Chapter Virgilius to VXL of V by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Virgilius to VXL

Virgilius Bishop of Saleburg, an Irishman, whose native name was Feargil or Feargal. He was denounced as a heretic for asserting the existence of antipodes. Died 784.) (See Science. )

Virgin One of the constellations. (August 23rd to September 23rd.)
   Astræa, goddess of justice, was the last of the deities to quit our earth, and when she returned to heaven became the constellation Virgo.

“When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days.” Thomson: Autumn.

Virgin Mary's Guard (The). The Scotch guard of France, organised in 1448 by Charles VII. Louis XI. made the Virgin Mary their colonel. Disbanded in 1830.

Virgin Mary's Peas (The). Near Bethlehem are certain crystallisations in limestone so called.

Virgin Queen (The). Queen Elizabeth (1533, 1558-1603).

Virgins The eleven thousand virgins of Cologne, according to the legend, were born at Baoza in Spain, which contained only 12,000 families. The bones exhibited were taken from an old Roman cemetery, across which the wall of Cologne ran, and which were exposed to view after the siege in 1106. (See Ursula. )

Virginal An instrument used in convents to lead the virginals or hymns to the Virgin. It was a quilled keyboard instrument of two or three octaves, common in the reign of Elizabeth.

Virtuoso A man fond of virtu or skilled therein; a dilettantë.

Vis Inertiae That property of matter which makes it resist any change. Thus it is hard to set in motion what is still, or to stop what is in motion. Figuratively, it applies to that unwillingness of change which makes men “rather bear the ills they have than fly to others they know not of.”

Vishnu [Indian ]. The Preserver, who forms with Brahma and Siva the divine triad of the system of Hinduism.
    Vishnu rides on an eagle; Brahma on a goose.

Vital Spark of Heavenly Flame (Pope.) Heraclitus held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence. (Macrobius: In Somnium Scipionis, i. 14.)

Vitellius A glutton. So named from Vitellius the Roman emperor, who took emetics after a meal that he might have power to swallow another.

Vitex Called Abraham's balm. Agnus Castus, and the chaste-tree. In the language of flowers it means “insensibility to love.” Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen mention the plant, and say that the Athenian ladies, at the feast of Ceres, used to strew their couches with vitex leaves as a palladium of chastity. In France a beverage is made of the leaves by distillation, and is (or was at one time) given to novitiates to wean their hearts from earthly affections. Vitex, from vico, to bind with twigs; so called from the flexible nature of the twigs.

Vitruvius There were two Roman architects of this name. The one best known was Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who wrote a book on architecture.
   The English Vitruvius. Inigo Jones (1572-1652).

Vitulos The scourgings which the monks inflicted on themselves during the chanting of the psalms.

Vitus (St.). St. Vitus's dance, once widely prevalent in Germany and the Low Countries, was a “dancing mania.” So called from the supposed power of St. Vitus over nervous and hysterical affections.

“At Strasbourg hundreds of folk began
To dance and leap, both maid and man;
In open market, lane, or street,
They skipped along, nor cared to eat,
Until their plague had ceased to fright us.
'Twas called the dance of holy Vitus.”
Jan of Konigshaven (an old Cerman $$$).

   St. Vitus's Dance. A description of the