The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [810]
Udson, Mr (fl. 1775): 476
Upper Ossory, John Fitzpatrick, 2nd Earl of (1745–1818); member of the Club: 252
Ussher, Dr James (1581–1656), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and scholar: 109 n. b, 330
‘Vagabond, Mr’: 113, 745
Vallancey, Colonel Charles (1721–1812), antiquary: 914, 917
Vanbrugh, Sir John (1664–1726), playwright and architect; early member of the Kit-Cat Club; author of the comedy The Relapse (Drury Lane, 1696) and The Provoked Husband; variously adapted and translated works by playwrights such as Moliere and Fletcher; architect of Castle Howard, completed 1712, and Blenheim Palace; comptroller of her Majesty’s works (1702–26 except for a gap in 1713–14); Clarenceux herald (1704); developer, architect and co-manager of the Queen’s Theatre at Haymarket (officially opened 1705); surveyor of gardens and waters (1715): 288, 793
Vansittart, Dr Robert (1728–89), regius professor of civil law, Oxford: 186 and n. a, 362
Veal, Mrs (d. 1705): 347
Veale, Thomas (d. 1780), of Coffleet: 807 n. a
Veitch, James, see Elliock, James Veitch, Lord
Vertot, Rene Aubert de (1655–1735), French historian: 386, 936
Vesey, Agmondesham (d. 1785), husband of Elizabeth Vesey; member of the Literary Club; Irish MP for Harristown, Co. Kildare, and Kinsale, Co. Cork; Accountant-General for Ireland: 252, 433, 753, 778
Vestris, Gaetan Apolline Balthasar (1729–1808), dancer: 808
Victor, Benjamin (d. 1778), theatre manager and writer; treasurer and deputy manager to Thomas Sheridan at the theatre in Smock Alley, Dublin (from 1746); Poet Laureate of Ireland (1755); treasurer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (from c.1759); published a three-volume Original Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems (ijj6), with a dedication to Garrick: 791
Vilette, or Villete, Revd John (d. 1799), Ordinary of Newgate: 586, 945
Villiers, Sir George (d. 1606), knight of Brooksby: 714
Virgil, Publius Virgilius Maro (70–19
bc), pre-eminent Roman poet, whose Georgics, Eclogues and, above all, Aeneid form much of the foundation of later European poetry; General: 32, 39, 40, 42, 45, 59, 123, 138, 142, 147, 210, 297, 328, 416, 529 n. a, 627 and n. b, 628, 703, 764, 771, 860, 861 n. a, 870–71, 883–4, 993 n. a; Quotations: Aeneid 42, 274–5; Eclogues 32; Georgics 328, 860
Vitalis, Janus (d. c. 1560), Italian poet and theologian: 659
Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de (1694–1778), French writer and philosopher; Anglophile; acquainted with Swift, Gay, Pope and Horace Walpole; reputation as a historian established through Histoire de Charles XII (1731) and Annales de l’empire (1753-4), a particularly strong formal influence on Hume and Gibbon; the most innovative French dramatist of his time, writing Zaire (1732) and Mahomet (1742); author of the epic poem La Henriade (1728) and the enduringly popular and influential satire Candide (1759), so close in date and theme to S.J.’s Rasselas; visited by J.B. in 1764: 169, 182, 184, 230, 261, 263, 266, 290, 306 and n. a, 326, 480, 665, 678, 703, 716, 747, 923
Volusene, Florence (1504?–! 547?), Scottish humanist scholar; wrote two slim commentaries on the Psalms; associated with a range of Continental humanists, dedicating his De animi tranquillitate dialogus (1543) to Francesco Micheli: 639
Vyse, Ven. William (1709–70), archdeacon of Salop and rector of St Philip’s, Birmingham: 588
Vyse, Dr William (1742–1816), rector of Lambeth and son of the above: 588, 589, 971 n. a
Walker, John (1732–1807), elocutionist and lexicographer; actor with Garrick’s company at Drury Lane, Barry’s at the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin and Beard’s at Covent Garden (1757–68); leader of the ‘mechanical’ school of elocution; author of Elements of Elocution (1781), Rhetorical Grammar (1785) and The Melody of Speaking (1787); more famed for his contributions to lexicography, the Rhyming Dictionary (1775) and the Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791); protege of S.J.: 877, 1000 n. c