a version of the Bible in Latin executed by ST.
JEROME (q. v.), and was in two centuries after its execution
universally adopted in the Western Christian Church as authoritative for
both faith and practice, and from the circumstance of its general
reception it became known as the Vulgate (i. e. the commonly-accepted
Bible of the Church), and it is the version accepted as authentic to-day
by the Roman Catholic Church, under sanction of the Council of Trent.
"With the publication of it," says Ruskin, "the great deed of fixing, in
their ever since undisturbed harmony and majesty, the canon of Mosaic and
Apostolic Scripture, was virtually accomplished, and the series of
historic and didactic books which form our present Bible (including the
Apocrypha) were established in and above the nascent thought of the
noblest races of men living on the terrestrial globe, as a direct message
to them from its Maker, containing whatever it was necessary for them to
learn of His purposes towards them, and commanding, or advising, with
divine authority and infallible wisdom, all that it was best for them to
do and happiest to desire. Thus, partly as a scholar's exercise and
partly as an old man's recreation, the severity of the Latin language was
softened, like Venetian crystal, by the variable fire of Hebrew thought,
and the 'Book of Books' took the abiding form of which all the future art
of the Western nations was to be an hourly expanding interpretation."

VYASA, the mythical author of the Hindu Mahabharata and the Puranas;
was the illegitimate child of a Brahman and a girl of impure caste of the
fisher class.

W

WAAL, a S. branch of the Rhine, in Holland.

WACE, Anglo-Norman poet, born in Guernsey; author of two metrical
chronicles, "Geste des Bretons" and "Roman de Rou," the latter recording
the fortunes of the dukes of Normandy down to 1106 (1120-1183).

WACE, HENRY, Principal of King's College, London; has lectured ably
on Christian apologetics, and written valuable works in defence of
Christianity; _b_. 1836.

WADE, GEORGE, English general; commanded in Scotland during the
rebellion of 1715, has the credit of the construction in 1725-35 of the
military roads into the Highlands, to frustrate any further attempts at
rebellion in the north (1668-1748).

WADMAN, WIDOW, a lady in "Tristram Shandy" who pays court to Uncle
Toby.

WADY, an Arabic name for the channel of a stream which is flooded in
rainy we