OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Michel, Francisque Xavier

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​MICHEL, FRANCISQUE XAVIER (1809–1887), French antiquary, was born at Lyons on the 18th of January 1809. He became known for his editions of French works of the middle ages, and the French Government, recognizing their value, sent him to England (1833) and Scotland (1837) to continue his researches there. In 1839 he was appointed professor of foreign literature in the Faculté des lettres at Bordeaux. Between 1834 and 1842 he published editions of a large number of works written between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries in French, English and Saxon, including the Roman de la rose and the Chanson de Roland. Subsequently he published French translations of Goldsmith, Sterne, Shakespeare and Tennyson. He died in Paris on the 18th of May 1887.
His original works include Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l’Espagne (1847); Recherches sur le commerce pendant le moyen âge (1852–1854); Les Ecossais en France et les français en Écosse (1862); Études, de philologie comparée sur l’argot (1856); Le Pays basque (1857); Histoire du commerce et de la navigation a Bordeaux (1867–1871); and, in conjunction with Edouard Fournier, Histoire des hôtelleries, cabarets, hôtels garnis (1851–1854).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Michel of Northgate, Dan

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​MICHEL OF NORTHGATE, DAN (fl. 1340), English writer, the author of the Ayenbite of Inwyt. Nothing is known of him except what can be gathered from his work. It is a literal translation in the Kentish dialect of a French treatise entitled Le Somme des vices et des vertues (also known as Le Miroir du monde or Le Livre des commandemens, &c.), which was written in 1279 by Laurentius Gallus, a Dominican monk and confessor to Philip III. of France. This work was translated into Flemish, Catalonian, Spanish and Italian, and appears in no less than six English translations. Dan Michel’s autograph MS. is preserved in Arundel MS. 57, which states that the work was completed in the year 1340 on the eve of the apostles Simon and Jude by Dan Michel of Northgate, a brother of the cloister of St Austin of Canterbury. The value of the book is chiefly philological as an. authenticated and dated example of the southern dialect.
The Ayenbite of Inwyt was edited for the Roxburghe Club by the Rev Joseph Stevenson in 1855, and for the Early English Text Soc. by Richard Morris in 1876.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, William (sonneteer)

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​SMITH, WILLIAM (fl. 1596), English sonneteer. He published in 1596 a sonnet sequence entitled Chloris, or the Complaint of the passionate despised Shepheard. He was a disciple of Spenser, to whom the two first sonnets and the last are addressed. He signed his name W. Smith, and has sometimes been confused with the playwright Wentworth Smith, who collaborated with John Day, William Haughton and others (1601–1603).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, William Henry (author)

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​SMITH, WILLIAM HENRY (1808-1872), English author, was born at Hammersmith, London, in 1808. He was educated at Radley School, and in 1821 was sent to Glasgow University. In 1823 he entered a lawyer's office, in which he remained for five years. He was called to the bar, but had no practice. He contributed to the Literary Gazette and to the Athenaeum, under the name of "Wool-gatherer," attracting some attention by the delicacy and finish of his style. Ernesto, a philosophical romance, appeared in 1835, two poems, Guidone and Solitude, in 1836, and in 1839 he formed a connexion with Blackwood's Magazine, for which he acted as philosophical critic for thirty years. In 1846 a visit to Italy led to the writing of a tale entitled Mildred, which was too purely reflective to be successful. In 1851 he declined the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh, being unwilling to abandon his quiet, studious life in the Lake District. There he completed his philosophic romance Thorndale (1857), which was considered at the time to be a work of real intellectual value. A similar production, Gravenhurst, appeared in 1862; a second edition contained a memoir of the author by his wife. Smith died at Brighton on 28th March 1872. He also wrote two plays, oneof which, Athelwold, was produced by Macready in 1843. It was published with his other tragedy, Sir William Crichton, in 1846.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, William Henry (statesman)

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​SMITH, WILLIAM HENRY (1825-1891), English man of business and statesman, was born in London on the 24th of June 1825. His father was the founder of the great distributing firm of W. H. Smith & Son, in the Strand, and at an early age he became a partner and devoted himself to the business. He betrayed no political aspirations until 1865, when he came forward as a Conservative to contest Westminster against John Stuart Mill and the Hon. Mr Grosvenor. Defeated on that occasion, he triumphed in 1868, winning a victory when his party was in general vanquished on all sides. The prestige thus obtained combined with wealth and his business abilities to recommend him to Disraeli, who in 1874 made him secretary to the Treasury. In 1877 he gained cabinet rank as first lord of the Admiralty; in 1885 he was successively secretary for War and chief secretary for Ireland; in 1886 he was again at the War Office; and when late in that year Lord Randolph Churchill's resignation necessitated a reconstruction of the ministry, Mr Smith found himself first lord of the Treasury and leader of the House of Commons. He was no orator, and made no pretence to genius, but his success in these high offices was complete, and was admittedly due, not merely to business ability, but to the universal respect which was gained by his patience, good temper, zeal for the public service, and thorough kindness of heart. He died at Walmer Castle (which he occupied as Warden of the Cinque Ports) on the 6th of October 1891. In recognition of his services a peerage in her own right was conferred on his widow, with the title of Viscountess Hambleden. Lady Hambleden (b. 1828) had been a Miss Danvers, and before marrying Mr Smith had been the wife of Mr B. A. Leach, by whom she had a family. Her eldest son by the second marriage, the Hon. W. F. D. Smith (b. 1868), rowed in the Oxford boat, and on his father's death became head of the business; in 1891 he was elected Conservative M.P. for the Strand (London), and was re-elected in 1892, 1895, 1900 and 1906. He married in 1894 Lady Esther Gore, daughter of the earl of Arran.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, Sir William

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​SMITH, SIR WILLIAM (1813–1893), English lexicographer, was born at Enfield in 1813 of Nonconformist parents. He was originally destined for a theological career, but instead was articled to a solicitor. In his spare time he taught himself ​classics, and when he entered University College he carried off both the Greek and Latin prizes. He was entered at Gray's Inn in 1830, but gave up his legal studies for a post at University College school, and began to write on classical subjects. He next turned his attention to lexicography. His first attempt was the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, which appeared in 1842. The greater part of this was written by himself. In 1849 followed the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, and the Greek and Roman Geography in 1857. In this work some of the leading scholars of the day were associated with him. In 1850 he published the first of the school dictionaries; and in 1853 he began the Principia series, which marked a distinct step in the school teaching of Greek and Latin. Then came the Students' Manuals of History and Literature, in which the Greek history was the editor's own work. In carrying out this task Smith was most ably seconded by John Murray, the publisher, who, when the original publishers of the dictionaries got into difficulties, volunteered to take a share in the undertaking. The most important, perhaps, of the books edited by William Smith were those that dealt with ecclesiastical subjects. These were the Dictionary of the Bible (1860-1865); the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (1875-1880), undertaken in collaboration with Archdeacon Cheetham; and the Dictionary of Christian Biography (1877-1887), jointly with Dr Henry Wace. The Atlas, on which Sir George Grove collaborated, appeared in 1875. From 1853 to 1869 Smith was classical examiner to the University of London, and on his retirement he became a member of the Senate. He sat on the Committee to inquire into questions of copyright, and was for several years registrar of the Royal Literary Fund. He edited Gibbon, with Guizot's and Milman's notes, in 1854-1855. In 1867 he became editor of the Quarterly Review, which he directed with marked success until his death on the 7th of October 1893, his remarkable memory and accuracy, as well as his tact and courtesy, specially fitting him for such a post. He was D.C.L. of Oxford and Dublin, and the honour of knighthood was conferred on him the year before his death.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, William (actor)

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​SMITH, WILLIAM (c. 1730–1819), English actor, the son of a city tea merchant, was educated at Eton and went up to Cambridge, but his wild pranks soon ended his college career and brought him back to London. His first stage appearance was in 1753 at Covent Garden, where he remained for twenty years, playing important parts. In 1774 he was at Drury Lane under Garrick’s management. His forte was gay comedy, and he was the original, indeed unrivalled, Charles Surface. It was in this part that he made his farewell appearance in 1788. He died on the 13th of September 1819. His sporting tastes and social connexions—he married the sister of a peer—led to his being called “Gentleman Smith,” a sobriquet his manners seem to have justified. He is to be distinguished from an older English actor, William Smith (d. 1696), the friend of Betterton.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, William Farrar

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​SMITH, WILLIAM FARRAR (1824-1903), American general, was born at St Albans, Vermont, on the 17th of February 1824, and graduated from West Point in 1845, being assigned to the engineer branch of the army. He was twice assistant professor of mathematics at West Point (1846-1848 and 1855-1856). During the first campaign of the Civil War he was employed on the staff, in August 1861 became brigadier-general of volunteers, and was breveted lieutenant-colonel U.S.A. for his gallantry at the action of White Oak Swamp. In July 1862 he received promotion to the rank of major-general U.S.V. Smith led his division with conspicuous valour at Antietam, and was again breveted in the regular army. On the assignment of General Franklin to a superior command Smith was placed at the head of the VI. corps of the Army of the Potomac, which he led at the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg (q.v.). The recriminations which followed led to the famous general order in which several of the senior officers of the army were dismissed and suspended by General Burnside. Smith was one of these, but it is to his credit that he did not leave the army, and as a brigadier-general he commanded troops in Pennsylvania during the critical days of the Gettysburg campaign. Later in 1863 he was assigned to duty as chief engineer of the Army of the Cumberland. As such he conducted the engineer operations which reopened the " cracker-line " from Chattanooga (q.v.) to the base of supplies. Of this action the House Committee on military affairs reported in 1865 that " as a subordinate, General W. F. Smith had saved the Army of the Cumberland from capture, and afterwards directed it to victory." Smith was now again nominated for the rank of major-general U.S.V., and Grant, who was much impressed with Smith's work, insisted strongly that the nomination should be confirmed, which was accordingly done by the Senate in March 1864. Grant, according to his own statement, "was not long in rinding out that the objections to Smith's promotion were well grounded," but he never stated the grounds of his complaint, and Smith, in the "Battles and Leaders" series, maintained that they were purely of a personal character. For the Virginian campaign of 1864 Smith was specially assigned by Grant to command the XVIII. corps, Army of the James, and he took part in the battle of Cold Harbor and the first operations against Petersburg, after which, while absent on leave, he was suddenly deprived of his command by Grant. He resigned from the volunteers in 1865, and from the U.S. army in 1867. From 1864 to 1873 he was president of the International Telegraph Company, and in 1875-1881 served on the board of police commissioners of New York, becoming president of this in 1877. After 1881 he was engaged in civil engineering work. He died at Philadelphia on the 28th of February 1903.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, Thomas Southwood

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​SMITH, THOMAS SOUTHWOOD (1788–1861), English physician and sanitary reformer, was born at Martock, Somersetshire, on the 21st of December 1788. While a medical student in Edinburgh he took charge of a Unitarian congregation. In 1816 he took his M.D. degree, and began to practice at Yeovil, Somerset, also becoming minister at a chapel in that town, but removed in 1820 to London, devoting himself principally to medicine. In 1824 he was appointed physician to the London Fever Hospital, and in 1830 published A Treatise on Fever, which was at once accepted as a standard authority on the subject. In this book he established the direct connexion between the impoverishment of the poor and epidemic fever. He was frequently consulted in fever epidemics and on sanitary matters by public authorities, and his reports on quarantine (1845), cholera (1850), yellow fever (1852), and on the results of sanitary improvement (1854) were of international importance. He died at Florence on the 10th of December 1861.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Waldo, Samuel Lovett

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​WALDO, SAMUEL LOVETT (1783–1861), American artist, was born in Windham, Connecticut, on the 6th of April 1783. He had a studio in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1806 he went to London, where he painted portraits for some years with success. In 1809 he returned to New York, and was a conspicuous figure in the city's art life until his death there on the 16th of February 1861. He became an associate of the National Academy in 1847. Among his works are a series of portraits of the early mayors of New York, now in the New York City Hall, a portrait of Peter Remsen, in possession of the New York Historical Society, and two portraits of John Trumbull.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walewski, Alexandre Florian Joseph Colonna

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​WALEWSKI, ALEXANDRE FLORIAN JOSEPH COLONNA, Comte (1810–1868), French politician and diplomatist, was born at Walewice near Warsaw on the 4th of May 1810, the son of Napoleon I. and his mistress Marie, Countess Walewski. At fourteen Walewski refused to enter the Russian army, escaping to London and thence to Paris, where the French government refused his extradition to the Russian authorities. Louis Philippe sent him to Poland in 1830, and he was then entrusted by the leaders of the Polish revolution with a mission to London. After the fall of Warsaw he took out letters of naturalization in France and entered the French army, seeing some service in Algeria. In 1837 he resigned his commission and began to write for the stage and for the press. He is said to have collaborated with the elder Dumas in Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, and a comedy of his, L’École du monde, was produced at the Thêâtre Français in 1840. In that year his paper, Le Messager des chambres, was taken over by Thiers, who sent him on a mission to Egypt, and under the Guizot ministry he was sent to Buenos Aires to co-operate with the British minister Lord Howden (Sir J. Caradoc). The accession of Louis Napoleon to the supreme power in France guaranteed his career. He was sent as envoy extraordinary to Florence, to Naples and then to London, where he announced the coup d’etat to Palmerston (q.v.) . In 1855 Walewski succeeded Drouyn de Lhuys as minister of foreign affairs, and acted as French plenipotentiary at the Congress of Paris next year. When he left the Foreign Office in 1860 it was to become minister of state, an office which he held until 1863. Senator from 1855 to 1865, he entered the Corps Législatif in 1865, and was installed, by the emperor’s interest, as president of the Chamber. A revolt against his authority two years later sent him back to the Senate. He died at Strassburg on the 27th of October 1868. He had been created a duke in 1866, was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and a grand cross of the Legion of Honour
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walfish Bay

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​WALFISH BAY, a harbour of South-West Africa with a coast-line of 20 m. terminated southward by Pelican Point in 22° 54′ S., 14° 27′ E. It belongs to Great Britain, together with a strip of territory extending 15 m along the coast south of Pelican Point and with a depth inland from 10 to 15 m. The total area is 430 sq. m. Except seaward Walfish Bay is surrounded by German South-West Africa. The northern boundary is the Swakop river, east and south there are no natural frontiers. The coast district, composed of sand dunes, is succeeded by a plateau covered in part with sparse vegetation. The river Kuisip, usually dry, has its mouth in the bay—which forms the finest harbour along a coast-line of over 1000 m. The harbour is provided with a pier 200 yds. long and is safe in all weathers. It was formerly frequented by whaling vessels (hence its name). The town has a small trade with the Hereros of the adjoining German protectorate. A tramway, 11 m. long, runs inland to Rooikop on the German frontier. Pop. (1904), 997, including 144 whites.
Walfish Bay forms a detached portion of the Cape province of the Union of South Africa. It was proclaimed British territory on the 12th of March 1878, and was annexed to Cape Colony on the 7th of August 1884 (see Africa, § 5). The delimitation of the southern frontier was in 1909 referred to the king of Spain as arbitrator between Great Britain and Germany.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Walensee

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​WALENSEE, also called the Lake of Walenstadt, a Swiss lake between the basins of the Rhine and the Linth (Limmat), lying S.E. of the Lake of Zürich. It is formed by the Seez river (descending from the Weisstannen glen), which once certainly sent its waters to the Rhine, but now enters the lake at its eastern end. Near its western end the Linth has been diverted through the Escher canal (completed in 1811) into the lake, from which it soon again issues in order, by means of the Linth canal (completed in 1816), to flow into the Lake of Zürich. The Walensee has an area of 9 sq. m., is about 9 m. in length, 1¼ m. wide and 495 ft. deep, while its surface is 1388 ft. above sea-level. It forms part of the Canton of St Gall, save 1¾ sq. m . towards its west end, which are in that of Glarus. It lies in a deep trench between two comparatively lofty ranges of mountains, so that its scenery is more gloomy than is usual with Swiss lakes. On the north shore there is but a single village of any size (Quinten), while above it rise the cliffs of the seven-peaked range of the Kurfürsten (7576 ft.), at the west end of which the village of Amden nestles in a hollow high above the lake. On the south side the hills rise less steeply from the shore (on which are Mühlehorn and Murg) towards the fine terrace of the Kerenzenberg, on which are the frequented summer resorts of Obstalden and Filzbach, backed on the south by the singularly imposing crags of the Mürtschenstock (8012 ft.). The small towns of Weesen and Walenstadt are situated respectively at the western and the eastern extremities of the lake, a railway along the south shore of which connects them with each other (11 m.). Since the construction of this line no steamers ply on the lake.  (W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Neisse (town)

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​NEISSE, a town and fortress of Germany, in the province of Prussian Silesia, at the junction of the Neisse and the Biela, 32 m. by rail S.W. of Oppeln. Pop. (1905) 25,394 (mostly Roman Catholics) including a garrison of about 5000. It consists of the town proper, on the right bank of the Neisse, and the Friedrichstadt on the left. The Roman Catholic parish church of St James (Jakobikirche) dates mainly from the 13th century, but was finished in 1430. The chief secular buildings are the old episcopal residence, the new town hall, the old Rathaus, with a tower 205 ft. in height (1499), the beautiful Renaissance Kämmerei (exchequer) with a high gabled roof ornamented with frescoes, and the theatre. A considerable trade is carried on in agricultural products.
Neisse, one of the oldest towns in Silesia, is said to have been founded in the 10th century, and afterwards became the capital of a principality of its own name, which was incorporated with the bishopric of Breslau about 1200. Its first walls were erected in 1350, and enabled it to repel an attack of the Hussites in 1424. It was thrice besieged during the Thirty Years’ War. The end of the first Silesian War left Neisse in the hands of Frederick the Great, who laid the foundations of its modern fortifications. ​The town was taken by the French in 1807. Neisse can, at the will of the garrison, be protected by a system of inundation.
See Kastner, Urkundliche Geschichte der Stadt Neisse (Neisse and Breslau, 1854–1867, 3 vols.); Schutte, Beiträge zur Geschichte von Neisse (Neisse, 1881); and Ruffert, Aus Neisse’s Vergangenheit (1903).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Negus

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​NEGUS. (1) The title of a king or ruler (Amharic negūs or n’gūs), in Abyssinia (q.v.); the full title of the emperor is negūs nagasti, “king of kings.” (2) The name of a drink made of wine, most commonly port, mixed with hot water, spiced and sugared. According to Malone (Life of Dryden, Prose Works, i. 484) this drink was invented by a Colonel Francis Negus (d. 1732), who was commissioner for executing the office of master of the horse from 1717 to 1727, when he became master of the buckhounds.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Neile, Richard

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​NEILE, RICHARD (1562–1640), English divine, was educated at Westminster school and at St John’s College, Cambridge. His first important preferment was as dean of Westminster (1605); afterwards he held successively the bishoprics of Rochester (1608), Lichfield (1610), Lincoln (1614), Durham (1617) and Winchester (1628), and the archbishopric of York (1631). When at Rochester he appointed William Laud as his chaplain and gave him several valuable preferments. His political activity while bishop of Durham was rewarded with a privy councillorship in 1627. Neile sat regularly in the courts of star-chamber and high commission. His correspondence with Laud and with Sir Dudley Carleton and Sir Francis Windebank (Charles I.’s secretaries of state) are valuable sources for the history of the time.