644 WILLIBROD WILLISTON tist, Congregational (3), Episcopal, Methodist, and Roman Catholic churches. It is the seat of Williams college. (See WILLIAMS COLLEGE.) WILLIBROD. See WILBROBD. WILLIS, Francis, an English clergyman and physician, born in Lincolnshire in 1718, died at Greatford, Lincolnshire, Dec. 5, 1807. He was educated at Oxford, took orders in 1740, and was appointed to the living of Greatford, where he opened an asylum for the insane, over whom he is said to have possessed great power of fascination. In 1759 he obtained the degree of M. D. from Oxford. He had charge of George III. during his earlier attacks of insanity (as his son Dr. Robert Darling Willis had during his later ones), and received for his services a pension of 1,500 for 21 years. For curing the queen of Portugal of a similar disorder he received 20,000. WILLIS. I. Nathaniel, an American journal- ist, born in Boston, June 6, 1780, died there, May 26, 1870. In 1803 he established the "Eastern Argus" in Portland, Me., and in 1816 the "Boston Recorder," the first reli- gious newspaper, the plan of which he had laid before several clergymen as early as 1808, and in 1810 before the Maine missionary so- ciety at Bath. Of this journal he was pro- prietor till 1843. He also founded in 1827 the " Youth's Companion," a weekly paper for the young, the first of that class of periodicals, which he edited and published till 1857. II. Nathaniel Parker, an American author, son of the preceding, born in Portland, Me., Jan. 20, 1806, died at Idlewild, near Newburgh, N. Y., Jan. 21, 1867. He graduated at Yale college in 1827. While in college he published, under the signature of " Roy," a series of " Scrip- ture Sketches " in verse and other poems, and immediately after graduating was employed by 8. G. Goodrich (Peter Parley) to edit the " Le- gendary " and the " Token." In 1828 he estab- lished the " American Monthly Magazine," which after two years was merged in the " New York Mirror," previously established by George P. Morris, of which he became asso- ciate editor. Soon after he visited Europe, and wrote letters to that journal entitled " Pencil- lings by the Way " (collected, 3 vols., London, 1835). In Paris he was made an attache of the American minister. After travelling through southern Europe, Turkey, and parts of Asia Minor, he returned to England, and in 1835 married a daughter of Gen. Stace, commandant of the Woolwich arsenal. He also published there "Melanie and other Poems" (edited by Barry Cornwall, 1835), and " Inklings of Ad- venture " (3 vols., 1836), a series of tales and sketches which originally appeared in the " New Monthly Magazine " under the pseudo- nyme "Philip Slingsby." In 1837 he returned home, and for two years lived in retirement on a small estate which he named Glenmary, on the Susquehanna, near Owego, N. Y. In 1839 he became one of the editors of the " Corsair," a short-lived literary gazette pub- lished in New York, and later in the same year revisited England, where appeared two dramas published together under the title " Two Ways of Dying for a Husband : 1. Dying to Keep Him, or Tortesa the Usurer ; 2. Dying to Lose Him, or Bianca Visconti " (1839); "Loiter- ings of Travel" (3 vols., 1840); and "Letters from under a Bridge, and Poems " (1840). He also issued an illustrated edition of his poems. Returning to New York, he established in 1844, in connection with George P. Morris, a daily newspaper called the " Evening Mirror ;" but the death of his wife and his own failing health led him to return to Europe. During this visit he published "Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil" (3 vols., 1845), a collection of magazine articles. On returning to New York in 1846, he married a daughter of the Hon. Joseph Grinnell of New Bedford, and settled at a seat on the Hudson which he named Idlewild. In the same year ho pub- lished a complete edition of his works in one large volume, and with Mr. Morris established the " Homo Journal," a weekly, to which ho contributed till his death. His other works include " Rural Letters and other Records of Thought and Leisure " (1849) ; " People I have Met" (1850); "Life Here and There" (1850); " Hurrygraphs " (1851); "Fun Jottings, or Laughs I have taken a Pen to" (1858); "A Health Trip to the Tropics" (1858); "A Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean in a United States Frigate" (1853); "Famous Persons and Places" (1854); "Out-Doors at Idlewild" (1854); "The Rag Bag" (1855); "Paul Fane, or Parts of a Life else Untold" (1856); and "The Convalescent" (1860). WILLIS, Thomas, an English physician, born at Great Bedwin, Wiltshire, Jan. 27, 1021, died in London, Nov. 11, 1675. He gradua- ted at Oxford in 1639, fought in defence of Charles I., studied medicine, and at the resto- ration was appointed Sedleian professor of natural philosophy in the university of Oxford. In his "Anatomy of the Brain" (4to, 1644) he first showed that the brain is a congeries of organs, and the seat of moral and intellec- tual action. The name " circle of Willis " has been retained for the circular arterial inoscu- lation at the base of the brain by which the vertebral arteries behind and the internal caro- tids in front are united with each other, while those on the right side at the same time com- municate with those on the left by similar free inosculation. lie was appointed physician in ordinary to the king in 1666. He was one of the founders of the royal society. He also published a treatise on the "Pathology of the Brain and Nervous System" (1667), in which he gave the true explanation of the phenomena in the spasmodic diseases hysteria, chorea, &c. WILLISTON, Samntl, an American philanthro- pist, born in Easthampton, Mass., June 17, 1795, died in 1874. He acquired a large for- tune in the manufacture of buttons. In 1841 he established in his native town Williston
