subsequently in Dorsetshire, where he described the Purbeck and Portland rocks. To him Sir Henry C. Englefield (1752–1822) was indebted for the geological descriptions and the effective geological views and sections of the Isle of Wight and Dorset that enriched his Description of the Principal Picturesque Beauties, Antiquities and Geological Phenomena of the Isle of Wight (1816). The mineral Websterite was named after him. He died in London on the 26th of December 1844.
WEBSTER, THOMAS (1800–1886), English figure painter, was born at Ranelagh Street, Pimlico, London, on the 20th of March 1800. His father was a member of the household of George III.; and the son, having shown an aptitude for music, became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, St James’s. He, however, developed a still stronger love for painting, and in 1821 he was admitted student of the Royal Academy, to whose exhibition he contributed, in 1824, portraits of “Mrs Robinson and Family.” In the following year he gained the first medal in the school of painting. Till 1879 he continued to exhibit in the Royal Academy work of a genial and gently humorous character, dealing commonly with subjects of familiar incident, and especially of child life. Many of these were exceedingly popular, particularly his “Punch” (1840), which procured in 1841 his election as A.R.A., followed five years later by, full membership. He became an honorary retired academician in 1877, and died at Cranbrook, Kent, on the 23rd of September 1886. His “Going into School, or the Truant” (1836), and his “Dame’s School” (1843) are in the National Gallery, and five of his works are in the South Kensington Museum.
WEBSTER, a township of Worcester county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the French river, about 16 m. S.S.W. of Worcester.
Pop. (1890) 7031; (1900) 8804, of whom 3562 were foreign born;
(1910 census), 11,309. Land area (1906), 12·19 sq. m.
Webster is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and
the Boston & Albany railways, and by interurban electric lines.
In the township is Lake Chaubunagungamaug, a beautiful sheet
of water about 2 sq. m. in area. The manufacture of textiles
and of boots and shoes is the principal industry; the total
value of the factory product in 1903 was $5,867,769. Webster
was founded by Samuel Slater (1768–1835), who in 1812 built
cotton-mills and in 1815–1816 began the manufacture of woollen
cloth. The township, named in honour of Daniel Webster, was
erected in 1832 from common lands and from parts of Dudley
and Oxford townships, which before the cotton-mills were bmlt
here were almost uninhabited.
See Holmes Ammidown, Historical Collections (New York, 1874), vol. i . pp. 461-524.
WECKHERLIN, GEORG RUDOLF (1584–1653), German
poet, was born at Stuttgart on the 15th of September 1584.
After studying law he settled at Stuttgart, and, as secretary to
the Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg, was employed on
diplomatic missions to France and England. Between 1620
and 1624 he lived in England in the service of the Palatinate,
and seems also to have been employed by the English government.
In 1644 he was appointed “Secretary for Foreign
Tongues” in England, a position in which, on the establishment
of the Commonwealth, he was followed by Milton. He died in
London on the 13th of February 1653. Weckherlin was the
most distinguished of the circle of South German poets who
prepared the way for the Renaissance movement associated in
Germany with Martin Opitz. Two volumes of his Oden und
Gesänge appeared in 1618 and 1619; his collected Geistliche
und weltliche Gedichte in 1641. His models were the poets
of the French Pléiade, and with his psalms, odes and sonnets
he broke new ground for the German lyric. An epic poem on
the death of Gustavus Adolphus, in alexandrines, seems to have
won most favour with his contemporaries.
Weckherlin’s Gedichte have been edited by H. Fischer for the Stuttgarter Literarischer Verein (vols. cxcix.-cc., 1894–1895). Selections were published by W. Müller (1823) and K. Goedeke (1873). See also C. P. Conz, Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Schriften Weckherlins (1803); E. Höpfner, G. R. Weckherlins Oden und Gesänge (1865); H. Fischer, Beiträge zur Literaturgeschichte Schwabens (1891), and the same author’s article in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (1896).
WEDDERBURN, JAMES (1495?–1533), JOHN (1500–1556) and ROBERT (1510?-?1556), Scottish poets and religious reformers, were natives of Dundee, where their father James Wedderburn was a prosperous merchant. All three brothers studied at St Andrews University. James Wedderburn, who had gone to St Andrews in 1514, was for a time in France preparing for a mercantile career. On his return to Dundee in 1514 he received instruction in the Reformed faith from Friar Hewat, a Dominican monk. He composed a play on the beheading of St John the Baptist, and another, a morality satirizing church
abuses, in the setting of episodes from the story of Dionysius the Infant, both of which were performed in 1540 in the play field of Dundee. Neither of these nor a third ascribed to him by Calderwood, the historian, are extant. A charge of heresy was brought against him, but he escaped to France, and established himself as a merchant at Rouen or Dieppe, where he lived unmolested
until his death in 1553, although attempts were made
by the Scottish community there to bring further charges against him.
John Wedderbum graduated M. A. at St Andrews in 1528. He took priests' orders and appears to have held the chaplaincy of St Matthews, Dundee, but in March 1539 he was accused of heresy, apparently for having, in conjunction with his brothers, written some anti-Catholic ballads. He escaped to Wittenberg, where with other of his compatriots he received the teaching of the German reformers. There he gained an acquaintance with the Lutheran hymns, which he turned to account on his return to Scotland. The death of James V. and the known leanings of the regent, the earl of Arran, to reform, encouraged many exiles, Wedderburn among them, to revisit Scotland. It is probable that he was the author of the greater portion of the Compendious Book of Psalms and Spiritual Songs which contains a large number of hymns from the German. The enormous influence of the collection, with its added Gude and Godlie Ballatis, on Scottish reform, is attested by the penalties enacted against the authors and printers of these books. John Wedderburn was in Dundee as late as 1546, when he was obliged to flee to England. John Johnston in his Coronis martyrum says he died in exile in 1556.
Robert Wedderburn, who graduated M.A. in 1530, was ordained priest, and succeeded his uncle John Barry as vicar of Dundee; but before he came into actual possession he also was suspected of heresy, and was compelled to flee to France and Germany. He returned to Scotland in 1546. He appears to have been actual vicar of Dundee in 1552. His sons were legitimized in January 1553.
The earliest known edition of the Compendious Book of Psalms and Spiritual Songs (of which an unique copy is extant) dates back to 1567, though the contents were probably published in broad sheets during John Wedderburn’s lifetime. It consists of a calendar and almanac, a catechism, hymns, many of them translations from the German, metrical versions of the Psalms, and a collection of ballads and satirical poems against the Catholic church and clergy. The separate shares of the brothers in this compilation cannot be settled, but Robert is said to have edited the whole and added the section of “gude and godlie ballatis.” Many of these ballads are adapted from secular songs. Editions of the book appeared in 1578 (printed by John Ros), in 1600 (by Robert Smith), in 1621 (by Andro Hart); selections were published by Lord Hailes (1765) and by Sibbald (1802); a reprint of the 1621 volume was edited by Sir J. G. Dalyell in Scotish Poems of the Sixteenth Century (1801), and of the 1578 volume by David Laing in 1868. In 1897 Professor A. F. Mitchell reprinted the 1567 volume (expurgated) for the Scottish Text Society.
“Wedderburn’s” Complainte of Scotlande (1549) has been variously assigned to Robert Wedderbum, to Sir David Lyndsay and to Sir James Inglis, who was chaplain of the Abbey of Cambuskenneth from about 1508 to 1550. It is a prose treatise pleading for the maintenance o(the Scottish alliance with France, written by a determined enemy of England and of the English party in Scotland. It is dedicated to Mary of Guise, and consists of the "Dreme" of Dame Scotia and her complaint against her three sons. These two sections are connected by a "Monologue Recreatif," in which the author displays his general knowledge of popular songs, dances and tales, of astronomy, natural history and naval matters. Four copies of this work are extant, but in none is the title-page preserved. In the Harleian catalogue the book is entered as Vedderburn’s Complainte of Scotlande, wyth ane Exortatione to the thre Estaits to be vigilante in the Deffens of their Public Veil (1549) (Catalogus Bibliothecae
