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posthumous works, consisting of Letters ami Fragments, have beenpublished since her death.

VVOLSEY, Thomas, Cardinal, is said to have been the sonof a butcher at Ipswich. He studied at Magdalen college, Ox-ford, and in 1500 became rector of Lymington in Somersetshire :lie was afterwards made chaplain to king Henry VIlI. and ob-tained several preferments. Having gradually acquired an entireascendency over the mind of Henry VIII. he successively obtainedseveral bishoprics, and at length was made Archbishop of York ,lord high-chancellor of England, and prime minister ; and was forseveral years the arbiter of Europe. Pope Leo X. created himcardinal in 1515, and made him legate a letlre ; and the emperorCharles V. and the French king Francis I. loaded him with fa-vours, to gain him over to their interest: but after having firstsided with the emperor, he deserted him to espouse the interest ofFrance . As his revenues were immense, his pride and ostenta-tion were carried to the greatest height. He had 500 servants ;among whom were nine or ten lords, 15 knights, and 40 esquires.His ambition to be pope, his pride, his exactions, and his poli-tical delay of Henry ’s divorce, occasioned his disgrace. He diedin 1530.

WOLVERHAMPTON, a town of Staffordshire , 13 miles S.of Stafford. Lon. 2. 0. W. Lat. 52. 47. N.

WOMB, or UTERUS. See Anatomy.

WONDER, See Miracle. The seven wonders of theworld, as they are popularly called, were the Egyptian pyramids;the mausoleum erected by Artemisia; the temple of Diana, atEphesus ; the walls and hanging gardens of the city of Babylon ;the colossus, or brazen image of the sun, at Rhodes : the statueof Jupiter Olympiusand the pharos, or watch-tower, ofPtolemy Pbiladelphus. See Pyramid, Mausoleum, Colossus,&c. &c.

WOOD, Anthony, an eminent biographer and antiquarian,was the son of Thomas Wood, B. A. and LL. Gly. and born atOxford in 1632. I-Ie-tstudied at Merton college, and in 1655 tookthe degree of M. A. He wrote, 1. The History and Antiquitiesof the universitv of Oxford; which was translated into Latin byMr. Wase, and Kir. Peers, under the title of Iiistoriaet AntiquiatesOxoniensis, 2 vols. folio. 2. Athena: Oxonienses ; or an exactAccount of all the Writers and Bishops who have bad their Edu-cation in the University of Oxford , from the year 1500 to 1600,2 vols. folio.; which was greatly enlarged in a second edition pub-lished in 1721 by Bishop Tanner. Upon the first publication ofthis work the author was attacked by the university, in defenceof Edward earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England,and chancellor of the university, and was likewise animadvertedupon by Bishop Burnet ; upon which he published a Vindicationof the Historiographer of the University of Oxford . He died atOxford of a retention of urine in 1695.

"Wood, a substance whereof the trunks and branches of treesconsist. It is composed of a number of concentric circles or zones,one of which is formed every year ; consequently their numbercorresponds to the age of the tree. These zones vary in thick-ness according to the degree of vegetation that took place in theyear of their formation. They are also of different degrees ofthickness in different parts, that part of the tree which is most ex-rosed to the sun and best sheltered growing fastest. The properigneous part of the wood consists of longitudinal fibres, disposedin fasciculi, and possessed of considerable hardness. It "is thislongitudinal direction of the fibres that renders it so much easierto cleave wood lengthwise than across the tree or in any other di-rection. See Plant, Strength, Tree, Ac. To render timbermore durable, it has been recommended to saw the trees intoscantlings ; or, where the wood is designed to be used entire, tohew it into the requisite shape, when it is to be laid in a bed ofsand (contained in a case of shell of brick-work) and heated bymeans of a furnace built beneatlv, As soon as the wood becomeshot, the sap exudes, and is imbibed by the sand : in consequenceof which the quality of the timber is greatly improved. Thismethod has been successfully tried; but, as it is too expensive,Dr. Lewis advises all wood, that is exposed to the inclemency ofthe weather, to be coated with a preparation of pulverized pit-coal and melted tar, reduced to the consistence of paint, whichhe has found very efficacious. In those cases, however, wherepiles, or other masses of timber, are subject to the action of water,

the most simple mode of preserving it; is that employed in theBermuda Islands, and other parts of America . It consists in co-vering such wood repeatedly with train or whale-oil, allowingeach coat to become perfectly dry, before another is applied.Mahogany, ebony, and the finer woods, being very expensive^artisans have contrived various preparations for tinging timber, soas to be with difficulty distinguished from them. Thus ebony maybe imitated, by boiling clean smooth box in oil, till it becomesperfectly black; or, by washing pear tree wood, that has beenpreviously planed, with aqua-fortis, and drying it in a shadyplace, in the open air ; after which, writing-ink must repeatedly bepassed over it, and the wood dried in a similar manner, till it ac-quire a deep black colour. It may then be polished with waxand a woollen cloth, which will give it a fine lustre. In the new“ Transactions of the Royal Society of Gottingen,” ProfessorBeckmann has published the result of numerous experiments, re-lative to the staining or dying of wood. He directs, for instance,a piece of plane-tree to be put into a glass-vessel, containing pul-verized dragon’s-blood mixed with oil or turpentine, and placedover the fire : in a short time, the wood will acquire a beautifulcolour, resembling that of mahogany ; and the dragon’s-blood,adhering to N the surface, maybe separated by applying rectifiedspirit of wine. If gamboge be dissolved in spirit of turpentine,if will impart a bright-yellow colour ; and one part of dragon’sblood, with two of gamboge communicate various shades to thewood of the beech and plane trees. A fine walnut-tree-tint may beobtained, by rubbing common wood with a mixture, prepared of the!bark of the trees, or the shells of walnuts, previously dried, pulve-rized, and reduced to a proper consistence with nut oil. Anotherpreparation for communicating a perfect mahogany colour to in-ferior woods, especially those of the elm,, maple, and sycamore-trees, consists of the following ingredients: dissolve two drachmsof dragon’s-blood, one drachm of wild alkanet (Anchusa tinctoria,L.) and half a drachm of aloe, in half a pint of rectified spirit ofwine. Previpusly to using this tincture, the wood ought to bemoistened with aqua-fortis; when two or three coats of the former,each being allowed to dry before the next is applied, will be suf-ficient to produce the desired effect. Various other methods ofstaining wood blue, green, purple, red, and yellow, are practisedby artificers. Of these, we shall communicate only the most ex-editious, and least expensive. Blue-, take two drachms of theest indigo reduced to a fine powder: put it in a glass with twooz. of oil of vitriol, and agitate them with a new clay-pipe. Afterstanding ten ortw'elve hours, at the farthest, in a temperate place,pour it into a large glass-vessel, or china bowl, and add such aportion of pure water as may be expedient to give it the tint re-quired. Those, to whom the saving of time is an object, maypurchase thisstaining liquor ready prepared, from the dyer. Ano-ther mode of tinging wood blue, is that of dissolving verdigreasein distilled vinegar ; then making a separate solution of two oz. ofpure pearl-ashes in a pint of water: the former liquid should befirst repeatedly applied to the surface of the wood, till it be of asufficiently deep green colour ; when the latter preparation mustbe drawn over it, with a soft painter’s brush, as often as may benecessary to change it to a proper blue cast. — Green : dissolvepurified verdigrease in distilled vinegar, or in aqua-fortis dilutedwith 15 or 20 times its weight of water, and apply the solution towood previously warmed.— Purple-, take one oz. of logwood,and two drachms of Brazil-wood ; boil them together in a quart ofwater, slowly, over a moderate fire; when one-half of the fluid isevaporated, it must be sirained, and several times laid on thawood, with a proper brush, till it have received a dark-red shade.Thus prepared, and being allowed to become perfectly dry, -itmay be changed to a fine purple shade, by drawing over it re-peatedly a weak solution of the purest pearl-ash, namely, onedrachm in a pint of water. Some dexterity, however, must beexerted on this occasion ; as, by too sudden and frequent applica-tions ot either of the two liquids, the colour is very apt to assumea dark blue, instead of a purple shade.— Red : take two oz. ofBrazil-wood, and two drachms of purified pot-ash ; mix them witha quart of water ; and let the composition stand in a warm placefor several days; stirring it occasionally. When sufficiently ex-tracted, the coloured liquor must be decanted, moderately warm-ed, and in that state applied to the wood as many times as may bedeemed necessary for giving it a more or less bright cast. Next,

a solution

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