VIGO 218 VILLA Romanticists, with Hugo, Deschamps, Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, and Mdlle. Delphine Gay. But he was never a mili- tant or thorough-going member of the party — "he retired," says Sainte-Beuve, "to his ivory tower before the heat of the day." His "Fifth of March" was a romance based on the most tragic of the crimes of Richelieu, inspired by Scott, but intended to be minutely true to history throughout. The author's ALFRED DE VIGNY connection with the theater led to an equivocal friendship with Mme. Dorval, commencing about the close of 1830, but the woman's heart soon found poetry a poor substitute for passion, and the tragedy left the poor idealist stripped of his last illusion. In 1845 Vigny was gratified by election to the Academy, on which occasion he made a long and wearisome address, which was listened to with unconcealed impatience. There- after till the close he lived but little in the world, in familiarity with no one, not even himself, his thought wrapped up in a pessimistic gloom from which he found escape only by the avenues of art. His was that profoundest kind of moral misery which needs no external reason for its being, incurable because itself its own poison. He died in Paris after the long agony of cancer, Sept. 17, 1863. Vigny's work was elegant but cold. No poet has had grander conceptions than the few fundamental ideas that inform his work, and it is not so much inspira- tion as meditation that gives the key note to all his poetry. VIGO, a seaport town of Spain, in the province of Pontevedra. It is inclosed by a wall and trench, and has an excel- lent harbor with deep anchorage close in-shore. It was captured by the Eng- lish in 1719. It has a lazaretto, a for- tress, an export trade in wine, bacon and maize, and a prosperous pilchard fish- ery. It is a port of call of several steam- ship lines. Pop. about 45,000. VIJAYANAGAE, a ruined city 8 miles in circuit, in Madras province, British India; about 40 miles to the N. W. of Bellary, in a plain encumbered with granite rocks, many of which have been rudely sculptured into a varietj of forms. After having been for two centuries the metropolis of a powerful Hindu kingdom, Vijayanagar was sacked and ruined by the Mohamme- dans of the Deccan in 1565. At that date it is described as 24 miles round. The ruins of the ancient city, the build- ing of which was begun in 1336, now cover 9 square miles. The modern vil- lage on its site is called Hampi. VIKING, a rover or sea robber be- longing to one of the bands of North- men who scoured the European seas during the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries. This word has been frequently con- founded with sea-king, a term which is applied to a man of royal race, who took by right the title of king when he assumed the command of men, although only of a ship's crew ; whereas the former term is applicable to any member of the rover bands. VILAINE, a river of France which rises in the department of Mayenne and flows into the Atlantic at Penestin, in the department of Morbihan. It is 140 miles long. Its principal tributaries are the Hie, Oust, Cher, Don, and Isac. VILAS, WILLIAM FREEMAN, an American lawyer; born in Chelsea, Vt., July 9, 1840; removed to Madison, Wis., in 1851 ; and was graduated at Wiscon- sin University in 1858. He was ad- mitted to the bar in 1860, and on the outbreak of the Civil War enlisted in the Union army in which he served till 1863; was Postmaster-General in 1885- 1888; and subsequently was Secretary of the Interior in President Cleveland's cabinet in 1888-1889. He was United States Senator in 1891-1897, becoming a Gold Democrat in 1896. He died Aug. 27, 1908. VILAYET, a name officially applied since 1865 to the large administrative districts of Turkey. VILLA. FRANCISCO (PANCHO), a Mexican bandit leader, born in Chi- huahua, the date being unknown even to himself, as he was the son of iecnorant peon parents, Indian by race. Villa first became prominent in 1910, when he ap- peared as a guerrilla leader during the
