Varro (The British). Thomas Tusser, of Essex, is so called by Warton (1515-1580).
Vasa (Gustavus), a drama, by H. Brooke (1730). Gustavus, having effected his escape from Denmark, worked for a time as a common laborer in the copper mines of Dalecarlia [Dah´.le.karl´.ya]; but the tyranny of Christian II. of Denmark having driven the Dalecarlians into revolt, Gustavus was chosen their leader. The revolters made themselves masters of Stockholm; Christian abdicated; and Sweden became an independent kingdom (sixteenth century).
Vashti. When the heart of the king [Ahasuerus] was merry with wine, he commanded his chamberlains to bring Vashti, the queen, into the banquet hall, to show the guests her beauty; but she refused to obey the insulting order, and the king, being wroth, divorced her.--Esther i. 10, 19.
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summoned out
She kept her state, and left the drunken king
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.
Tennyson, The Princess, iii. (1830).
Vatel, the cook who killed himself, because the lobster for his turbot sauce did not arrive in time to be served up at the banquet at Chantilly, given by the Prince de Condé to the king.
Vath´ek, the ninth caliph of the race of the Abassides, son of Motassem, and grandson of Haroun-al-Raschid. When angry, “one of his eyes became so terrible that whoever looked at it either swooned or died.” Vathek was induced by a malignant genius to commit all sorts of crimes. He abjured his faith, and bound himself to Eblis, under the hope of obtaining the throne of the pre-Adamite sultans. This throne eventually turned out to be a vast chamber in the abyss of Eblis, where Vathek found himself a prisoner without hope. His wife was Nouron´ihar, daughter of the Emir Fakreddin, and his mother’s name was Catharis.--W. Beckford, Vathek (1784).
Vathek’s Draught, a red-and-yellow mixture given him by an emissary of Eblis, which instantaneously restored the exhausted body, and filled it with unspeakable delight.--W. Beckford, Vathek (1784).