and his great predecessor La Rochefoucauld is that Vauvenargues, unlike La Rochefoucauld, thinks nobly of man, and is altogether inclined rather to the Stoic than to the Epicurean theory. He has indeed been called a modern Stoic, and, allowing for the vagueness of all such phrases, there is much to be said for the description.
An edition of the Œuvres of Vauvenargues, slightly enlarged, appeared in the year of his death. There were some subsequent editions, superseded by that of M. Gilbert (2 vols., 1857), which contains some correspondence, some Dialogues of the Dead, "characters" in imitation of Theophrastus and La Bruyere, and numerous short pieces of criticism and moralizing. The best comments on Vauvenargues, besides those contained in Gilbert's edition, are to be found in four essays by Sainte-Beuve in Causeries du lundi, vols. iii. and xiv., and in Villemain's Tableau de la literature francaise au XVIIIme siècle.
See also M. Paléologue, Vauvenargues (1890); and Selections from . . . La Bruyère and Vauvenargues, with memoir and notes by Miss Elizabeth Lee (1903).
VAUX, CALVERT (1824-1895), American architecture and landscape gardener, was born in London on the 24th of December
1824. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and in
the office of Lewis N. Cottingham (1787-1847). In 1850 he
went to America and became A. J. Downing's architectural
partner. In 1856 and 1866 Vaux was associated with F. L.
Olmsted in the plans for the improvement of various parks.
He designed the Belvidere in Central Park, New York, and built
a number of country houses in Newport, besides many town
houses and public institutions.
VAUX OF HARROWDEN, THOMAS VAUX, 2nd Baron (1510-
1556), English poet, eldest son of Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron
Vaux, was born in 1510. In 1527 he accompanied Cardinal
Wolsey on his embassy to France; he attended Henry VIII. to
Calais and Boulogne in 1532; in 1531 he took his seat in the
House of Lords, and was made Knight of the Bath at the corona-
tion of Anne Boleyn. He was captain of the Isle of Jersey until 1536. He married Elizabeth Cheney, and died in October 1556. Sketches of Vaux and his wife by Holbein are at Windsor,
and a finished portrait of Lady Vaux is at Hampton Court.
Two of his poems were included in the Songes and Sonetles of
Surrey (Tottel's Miscellany, 1557). They are " The assault of
Cupid upon the fort where the lover's hart lay wounded, and
how he was taken," and the "Dittye . . . representinge the
Image of Deathe," which the gravedigger in Shakespeare's
Hamlet misquotes. Thirteen pieces in the Paradise of Dainty
Devices (1576) are signed by him. These are reprinted in Dr
A. B. Grosart's Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library
(vol. iv., 1872).
VAUXHALL, a district on the south bank of the river Thames, in London, England, included in the metropolitan
borough of Lambeth. The manor was held by Falkes de
Breauté (whence the name, Falkes Hall) in the time of John and
Henry III. About 1661 public gardens were laid out here,
known as the New Spring Garden, and later as Spring Gardens,
but more familiar under the title of Vauxhall Gardens. They
soon became the favourite fashionable resort of the metropolis;
but as a place of general entertainment they underwent great
development from 1732 under the management of Jonathan
Tyers (d. 1767) and his sons Thomas and Jonathan. In 1822,
with the approval of George IV., who frequented the gardens
before his accession, the epithet Royal was added to their title.
By the middle of the 19th century, however, Vauxhall had lost
its high reputation; in 1859 the gardens were finally closed, and
the site was quickly built over.
VAVASSOR (Med. Lat. valvassor, vasvassor; Fr. vavassour, vavassor, vasseur, &c.), in its most general sense a mediate vassal,
i.e. one holding a fief under a vassal. The word was, however,
applied at various times to the most diverse ranks in the feudal
hierarchy, being used practically as the synonym of vassal.
Thus tenants-in-chief of the crown are described by the Emperor
Conrad (Lex Lamgob. lib. iii. tit. 8, § 4) as valvassores majores
as distinguished from mediate tenants, valvassores minores.
Gradually the term without qualification was found convenient
for describing sub-vassals, tenants-in-chief being called capitanei
or barones (see Baron); Its implication, however, still varied
in different places and times. Bracton (lib. i. cap. 8, § 2) ranks
the magnates seu valvassores between barons and knights; for
him they are “ men of great dignity,” and in this order they arc
found in a charter of Henry II. (1166). But in the regestum
of Philip Augustus (fol. 158) we find that five vavassors are
reckoned as the, equivalent of one knight. Finally, Du Cange
quotes two charters, one of 1187, another of 1349, in which
vavassors are clearly distinguished from nobles.
The derivation of the word vavassor is very obscure. The fanciful interpretation of Bracton, vas sortitum ad valetudinem (a vessel chosen to honour), may be at once rejected. Others would derive it from varsi ad valvas (at the folding-doors, valvae), i.e. servants of the royal antechamber. Du Cange, with more justice, regards it merely as an obscure variant of vassus. (W. A. P.)
VAYGACH (variously Waigats, Waigatch, &c.), an island off
the Arctic coast of Russia, between it and Novaya Zemlya,
bounded S. by the narrow Yugor Strait, and N. by that of Kara.
It is roughly oblong in form; its length from S.E. to N.W. is
70 m., and its greatest breadth 28. Its greatest elevation
scarcely exceeds 300 ft. For the most part it consists of tundra,
with frequent marshes and small lakes. Slight rock ridges
run generally along its length, and the coast has low cliffs
in places. The island consists in the main of limestone, and its
elevation above the sea is geologically recent. Raised beaches
are frequently to be traced. The rocks are heavily scored
by ice, but this was probably marine ice, not that of glaciers.
Grasses, mosses and Arctic flowering plants are abundant, but
there are no trees excepting occasional dwarf willows. Foxes
and lemmings are met with, but whereas animals are few, birds
are very numerous; a variety of ducks, waders, &c., frequent
the marshes and lakes. The island is visited periodically by
a few Samoyeds; they formerly considered it sacred, and
some of their sacrificial piles, consisting of drift-wood, deer’s
horns and the skulls of bears and deer, have been observed by
travellers. In spite of their conversion to Christianity, the
Samoyeds still regard these piles with superstition. The origin
of the the name Vaygach is as dubious as its orthography; it has been held to be Dutch (waaien, to blow, and gat, a strait, hence
”windy strait”) or Russian, in which case it is probably a surname.
Comparatively little was known of the interior of the island until Mr F. G. Jackson made the circuit of it on foot in 1893 (see his Great Frozen Land, London, 1895; also H. J. Pearson, Beyond Petsora Eastward, London, 1899).
VECTOR ANALYSIS, in mathematics, the calculus of vectors. The position of a point B relative to another point A is specified
by means of the straight line drawn from A to B. “It may
equally well be specified by any equal and parallel line drawn
in the same sense from (say) C to D, since the position of D
relative to C is the same as that of B relative to A: A straight
line conceived in thisway as having a definite length, direction
and sense, but no definite location in space, is called a vector.
It may be denoted by AB (or CD), or (when no confusion is
likely to arise) simply by'AB. Thus a vector may be used to
specify a displacement of translation (without rotation) of a
rigid body. Again, a force acting on a particle, the velocity
or momentum of a particle, the state of electric or magnetic
polarization at a particular point of a medium, are examples
of physical entities which are naturally represented by vectors.
The quantities, on the other hand, with which we are familiar
in ordinary arithrnetical algebra, and which have merely magnitude
and sign, without any intrinsic reference to direction,
are distinguished as scalars, since they are completely specified
by their position on the proper scale of measurement. The mass
of a body, the pressure of a gas, the charge of an electrified
conductor, are instances of scalar magnitudes. It is convenient
to emphasize. this distinction by a difference of notation; thus
scalar quantities may be denoted by italic type, vectors (when
they are represented by single symbols) by “ black ” or “ Clarendon
” type.,
There are certain combinations of vectors with one another,
