Chapter Vesta to Vincent de la Rosa of V by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Vierge (2 syl.). A curious conversion in playing-cards occurs in reference to this word. The invention is Indian, and the game is called “The Four Rajahs.” The pieces are the king, his general or fierche, the elephant or phil, the horsemen, the camel or ruch, and the infantry. The French corrupted fierche (general) into “vierge,” and then converted “virgin” into dame. Similarly they corrupted phil into “fol” or “fou” (knave); ruch is our “rook.” At one time playing-cards were called “the Books of the Four Kings,” and chess “the Game of the Four Kings.” It was for chess, and not cards, that Walter Sturton, in 1278, was paid 8s. 5d., according to the ward-robe rolls of Edward I., “ad opus regis ad ludendum adquatuor reges.” Malkin said it was no great proof of our wisdom that we delighted in cards, seeing they were “invented for a fool.” Malkin referred to the vulgar tradition that cards were invented for the amusement of Charles VI., the idiot king of France; but it was no proof that Jacquemin Gringonneur invented cards because “he painted and gilded three packs for the king in 1392.”

View-holloa The shout of huntsmen when a fox breaks cover = “Gone away!” (See Soho, Tally-Ho. )

Vignette (2 syl.) means properly a likeness having a border of vine-leaves round it. (French, “little vine, tendril.”)

Viking A pirate. So called from the vik or creek in which he lurked. The word is wholly unconnected with the word “king.” There were sea-kings, sometimes, but erroneously, called “vikings,” connected with royal blood, and having small dominions on the coast. These sea-kings were often vikingr or vikings, but the reverse is not true that every viking or pirate was a sea-king. (Icelandic vikingr, a pirate.)

Village Blacksmith (The), in Longfellow's poem, we are told in an American newspaper, was Henry Francis Moore, of Medford, Massachusetts, born 1830. But as the Village Blacksmith was published in 1842, this is impossible, as Moore was not then twelve years of age, and could not have had a grown- up daughter who sang in the village choir.

Villain means simply one attached to a villa or farm. In feudal times the lord was the great landowner, and under him were a host of tenants called villains. The highest class of villains were called regardant, and were annexed to the manor; then came the Coliberti or Bures, who were privileged vassals; then the Bordari or cottagers (Saxon, bord, a cottage), who rendered certain menial offices to their lord for rent; then the Cosects, Cottarii, and Cotmanni, who paid partly in produce and partly in menial service; and, lastly, the villains in gross, who were annexed to the person of the lord, and might be sold or transferred as chattels. The notion of wickedness and worthlessness associated with the word is simply the effect of aristocratic pride and exclusiveness- not, as Christian says in his Notes on Blackstone, “a proof of the horror in which our forefathers held all service to feudal lords.” The French vilain seems to connect the word with vile, but it is probable that vile is the Latin vilis vile (of no value), and that the noun villein, except by way of pun. (See Cheater. )

“I am no villain [base-born]; I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice a villain [rascal] that says such a father begot villains [bastards].”- Shakespeare: As You Like It, i. 1.

Villiers Second Duke of Buckingham. (1627-1688.)

Villoner (French.) To cheat. Villon was a poet in the reign of Louis XI., but more famous for his cheats and villainies than for his verses. Hence the word villoner, “to cheat, to play a rogue's trick.” (Rabelais: Pantagruel, iv. 17; note by Molleux.)

Vincent (St.). Patron saint of drunkards. This is from the proverb-

“If on St. Vincent's Day [Jan 22] the sky is clear, More wine than water will crown the year.”

Vincent de la Rosa The son of a poor labourer who had served as a soldier. According to his own account, “he had slain more Moors than ever Tunis or Morocco produced; and as for duels, he had fought a greater number than ever Gantë had, or Luna either, or Diego Garcia de Paredez, always coming off victorious, and without losing a drop of blood.” He dressed “superbly,” and though he had but three suits, the villagers thought he had ten or a dozen, and more than twenty plumes of feathers. This gay young spark soon