG is derived from the Latin pilus in this way :-pilus-Spanish pelo, whence peluca; French perruque; Dutch peruik; English perwick, perwig, periwig, shortened to wig. The use of false hair is traced back to the ancients. Xenophon says that Astyages wore a peruke about the fiftieth Olympiad, in which the hair was thick. They were afterwards worn by several of the Roman emperors. Lampridius relates of the wig of Commodus, that it was tinged with fragrant colors and powdered with gold-dust. After this period, we find no trace of wigs in history till the sixteenth century, when John, duke of Saxony, wrote to Arnold von Falkenstein, in Coburg, to order a handsome wig to be made in Nuremberg, "but privately, so that it may not be known to be for us, and of a flaxen color and curled make, of such a fashion, moreover, that it may be conveniently set upon the head." France afterwards became the peculiar country of wigs, whence they spread to all parts of Europe. Henry III (1575—89), having lost his hair by disease, caused by his debaucheries, covered his cap, such as was then in general use, with false hair. Under Louis XIII (1610-43), they came into common use. Even those who had no necessity for them, wore them because it was fashionable. Their forin was very various. Some account of them may be found in a learned work by Nicolai, On the Use of False Hair (Ueber den Gebrauch der falschen Haare). Modern refinement has abolished this unnatural ornament; and, where wigs are needed, care is taken to make them, as far as possible, resemble nature. Wigs, with all their appurtenances, form a very curious item in the history of fashion; and the tenacity with which men have clung, and even now cling, to this article, which, like the cravat, is neither comfortable, handsome, nor healthy, shows, in a striking manner, the force of habit. We allude, of course, only to those wigs which are worn merely for fashion's sake, and not to those imitations of the natural hair which serve as coverings for baldness. A history of wigs, with illustrative plates, would be not an uninteresting work. When people began to appear without wigs, it was considered the height of vulgarity. The same was the case when people left off hair-powder and queues. The French revolution gave the death-blow to the general use of wigs. The disuse of them in the case of par ticular classes was considered a flagrant breach of decorum. A clergyman in Prussia, named Schultze, was involved in serious difficulties, because he appeared with a queue and without a wig in the pulpit, and the government was obliged to protect him. Of Jovellanos (q. v.) it is mentioned that he was the first Spanish judge who appeared without a wig; and the influence of the prime-minister, count Aranda, was required to support him in this innovation, which, strange to say, has even yet not extended to the English judges, who, as well as the counsellors, still appear in wigs; and what wigs! Whoever has seen them will not be likely to forget them. It was considered a bold step in lord Brougham when he dared to appear with a smaller wig than his predecessors in the office of chancellor. A late English traveller (captain Basil Hall), among other melancholy instances of the universal ascendency of the democratic principle in the U. States, deplores the want of wigs on the heads of the judges. How must he have felt when the bishop of Carlisle appeared, in 1830, in the house of lords without a wig, and the bishop of Oxford followed his example! WIGAN; a borough and market-town of England, county of Lancaster, near the small river Douglas. It has manufactures of coarse home-made linens, checks, calicoes, fustians, and other cotton goods; also large brass and pewter works. It returns two members to parliament. Population in 1821, 17,716; in 1831, 20,774. Thirty-nine miles south of Lancaster. WIGHT, ISLE OF; an island of England, on the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by a channel varying in breadth from two to seven miles. From the eastern to the western angle it measures nearly twenty-three miles, and from the northern to the southern about thirteen. Its superficies includes 105,000 acres, of which about 75,000 are arable, and 20,000 are in pasturage. Through the middle extends a range of high hills, affording commanding views over every part of the isle, with the ocean on the south side, and on the north the beautiful coast of Hampshire. The land around the coast is in some parts very high, and frequented by immense numbers of marine birds, as puffins, razor-bills, will-cocks, gulls, cormorants, Cornish-choughs, daws, starlings and wild pigeons, some of which come, at stated times, to lay their eggs and breed, while others remain there all the year. The higher parts of the isle are composed of calcareous matter, of a chalky nature, incumbent on schistus. The limestone is burnt for manure. Native alum is found in large quantities in Alum bay: pipe-clay is likewise very plentiful in different parts of the isle; and chalybeate springs have been found in different parts of the island. The trade of the Isle of Wight is flourishing; the harbor of Cowes is particularly convenient for shipping and unshipping merchandise. (See Cowes.) The island contains three boroughs, Newport, Newtown and Yarmouth, returning each two members to parliament previous to the passage of the reform act in 1832. By that act, Newtown, which is entirely without inhabitants, and Yarmouth, which has but 586, were disfranchised. Newport (4081 inhabitants) continues to return two members, and the isle now returns one, as a county member. WIGWAM; a name given by the English to the huts or cabins of the North American Indians. This word, as we learn from Eliot's Indian Grammar (printed in 1666), is a corruption of the Indian compound weekuwom-ut, which signifies in his house. The corresponding word in the Delaware language is written by the German missionary Mr. Zeisberger, wikwam. WILBERFORCE, William, a distinguished philanthropist, whose exertions to procure the abolition of the slave-trade give him a high rank among the benefactors of the human race, was born at Hull, in Yorkshire, in the year 1759, of which place his grandfather had been twice mayor. His father died when he was young, and, in 1774, he was sent to St. John's college, Cambridge, where he formed an intimacy with Mr. Pitt. Mr. Wilberforce came into a good fortune, and was elected member of parliament for Hull in 1780. During this parliament, he did not take any very active part in politics. He was also elected in 1784, and, owing to the partiality of the people for Mr. Pitt's friends, was also chosen for the county of York: he therefore made his election for that county. In 1787, he brought forward a motion for the abolition of the slave-trade, and presented a great number of petitions in favor of that measure. The minister spoke in favor of the abolition, but suffered the motion to be lost. The next year, Mr. Wilberforce being ill, Mr. Pitt brought on the motion, and the question was carried without a division; but it went no further. It was a singular circumstance, that Mr. Pitt, whose power was then at its zenith. could carry every measure but this. Mr. Wilberforce had much to contend with before he completed his object; and all he could do was to procure some regulations favorable to the slaves during their passage. The condition of the slaves in the West Indies was, however, greatly improved. While Mr. Pitt was minister, every trick was tried to avoid the question, till Mr. Fox and his friends succeeded to power, when, to their honor, he and his friends carried the measure. The influence of Mr. Wilberforce in the house of commons was extraordinary; and, at one time, during the French war, an appearance of defection on the part of Wilberforce and his friends induced Pitt to open a treaty with France. Mr. Wilberforce has published a Practical View of the prevailing Religious Systems of Professed Christians in the higher and middle Classes of the Country contrasted with real Christianity (1797); an Apology for the Christian Sabbath (1799); a Letter on the Abolition of the Slave-Trade (1807); and Substance of his Speeches on the Bill for promoting the Religious Instruction of the Natives of British India (1813). WILD RICE (zizania aquatica); a large kind of grass, which grows in shallow water or miry situations, in many parts of North America. The stem is seven or eight feet high; the leaves broad and scattering; and the flowers disposed in a large terminal panicle, spreading at the base and spiked at the summit. The female flowers are awned, upright, and form the terminating spike, while the male are nodding, and placed at the extremities of the spreading branchlets; the stamens are six in number; the seeds are about half an inch long, slender, farinaceous, and afford a very good meal, which is much used by the Indians in those districts where the plant abounds. The seeds drop off with the slightest blow; and the Indians collect them by bending the plants, and beating them over their canoes. The wild rice grows in the Northern and Middle States and in Canada. It is extremely abundant along the muddy shores of the Delaware, and forms the chief attraction for the immense flocks of reed-birds and black-birds which annually resort thither in the autumn. Owing to the different features of the Chesapeake and Hudson, it is rare on their shores, and on most of their branches. It is most abundant in the north-west, being found as far as latitude 50°, on lake Winnipeg; but it does not exist on the Missouri, or west of the St. Peters, a branch of the Upper Mississippi. This plant may, perhaps, at some future day, exert considerable influence on the destiny of the human race, and render populous many districts in the extreme north which are now considered uninhabitable. Another and larger species of zizania is found in the more southern parts of the United States, which is distinguished by having the male and female flowers intermixed. The WILHELMSHÖHE (William's Height), formerly Weissenstein, and during the brief existence of the kingdom of Westphalia, called Napoleon's Höhe, is a castle belonging to the elector of Hesse-Cassel, a league distant from Cassel, the usual summer residence of the monarch. Art and nature have vied in adorning it. An alley of linden-trees leads from Cassel to the foot of the elevation on which the palace stands. The most remarkable objects in this place are, 1. The palace of the elector. 2. The great fountain, a column of water which may be made to rise 190 feet high. Its diameter is nine inches. 3. The great cascade. water falls 104 feet, in a stream eighteen feet wide and one foot in thickness. 4. The Carlsberg (Charles mountain), with its cascades, erected, in 1701, by the Italian architect Giov. Franc. Guernieri. Here is a grotto, in front of which is a basin 220 feet in diameter. The water falls over the grotto into the basin, and thence in a triple cascade, 900 Rhenish feet long and 40 feet wide. At intervals of 150 feet are basins. On both sides of the cascade, 842 steps lead up to the palace, called, on account of its form, the octagon. At the foot of this building is a basin 150 feet in diameter, in which a rock, lying as if it had fallen from above, covers the body of the giant Enceladus. His mouth is seven feet wide, and sends forth a mass of water 55 feet high. In the back-ground of the basin is a grotto, on one side of which is a centaur, on the other a faun, both of which blow through copper horns as long as the water plays. There is also another basin, provided with a grotto and a statue of Polyphemus, which plays when the water flows. Before this grotto is the artichoke basin, owing its name to an enormous artichoke of stone, from the leaves of which twelve fountains spring, of which that in the centre rises forty feet. The giant castle (as the palace is called) is remarkable in various respects. It has 192 Tuscan columns, each 48 feet high, which support the third story. On a platform extending over the whole building, stands a pyramid 96 feet high, at the summit of which, on a pedestal eleven feet high, stands the colossal statue of the Farnese Hercules, called, by the people of the neighborhood, the great Christopher. It is of copper, 31 feet high. In his club there is sufficient room for twelve men. There is a door in it, from which a splendid view is presented of the surrounding country. Among the other curiosities are a remarkable bridge, a romantic cascade, a Chinese village, &c. WILKEN, Frederic, doctor of theology, royal Prussian historiographer, first librarian and professor in the university of Berlin, &c., a distinguished historian, was born in 1771, in Ratzeburg. In 1795, he went to the university of Göttingen, where, at first, he studied theology, but soon devoted himself to history, philology, and the Oriental languages. In 1798, he received the prize of the philosophical faculty at Göttingen, for a critical work on the statements of sultan Abulfeda respecting the crusades, which he subsequently extended to a full history of these remarkable events. In 1805, he was made professor of history in the university of Heidelberg, and, in 1808, superintendent of the library. In 1815, when the various countries reclaimed from France the treasures which had been carried to Paris, professor Wilken conceived the bold idea of demanding the library of Heidelberg, seized, 200 years ago, by Bavaria, and presented to pope Urban VIII. (See Heidelberg, Library of.) The Prussian and Austrian ministers supported Wilken; and, as the Romans believed that Heidelberg belonged to Prussia, the pope gave up the library, actually making a present of it, however, to the king of Prussia. The famous sculptor Canova had come to Paris, as commissioner on the part of the pope, without any means of ascertaining precisely what he ought to reclaim; and Wilken aided him greatly by presenting him a catalogue of all the manuscripts and works of art carried from the Vatican to Paris, printed at Leipsic in 1805. Canova, in return, aided Wilken's demand by his own intercession with cardinal Consalvi. Thus 38 Greek, Latin and French, and 853 German manuscripts were given back to Heidelberg. Wilken went, in 1816, to Rome. In 1813, he was made a member of the French institute. Most of his writings relate to the Persian language and the history of the East; but his chief work is the History of the Crusades, from Oriental and Western Sources (6 vols., Leipsic, 1807-1830). He has also written a history of the old Heidelberg library, &c. (1817). WILKES, John, a political character of temporary celebrity, born in London, in 1727, was the second son of an opulent distiller. After a preliminary education, under a dissenting minister at Aylesbury, he was sent to finish his studies at the university of Leyden. He returned to England in 1749, with a considerable portion of classical and general knowledge, and soon after married a lady of large fortune. One daughter was the fruit of this union, which did not prevent him from living a licentious life; and he soon after finally separated from his wife. In 1757, he obtained a seat in parliament for the borough of Aylesbury, and involved his affairs by the expenses of the election. He went into parliament under the auspices of earl Temple, through whose interest he was also appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Bucks militia. His early career was by no means conspicuous; but on the secession of earl Temple and Mr. Pitt from the ministry, in 1762, he attained considerable reputation by some pamphlets, attacking the administration, and more especially the earl of Bute. He extended his hostility not only to that nobleman, but to his country, and, by his paper entitled the North Briton, rendered antipathy to Scotland prevalent in England. These papers hastened the resignation of lord Bute, which took place in April, 1763. In the same month appeared the famous No. 45 of the North Briton, which commented on the king's speech in such caustic terms, that a prosecution was determined upon. The home secretary, in consequence, issued a general warrant, or one in which particular names are not specified, ordering the apprehension of the authors, printers and publishers of the paper in question. On this warrant Wilkes, among others, was apprehended; but he asserted the illegality of the warrant, and, refusing to answer interrogatories, was committed to the Tower. Some days after, he was brought, by writ of habeas corpus, before chief justice Pratt, of the common pleas, who declared the judgment of that court that general warrants were illegal, and he was consequently discharged, amidst the general rejoicings of the populace. lord Temple, he brought actions against the secretary of state, under secretaries, Aided by |