OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Voronezh (town)

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​VORONEZH, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, on the river Voronezh, 5 m. above its confluence with the Don and 367 m. by rail S.S.E. of Moscow. Pop. (1901) 84,146. It is one of the best-built and most picturesque provincial towns of Russia, and is situated on the steep bank of the river, surrounded by three large suburbs—Troltskaya, Yamskaya and Chizhovka. It has a military school of cadets, two museums, a monument (1860) to Peter the Great, a railway college, a pilgrimage church, and a theatre which figures in the history of the Russian stage. It was the birthplace of two peasant poets, who wrote some of the finest examples of Russian poetry—A. V. Koltsov (1809–1842) and I. S. Nikitin (1824–1861). A memorial to the former was erected in 1868. There are factories for cleansing wool and for the preparation of linens, woollens, bells, tallow and oil, as well as some distilleries. Voronezh is an important entrepôt for corn, flax, tallow, hides, sugar, wood and coal from the Don.
The city was founded in 1586, as a fort against Tatar raids, on a site which had been occupied from the 11th century by a Khazar town, but had been deserted during the 14th and 15th centuries. Four years afterwards it was burned by the Tatars, but again rebuilt, and soon became an important trading place. Peter the Great recognized its importance, and in 1695 built here a flotilla of boats for the conquest of Azov. The town was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1703, 1748 and 1773, but was always rebuilt.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vorticella

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​VORTICELLA, the Bell-Animalcule, a genus of Peritrichous Infusoria (q.v.) characterized by the bell-shaped body, with short oral disk and collar,attached by a hollow stalk, inside and around which passes, attached spirally a contractile bundle of myonemes. By their contraction the stalk is brought into the form of a corkscrew, the thread being now on the shorter, i.e. the inner, side of the turns; and the animal is jerked back near to the base of the stalk. As soon as the contraction of the thread ceases, the elasticity of the stalk extends the animal to its previous position. On fission, one of the two animals swims off by the development of the temporary posterior girdle of membranelles, the disk being retracted and closed over by the collar, so that the cell is ovoid: on its attachment the posterior girdle of cilia, disappears and a stalk forms. The other cell remains attached to the old stalk. In the allied genera Carchesium and Zoothaninium the two produced by fission remain united, so that a branching colony is ultimately produced. The genus is a large one, and many species are epizoic on various water animals.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vortigern

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​VORTIGERN (Guorthigirnus, Wyrtgeorn), king of the Britons at the time of the arrival of the Saxons under Hengest and Horsa. The records do not agree as to the date of the arrival of these chieftains or the motives which led them to come to Britain. It seems clear, however, that Vortigern ​made use of them to protect his kingdom against the Picts and Scots, and rewarded them for their services with a grant of land. Later we find the Britons at war with the new-comers, now established in Kent, and four battles are fought, in the last of which, according to the Historia Brittonum, the king's son Vortemir, their leading opponent, is slain. The Historia Brittonum is our only authority for the marriage of Vortigern with the daughter of Hengest before the war. It also records the massacre of the British nobles after the death of Vortemir and the subsequent grant of Essex and Sussex to the invaders by Vortigern.
See Historia Brittonum, ed. Th. Mommsen in Mon. Hist. Germ. xiii.; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Earle and Plummer (Oxford, 1899); Bede, Hist. Eccl., ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vosmaer, Carel

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​VOSMAER, CAREL (1826-1888), Dutch poet and art-critic, was born at the Hague on the 20th of March 1826. He was trained to the law, and held various judiciary posts, but in 1873 withdrew entirely from legal practice. His first volume of poems, 1860, did not contain much that was remarkable. His temperament was starved in the very thin air of the intellectual Holland of those days, and it was not until after the sensational appearance of Multatuli (Edward Douwes-Dekker) that Vosmaer, at the age of forty, woke up to a consciousness of his own talent. In 1869 he produced an exhaustive monograph on Rembrandt, which was issued in French. Vosmaer became a contributor to, and then the leading spirit and editor of, a journal which played an immense part in the awakening of Dutch literature; this was the Nederlandsche Spectator, in which a great many of his own works, in prose and verse, originally appeared. The remarkable miscellanies of Vosmaer, called Birds of Diverse Plumage, appeared in three volumes, in 1872, 1874 and 1876. In 1879 he selected from these all the pieces in verse, and added other poems to them. In 1881 he published an archaeological novel called Amazone, the scene of which was laid in Naples and Rome, and which described the raptures of a Dutch antiquary in love. Vosmaer ​undertook the gigantic task of translating Homer into Dutch hexameters, and he lived just long enough to see this completed and revised. In 1873 he came to London to visit his lifelong friend, Sir (then Mr) Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and on his return published Londinias, an exceedingly brilliant mock-heroic poem in hexameters. His last poem was Nanno, an idyll on the Greek model. Vosmaer died, while travelling in Switzerland, on the 12th of June 1888. He was unique in his fine sense of plastic expression; he was eminently tasteful, lettered, refined. Without being a genius, he possessed immense talent, just of the order to be useful in combating the worn-out rhetoric of Dutch poetry. His verse was modelled on Heine and still more on the Greeks; it is sober, without colour, stately and a little cold. He was a curious student in versification, and it is due to him that hexameters were introduced and the sonnet reintroduced into Holland. He was the first to repudiate the traditional, wooden alexandrine. In prose he greatly influenced by Multatuli, in praise of whom he wrote an eloquent treatise, Een Zaaier (A Sower). He was also somewhat under the influence of English prose models.  (E. G.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swearing

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​Swearing (O. Eng. swerian, to swear, originally to speak aloud, cf. andswerian, to answer, Ger. schwören, Dan. svaerge, &c., all from root swer-, to make a sound, cf. “swarm,” properly the buzzing of bees, Lat. susurrus), the affirmation or uttering of a solemn declaration with an appeal to the Deity, some holy personage or sacred object as confirmation, hence the act of declaring the truth of a statement upon oath (see Oath and Evidence). The common use of the word is for the uttering of profane oaths or curses. In English law, while blasphemy (q.v.) was at common law an indictable offence, cursing or swearing was left to the ecclesiastical courts. The Profane Oaths Act 1745 inflicted a sliding scale of fines for the use of profane oaths according to the rank of the offender, 1s. for a common labourer, soldier or seaman, 2s. for everyone below the rank of gentleman and 5s. for those of or above that rank; procedure under this act is regulated by the Summary Jurisdiction Acts. By s. 8 of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 the use of profane or obscene language is an offence punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding 40s. or imprisonment not exceeding 14 days. The offence must be committed in a street and the act is confined to urban sanitary districts or to such rural districts to which s. 276 of the Public Health Act 1875 has extended it. By s. 12 of the Metropolitan Police Court Acts 1839 a similar offence is punishable in the metropolitan police area, and various districts have put in force by-laws for punishing swearing, cursing, or causing annoyance in public places. The restriction as to the place where the offence must be committed to be liable to punishment has led to the enforcement on occasions of the Profane Oaths Act, which applies to the whole of England and Wales and is not limited to cursing in the streets. It should not, however, apply to obscene language.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swan, John Macallan

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​SWAN, JOHN MACALLAN (1847-1910), English painter and sculptor, received his art training first in England at the Worcester and Lambeth schools of art and the Royal Academy schools, and subsequently in Paris, in the studios of J. L. Gérôme and E. Frémiet. He began to exhibit at the Academy in 1878, and was elected associate in 1894 and academician in 1905. He was appointed a member of the Dutch Water-Colour Society in 1885; and associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1896 and full member in 1899. A master of the oil, water-colour and pastel mediums, an accomplished ​painter and a skilful draughtsman, he ranks also as a sculptor of distinguished ability. He has treated the human figure with notable power, but it is by his representations of the larger wild animals, mainly the felidae, that he chiefly established his reputation; in this branch of practice he has scarcely a rival. His picture “The Prodigal Son,” bought for the Chantrey collection in 1889, is in the National Gallery of British Art. He was awarded first class gold medals for painting and sculpture in the Paris Exhibition, 1900. He died on the 14th of February 1910.
See Sculpture; “The Work of J. M. Swan,” by A. L. Baldry, in The Studio, vol. xxii.; and Drawings of John M. Swan, R.A. (George Newnes, Ltd.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swartz, Olof

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​SWARTZ, OLOF (1760–1818), Swedish botanist, was born in 1760. He commenced his botanical studies in Upsala, under ​Linnaeus and Thunberg, and began early to make excursions. He made a voyage to America in 1783, visited England in 1788, returned to Sweden in 1789, and was made professor of natural history in Stockholm. He was the author of many systematic works, and largely extended our knowledge of both flowering plants and cryptograms. He died in 1818.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swanage

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​SWANAGE, a watering-place and seaport in the eastern parliamentary division of Dorsetshire, England, 9 m. S.S.W. from Bournemouth by sea, and 132 m. S.W. by W. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 3408. It lies on the picturesque Swanage Bay, on the east coast of the so-called Isle of Purbeck, the district lying south of Poole Harbour. The coast is wild and precipitous, and numerous caves occur in the cliffs. Inland are open, high-lying downs. Swanage Bay has a beautiful sandy beach affording excellent bathing. In the town, the church ​of St Mary has a massive tower possibly of pre-Norman date; there are a town-hall, an institute with library and lecture hall, and memorials to a victory gained by King Alfred over the Danes in the bay in 877, and to Albert, Prince Consort. A large export trade is carried on in stone from the Purbeck quarries.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swanwick, Anna

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​SWANWICK, ANNA (1813–1899), English writer and philanthropist, was the youngest daughter of John Swanwick of Liverpool, and was born on the 22nd of June 1813. She was educated partly at home and partly at one of the fashionable boarding-schools of the day, where she received the usual education of accomplishments. Dissatisfied with her own intellectual attainments she went in 1839 to Berlin, where she took lessons in German, Greek and Hebrew. On her return to London she continued these pursuits, along with the study of mathematics. In 1843 appeared her first volume of translations, Selections from the Dramas of Goethe and Schiller. In 1847 she published a translation of Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans; this was followed in 1850 by Faust, Tasso, Iphigenie and Egmont. In 1878 she published a complete translation of both parts of Faust, which appeared with Retsch’s illustrations. It passed through several editions, was included in Bohn’s series of translations, and ranks as a standard work. It was at the suggestion of Baron Bunsen that she first tried her hand at translation from the Greek. In 1865 she published a blank verse translation of Aeschylus’s Trilogy, and in 1873, a complete edition of Aeschylus, which appeared with Flaxman’s illustrations. Miss Swanwick is chiefly known by her translations, but she also published some original work. In 1886 appeared Books, our Best Friends and Deadliest Foes; in 1888, An Utopian Dream and How it may be Realized; in 1892, Poets, the Interpreters of their Age; and in 1894, Evolution and the Religion of the Future. Miss Swanwick was interested in many of the social and philanthropic movements of her day. In 1861 she signed John Stuart Mill’s petition to parliament for the political enfranchisement of women. She helped in the higher education movement, took part in the foundation of Queen’s and Bedford Colleges, and continued to take a sympathetic interest in the movement which led to the opening of the universities to women. Her work was acknowledged by the university of Aberdeen, which bestowed on her the degree of LL.D. She died in November 1899.
See Memoir, by Miss Bruce (1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rogue

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ROGUE, a word which came into use about the middle of the 16th century as a slang or "cant" term for a vagrant vagabond, answering to the modern "tramp," and was adopted into English legal phraseology together with "vagabond" in the Statute of Elizabeth 1572, "rogue and vagabond" and "incorrigible rogue" remaining as legal terms for certain classes of persons amenable to the law under the Vagrancy Acts (see Vagrancy). The act of Elizabeth defined "rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars" as including "idle persons going about and using subtle craft and unlawful games and all persons whole and mighty in body, but having neither land nor master, nor able to give an account how they get their living and all common labourers using loitering and refusing to work for the wages commonly given" (Sir G. Nicholls' History of the English Poor Law, ed. 1898 by H. G. Willink, vol, i. 159). The word has now the general meaning of a knave or rascal, though also used (by meiosis) as a term of playful or tender banter and in various special applications (e.g. a "rogue" elephant, one who has been driven out by the herd and lives a solitary life, becoming very savage and destructive. Gardeners also apply the word to a plant which does not come true from seed, showing some variation from the type).
The derivation of the word has been much disputed. It has usually been referred to Fr. rogue, meaning proud, arrogant, which is variously derived from the Icelandic hroke, rook, long-winded talker, or Breton rok, proud, haughty; cf. Irish and Gaelic rucas, pride. The New English Dictionary, however, rejects this derivation, and considers possible a connexion with another early "cant" word "roger," a begging vagabond pretending to be a poor university scholar.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rohilkhand

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​ROHILKHAND, a tract in the United Provinces of India. The name is associated with the Rohilla tribe (q.v.), but in its historical significance it covers an area almost coincident with the modern division of Bareilly, for which it is a common alternative title. This division has an area of 10,720 sq. m., and comprises the districts of Bareilly, Bijnor, Budaun, Moradabad, Shahjahanpur and Pilibhit. Pop. (1901) 5,479,688. Political control over the state of Rampur is exercised by the commissioner for the division.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rohilla

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​ ROHILLA (a Pushtu word for “mountaineer”), a tribe of Afghan marauders, who, towards the beginning of the 18th century, conquered a district of Hindostan, giving it the name of Rohilkhand, which still survives as an alternative title of the Bareilly division of the United Provinces. The Rohillas are chiefly notable for their association with Warren Hastings, which formed one of the main counts in his impeachment. Having been driven into the mountains by the Mahrattas, they had appealed for aid to Shuja-ud-Dowlah, wazir of Oudh, and ally of the British. The wazir promised to assist them in return for a sum of money; but when the Mahrattas were driven off the Rohilla chiefs refused to pay. The wazir then decided to annex their country, and appealed to Hastings for assistance, which was given in return for a sum of forty lakhs of rupees. Hastings justified his action on the ground that the Rohillas were a danger to the British as uncovering the flank of Oudh; and while he would never involve the company in an unjust war, neither did he desire an unprofitable one. The Rohillas were defeated by Colonel Champion in April 1774, and the majority of them fled across the Ganges; but the charges of destroying a nation, brought against Hastings by Burke and Macaulay, were greatly exaggerated. The Rohillas were never a nation, but consisted of a small body of Mahommedans, who had imposed an alien rule upon a million Hindus; and one of their chiefs was left in possession of a tract which now forms the state of Rampur (q.v.).
See Charles Hamilton, History of the Rohilla Afghans (1787); and Sir J. Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War (Oxford, 1892).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rohtak

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​ROHTAK, a town and district of British India, in the Delhi division of the Punjab. The town, which is of great antiquity, became the headquarters of a British district in 1824. Viewed from the sand hills to the south, Rohtak, with its white mosque in the centre, a fort standing out boldly to the east, is striking and picturesque. It has a station on the Southern Punjab ​railway, 44 m. N.W. of Delhi. Pop. (1901) 20,323. It is an important trade centre, with factories for ginning and pressing cotton, and a speciality in muslin turbans.
The district of Rohtak has an area of 1797 sq. m. It is situated in the midst of the level tableland between the Jumna and the Sutlej, forming one unbroken plain of hard clay copiously interspersed with light yellow sand, and covered in its wild state by a jungle of scrubby brushwood. The only natural reservoir for its drainage is the Najafgarh jhil, a marshy lake lying within the boundaries of Delhi. The Sahibi, a small stream from the Ajmere hills, traverses a corner of the district, and the northern portions are watered by the Rohtak and Butana branches of the Western Jumna canal; but the greater portion of the central plain, comprising about two-thirds of the district area, is entirely dependent upon the uncertain rainfall. The climate, though severe in point of heat, is generally healthy; the rainfall averages annually about 20 in.
The population in 1901 was 630,672, showing an increase of 6.8% in the decade. The principal crops are millets, wheat, barley, pulses, cotton and sugar-cane. The district is traversed by the line of the Southern Punjab railway from Delhi to Jind, and also touched by the Rewari-Ferozepore branch of the Rajputana railway. It is peculiarly exposed to drought, suffering in the famine of 1896-97, and yet more severely in 1899-1900, when the highest number of persons relieved was 33,632 in March 1900.
Rohtak was formerly included within the region known as Hariana. The district, with the other possessions of Sindhia west of the Jumna, passed to the British in 1803. Until 1832 Rohtak was under the administration of a political agent, resident at Delhi, but in that year it was brought under the general regulations and annexed to the North-Western Provinces. The outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857 led to its abandonment, when the mutineers attacked and plundered Rohtak, destroying every record of administration. It was not until after the fall of Delhi that the authority of the British government was permanently restored. Rohtak was then transferred to the Punjab.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rohan

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​ROHAN, the name of one of the most illustrious of the feudal families of France, derived from that of a small town in Morbihan, Brittany. The family appears to have sprung from the viscounts of Porhoët, and claims connexion with the ancient sovereigns of Brittany. Since the 12th century it held an important place in the history of Brittany, and strengthened its position by alliances with the greatest houses in France. It was divided into several branches, the eldest of which, that of the viscounts of Rohan, became extinct in 1527. Of the younger branches the most famous is that of Guéménée, from which sprang the branches of Montbazon, Soubise and Gié. The seigneurs of Frontenay, an offshoot of this last branch, inherited by marriage the property of the eldest branch of the house. Hercule de Rohan, duc de Montbazon (1568–1654) served Henry III. and Henry IV. against the League, and was made by Henry IV. governor of Paris and the Isle of France, and master of the hounds. His grandson, Louis de Rohan-Guéménée, the Chevalier de Rohan, who was notorious for his dissolute life, conspired with the Dutch against Louis XIV. and was beheaded in Paris in 1674. In the 18th century the Soubise branch furnished several prelates, cardinals and bishops of Strassburg, among others the famous cardinal de Rohan, the hero of the affair of the diamond necklace. The seigneurs of Gié, a branch founded by Pierre de Rohan (1453–1513), a cadet of the branch of Guéménée and marshal of France, were conspicuous on the Protestant side during the wars of religion. René de Rohan, seigneur of Pontivy and Frontenay, commanded the Calvinist army in 1570, and ​defended Lusignan with great valour when it was besieged by the Catholics (1574–75). His son Henry, the first duke of Rohan, also distinguished himself in the Protestant army. His only child, Marguerite de Rohan, married in 1645 Henri Chabot, a. cadet of a great family of Poitou. This marriage was opposed by her mother, Marguerite de Béthune, who put forward a rival heir called Tancred, whom she claimed to be her son by the duke of Rohan. This Tancred perished in the Fronde in 1649. The property and titles of Henry de Rohan thus passed to the Chabot family, which under the name of Rohan-Chabot produced some distinguished soldiers and a cardinal archbishop of Besançon. The male line of the Rohans is now represented by an offshoot of the Rohan-Guéménée branch.