Vexhalia, wife of Osmond, an old Varangian guard.--Sir W. Scott, Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).
Vholes (1 syl.), a lawyer who draws Richard Carstone into his toils. He is always closely buttoned up, and speaks in a lifeless manner, but is pre-eminently a “most respectable man.”--C. Dickens, Bleak House (1852).
Vibrate (Lord), a man who can never make up his mind to anything, and, “like a man on double business bent, he stands in pause, which he shall first begin, and both neglects.” Thus, he would say to his valet, “Order the coachman at eleven. No; order him at one. Come back! order him in ten minutes. Stay! don’t order him at all. Why don’t you go and do as I bid you?” or, “Tell Harry to admit the doctor. No, not just yet; in five minutes. I don’t know when. Was ever man so tormented?” So with everything.
Lady Vibrate, wife of the above. Extravagant, contradictious, fond of gaiety, hurry, noise, embarrassment, confusion, disorder, uproar, and a whirl of excitement. She says to his lordship:
I am all gaiety and good humor; you are all turmoil and lamentation. I sing, laugh, and welcome pleasure wherever I find it; you take your lantern to look for misery, which the sun itself cannot discover. You may think proper to be as miserable as Job; but don’t expect me to be a Job’s wife.--Act. ii. 1.
Lady Jane Vibrate, daughter of Lord and Lady Vibrate. An amiable young lady, attached to Delaval, whom she marries.--Holcroft, He’s Much to Blame (1790).
Vicar of Bray (The). Mr. Brome says the noted vicar was Simon Alleyn, vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, for fifty years. In the reign of Henry VIII. he was catholic till the Reformation; in the reign of Edward VI. he was calvanist; in the reign of Mary he was papist; in the reign of Elizabeth he was protestant. No matter who was king, he resolved to die the vicar of Bray.--D’Israeli, Curiosities of Literature.
Another statement gives the name of Pendleton as the true vicar. He was afterwards rector of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook (Edward VI. to Elizabeth).
Hadyn says the vicar referred to in the song was Simon Symonds, who lived in the Commonwealth, and continued vicar till the reign of William and Mary. He was independent in the protectorate, episcopalian under Charles II., papist under James II., moderate protestant under William and Mary.
⁂ The song called The Vicar of Bray was written in the reign of George I., by Colonel Fuller, or an officer in Fuller’s regiment, and does not refer to Alleyn, Pendleton, or Symonds, but to some real or imaginary person, who was vicar of Bray, from Charles II. to George I. The first verse begins: “In good King Charles’s golden days” I was a zealous high-church*-man. Ver. 2: “When royal James obtained the crown,” I found the Church of Rome would fit my constitution. Ver. 3: “When William was our king declared,” I swore to him allegiance. Ver. 4: “When gracious Anne became our queen,” I became a tory. Ver. 5: “When George, in pudding-time came o’er,” I became a whig. And “George my lawful king shall be--until the times do alter.”