Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/1092

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VILLIERS.

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several years, 1865-1873, was en- ' gaged on the great " Icelandic ' Dictionary," which was published i nnder the name of Mr. Cleasby. ! Upon finishing the " Dictionary," he again turned his attention to editing : " Sturlunga Saga," with Prolegomena, containing a sketch of the Literary History of Iceland, A.D. 1100-1430, at the Clarendon Press, 2 vols., 1878 ; " An Icelandic Reader " (conjointly with Mr. York Powell), 1879; "Corpus Poeticum Boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century," with translations and excursus, at the Clarendon Press, 2 vols., 1883 (also conjointly with Mr. York Powell). He was created an hono- rary M.A. of the University of Oxford in 1871. Mr. Vigfusson is an honorary member of the Society of Sciences at Munich, and honorary doctor of the University of Upsala (Sept. 1877), at the great fourth centenary jubilee.

VILLIEES, The Right Hon. Chablss Pelham, M.P., brother ol the late Earl of Clarendon, born Jan. 19, 1802, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1827. He has been an Examiner in the Court of Chancery and a Poor-Law Commissioner, is a Ma- gistrate and Deputy-Lieutenant for Herts, and has been one of the members in the House of Commons for Wolverhampton since 1835. He joined the Liberal Government, and was appointed Judge- Advocate- General in 1853, was President of the Poor-Law Board, and became a member of Lord Palmerston's second administration in 1859. Mr. ViUiers, as an independent Liberal member, was one of the most able and eloquent leaders of the Anti- Com-law agitation, and to the triumph of the cause his earnest speeches and persistent motions in Parliament contributed. Having been at the general election in 1847 returned for South Lancashire

and Wolverhampton, he refused to abandon his old constituents. In the session of 1865 he introduced a very important measure in con- nection with the Poor-law admi- nistration, the Union Cbargeability Bill, which was carried through Parliament, and has become law. He resigned the Presidency of the Poor-law Board in July, 1866. A marble statue of Mr. Villiers was imveiled by Earl Granville in Wol- verhampton on Jime 6, 1879. The imveUing was preceded by a meet- ing under the presidency of the mayor in the Agricultural Hall, where speeches in eulogy of the public services of Mr. Villiers, especially in connection with the anti-corn law movement, were de- livered by Earl Granville, Sir Robert Peel, M.P.; Mr. Staveley Hill, M.P., and Mr. Alderman Fowler.

VILLIERS, Frederic, born in London in 1850, was educated in the north of France. Afterwards he studied in the Schools of Art at South Kensington, and became a student of the Royal Academy in 1870. In 1876, as special artist and correspondent to the Graphic, he went through the Servian campaign with Mr. Archibald Forbes. He was with the armies of the Timok, Drina, Eber, and with Tchemaieff on the Morava ; was decorated with the Order of the Tallova, and re- ceived a war medal for this campaign; was recalled in November to Con- stantinople. He then travelled in I Roumelia and Bulgaria, examined I the Turkish army, re-crossed the I Servian lines, and returned with the Turkish troops to Constantinople. Having been ordered to go into Russia, he, in January, started for Kisheniff, and saw the mobilization of the Russian troops in Bessarabia. Mr. Villiers returned to England in Feb. 1877. The day war was declared between Turkey and Rus- sia, he started for Bucharest, where he joined Jlr. Forbes. He saw the first shot fired across the 3 z 2