tion of his province at Durham, and laid a charge of thirty-five

articles against Whittingham, the first and principal of which was his having been ordained according to the order of Geneva. This was the first time that the order of the foreign protestant churches had been formally challenged in the Church of England, and the issue of the case would have been highly important. But Whittingham challenged the archbishop's right of visitation and appealed to the queen, who appointed two successive commissions, including the archbishop, to conduct the investigation. But no definitive decision had been come to, when the proceedings were abruptly terminated by the death of the dean, which took place on 10th June, 1579. Memorable was the saying of Henry earl of Huntington, lord-president of the north, on this occasion—"That it would be ill taken by all the godly and learned, both at home and abroad, that we allow of popish massing priests in our ministry, and disallow of ministers made in the reformed church." Nor was Dr. Hutton, dean of York, of a different mind, for he remarked that Mr. Whittingham "was ordained in a better sort than even the archbishop himself.—P. L. WHITTINGTON, Sir Richard, Lord Mayor of London, the hero of the children's tale, was the third son of Sir William Whittington of Pauntley in Gloucestershire, and was born about 1350. It is certain that he became a London mercer of opulence and eminence, furnishing such royal trousseaus, to use the modern phrase, as that of the Princess Blanche, King Henry IV.'s eldest daughter. Four times lord mayor of, and in 1416 member for, London, he was a most munificent man. He constructed almshouses and drinking fountains in London; he helped to enlarge Newgate, where infectious diseases were produced by its narrow limits, and contributed £400—estimated at £4000 of our present money—to the purchase of books for the noble library of the Greyfriars' monastery in Newgate Street. His executors continued, by his instructions, the good work which he had begun. He appears to have died in March, 1423. All that could be discovered respecting him has been recently collected in The Model Merchant of the Middle Ages, exemplified in the story of Whittington and his cat, by the Rev. Samuel Lysons, London, 1860. Mr. Lysons conjectures, or hints the conjecture, that the mythus of the cat may have arisen from successful speculations of Whittington's in the coal trade, vessels used in it having at one period apparently been called "cats."—F. E. WHITTINGTON, Robert, an eminent English grammarian, born at Lichfield, received his education at Magdalen school, Oxford. About 1501 he opened a school of his own in London, and the reputation which he acquired, by his grammatical treatises and Latin poems, procured for him the degree of M. A. at Oxford, the university having previously conferred upon him in 1513 the honorary office of poet laureate. A volume of his "Epigrammata" was published by De Worde in 1519.—W. B. WHITWORTH, Charles, Lord, the earlier of two celebrated diplomatists of that name, was the eldest son of Richard Whitworth, a Staffordshire squire of an ancient family, whose descendants came to dwell in Kent. Charles' career in life was greatly influenced by the example and instruction of the poet Stepney, whom he accompanied on various diplomatic missions. In 1702 he was appointed British resident at Ratisbon. Two years later he was sent envoy extraordinary to the court of St. Petersburg, whither he went again in 1710. In 1714 he appeared in the character of minister plenipotentiary at the diet of Ratisbon, as envoy extraordinary to the king of Prussia in 1716, and in a similar character the year following at the Hague. After this he again proceeded to Berlin, and in 1724 he was nominated ambassador extraordinary to the States General. He had previously, in 1721, been created a peer as Baron Whitworth of Galway. He died in 1725. His account of Russia in 1710 was printed at Lord Oxford's private press in 1758.—R. H. WHITWORTH, Charles, Earl Whitworth, was the son of Sir Charles Whitworth, lieutenant-governor of Gravesend and Tilbury fort, and was born in 1754. He began life in the guards, but early exchanged arms for diplomacy, becoming, in 1786, minister plenipotentiary to Stanislaus Augustus. He had been envoy at St. Petersburg (1788-1800) and at Copenhagen in 1802 (having been raised to the Irish peerage in 1800), when at the close of that year he was sent to Paris as ambassador extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary. He had to conduct the difficult and delicate negotiations after the peace of Amiens, and his official despatches describing his interviews with Napoleon, before the rupture which followed that short-lived peace, are very interesting documents. In 1813 he was raised to the peerage of Great Britain as Earl Whitworth, and in the same year was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He resigned the office in 1817, and died in May, 1825.—F. E. * WHITWORTH, Joseph, an English engineer, has long been distinguished for his skill in applying scientific principles to the construction of machines so as to insure a degree of accuracy unknown before his time. He was probably the first to announce, and certainly the first to carry out thoroughly in practice, the principle that the forming of a true plane surface is the foundation of all exact mechanical workmanship; and by the substitution of scraping for grinding, and other improvements, he increased immensely the accuracy of the process for making such surfaces. That process was described by him in a paper read to the British Association at Glasgow in 1840. He also made the important discovery, that to insure accurate mechanical workmanship, the sense of touch is more to be depended upon than that of sight; and he invented various instruments and processes for applying that discovery to practice, all of which have been used with complete success. By one of those instruments, the millionth part of an inch can be measured.—(See his "Address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers," delivered at Glasgow in 1856.) Of late years he has applied the extraordinary accuracy of workmanship produced by his discoveries and inventions to the improvement of rifled firearms, with a success which is well known. He has been several times president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and is a fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of various other scientific bodies.—R. WICKHAM. See Wykeham. WICLIF. See Wycliffe. WICQUEFORT, Abraham de, was born at Amsterdam in 1598. He entered into the service of the elector of Brandenburg, who employed him as his agent in France, where he resided thirty-two years. Having been accused, however, of communicating secrets of importance to the Dutch government, he was confined by Cardinal Mazarin for some months in the Bastile, but was afterwards released and ordered to quit the kingdom. Being subsequently appointed the duke of Brunswick's resident at the Hague, he was again unlucky enough to be imprisoned four years, on a charge of holding correspondence with the English. He managed to effect his escape, and retired to Zell, where he remained until nearly the close of his life, dying in 1682. This clever, although unscrupulous politician was also an author. His chief works are a "Treatise on the Functions of an Ambassador," and a "History of the United Provinces from the Peace of Münster," published posthumously in 1719.—J. J. WIDMANSTADT, John Albert, a learned orientalist, was born in the latter part of the fifteenth century at Nelligen, near Ulm, and became a student at Tübingen under the eye of the celebrated Reuchlin. After having completed the regular course of study, he continued to pursue learning with ail the zeal of a knight-errant. He went to Spain and studied Arabic. He visited the various seats of learning in Italy, making acquaintance with all the eminent scholars, and gathering the spoils of knowledge as he went. He had even resolved to go to Tunis for the sake of conversing with Leo the African, but was detained at Rome by the learned Cardinal Giles of Viterbo. While in Italy he assumed the name of Lucretius, out of respect for the great poet. On his return to Germany he laboured hard to introduce the study of oriental languages and literature. Unfortunately a scandalous lawsuit, instituted against him by Ambrose of Guppemberg, injured the influence he had fairly acquired. That he was innocent of the charges brought against him, is to be presumed from the fact that the bishop of Augsburg, in whose employment he was engaged, continued to manifest unabated confidence in him. Retiring to an estate on the Danube in 1551, he was driven away again by the devastating tide of war. After the peace of Passau, he was made a member of the imperial council, and chancellor of Eastern Austria. The exact date of his death remains unknown. It was before 1559.—R. H. * WIDNMANN, Max, an eminent German sculptor, was born at Eichstadt, Bavaria, in 1812. At the age of thirteen he entered the Munich Art Academy, and there studied sculpture under Schwanthaler, whose favourite pupil and assistant he became. In 1835 he produced a group of Samson and Delilah, which was much admired. In 1836 he went to Rome, where he remained several years. While there (1840-43) he executed his celebrated "Shield of Hercules," from the description of Hesiod. Returning