the empress. On the accession of Paul he was raised to the rank of ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, and received immense estates in Finland. Neither Vorontsov's detention of the Russian squadron under Makarov in British ports nor his refusal, after the death of Bezborodko, to accept the dignity of imperial chancellor could alienate the favour of Paul. It was only when the emperor himself began to draw nearer to France that he began to consider Vorontsov as incompetent to serve Russia in England, and in February 1800 all the count's estates were confiscated. Alexander I. on his accession at once reinstated him, but ill-health and family affairs induced him to resign his post in 1806. From that time till his death in 1832 he continued to live in London.
Besides his valuable Note on the Russian War (Rus.) and numerous letters, Vorontsov was the author of an autobiography (in Russky Arkhiv, Petersburg, 1881) and “Notes on the Internal Government of Russia” (Rus.) (in Russky Arkhiv, 1881).
Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov (1782–1856), Russian prince and field-marshal, son of the preceding, spent his childhood and youth with his father in London, where he received a brilliant education. During 1803-4 he served in the Caucasus under Tsitsianov and Gulyakov, and was nearly killed in the Zakatahko disaster (January 15, 1804). From 1805 to 1807 he served in the Napoleonic wars, and was present at the battles of Pultusk and Friedland. From 1809 to 1811 he participated in the Turkish War and distinguished himself in nearly every important action. He was attached to Bagration’s army during the war of 1812, was seriously wounded at Borodino, sufficiently recovering, however, to rejoin the army in 1813. In 1814, at Craonne, he brilliantly withstood Napoleon in person. He was the commander of the corps of occupation in France from 1815 to 1818. On the 7th of May 1823 he was appointed governor-general of New Russia, as the southern provinces of the empire were then called, which under his administration developed marvellously. He may be said to have been the creator of Odessa and the benefactor of the Crimea. He was the first to start steamboats on the Black Sea (1828). The same year he succeeded the wounded Menshikov as commander of the forces besieging Varna, which he captured on the 28th of September. In the campaign of 1829 it was through his energetic efforts that the plague, which had broken out in Turkey, did not penetrate into Russia. In 1844 Vorontsov was appointed commander-in-chief and governor of the Caucasus with plenipotentiary powers. For his brilliant campaign against Shamyl, and especially for his difficult march through the dangerous forests of Ichkerinia, he was raised to the dignity of prince, with the title of Serene Highness. By 1848 he had captured two-thirds of Daghestan, and the situation of the Russians in the Caucasus, so long almost desperate, was steadily improving. In the beginning of 1853 Vorontsov was allowed to retire because of his increasing infirmities. He was made a field-marshal in 1856, and died the same year at Odessa. Statues have been erected to him both there and at Tiflis.
See V. V. Ogarkov, The Vorontsovs (Rus.) (Petersburg, 1892); Vorontsov Archives (Rus. and Fr.) (Moscow, 1870, &c.); M. P. Shelverbinin, Biography of Prince M. S. Vorontsov (Rus.) (Petersburg, 1858). (R. N. B.)
VÖRÖSMARTY, MIHÁLY (1800–1855), Hungarian poet, was born at Puszta-Nyék on the 1st of December 1800, of a noble Roman Catholic family. His father was a steward of the Nadasdys. Mihály was educated at Székesfejérvár by the Cistercians and at Pest by the Piarists. The death of the elder Vörösmarty in 1811 left his widow and numerous family extremely poor. As tutor to the Perczel family, however, Vörösmarty contrived to pay his own way and go through his academical course at Pest. The doings of the diet of 1823 first enkindled his patriotism and gave a new direction to his poetical genius (he had already begun a drama entitled Salamon), and he flung himself the more recklessly into public life as he was consumed by a hopeless passion for Etelka Perczel, who socially was far above him. To his unrequited love we owe a whole host of exquisite lyrics, while his patriotism found expression in the heroic epos Zalán futása (1824), gorgeous in colouring, exquisite in style, one of the gems of Magyar literature. This new epic marked a transition from the classical to the romantic school. Henceforth Vörösmarty was hailed by Kisfaludy and the Hungarian romanticists as one of themselves. All this time he was living from hand to mouth. He had forsaken the law for literature, but his contributions to newspapers and reviews were miserably paid. Between 1823 and 1831 he composed four dramas and eight smaller epics, partly historical, partly fanciful. Of these epics he always regarded Cserhalom (1825) as the best; but modern criticism, has given the preference to Két szomséd vár (1831), a terrible story of hatred and revenge. When the Hungarian Academy was finally established (November 17, 1830) he was elected a member of the philological section, and ultimately succeeded Karóly Kisfaludy as director with an annual pension of 500 florins. He was one of the founders of the Kisfaludy Society, and in 1837 started the Athenaeum and the Figyelmezö, the first the chief belletristic, the second the best critical periodical of Hungary. From 1830 to 1843 he devoted himself mainly to the drama, the best of his plays, perhaps, being Vérnász (1833), which won the Academy's 100-gulden prize. He also published several volumes of poetry, containing some of his best work. Szózat (1836), which became a national hymn, Az elhagyott anya (1837) and Az úri hölgyhöz (1841) are all inspired by a burning patriotism. His marriage in 1843 to Laura Csajághy inspired him to compose a new cycle of erotics. In 1848, in conjunction with Arany and Petöfi, he set on foot an excellent translation of Shakespeare's works. He himself was responsible for Julius Caesar and King Lear. He represented Jankovics at the diet of 1848, and in 1849 was made one of the judges of the high court. The national catastrophe profoundly affected him. For a short time he was an exile, and when he returned to Hungary in 1850 he was already an old man. A profound melancholy crippled him for the rest of his life. In 1854 he wrote his last great poem, the touching A vén cigány. He died at Pest in 1855 in the same house where Karóly Kisfaludy had died twenty-five years before. His funeral, on the 21st of November, was a day of national mourning. His penniless children were provided for by a national subscription collected by Ferencz Deák, who acted as their guardian.
The best edition of Vörösmarty’s collected works is by Pál Gyulai (Budapest, 1884). Some of them have been translated into German, e.g. Gedichte (Pest, 1857); Ban Marot, by Mihály Ring (Pest, 1879); Ausgewählte Dichte, by Paul Hoffmann (Leipzig, 1895). See Pál Gyulai, The Life of Vörösmarty (Hung.) (3rd ed., Budapest, 1890), one of the noblest biographies in the language; Brajjer, Vörösmarty, sein Leben und seine Werke (Nagy-Becskerek, 1882). (R. N. B.)
VORTICELLA, the Bell-Animalcule, a genus of Peritrichous Infusoria (q.v.) characterized by the bell-shaped body, with short oral disk and collar,attached by a hollow stalk, inside and around which passes, attached spirally a contractile bundle of myonemes. By their contraction the stalk is brought into the form of a corkscrew, the thread being now on the shorter, i.e. the inner, side of the turns; and the animal is jerked back near to the base of the stalk. As soon as the contraction of the thread ceases, the elasticity of the stalk extends the animal to its previous position. On fission, one of the two animals swims off by the development of the temporary posterior girdle of membranelles, the disk being retracted and closed over by the collar, so that the cell is ovoid: on its attachment the posterior girdle of cilia, disappears and a stalk forms. The other cell remains attached to the old stalk. In the allied genera Carchesium and Zoothaninium the two produced by fission remain united, so that a branching colony is ultimately produced. The genus is a large one, and many species are epizoic on various water animals.
VORTIGERN (Guorthigirnus, Wyrtgeorn), king of the Britons at the time of the arrival of the Saxons under Hengest and Horsa. The records do not agree as to the date of the arrival of these chieftains or the motives which led them to come to Britain. It seems clear, however, that Vortigern
