VAN BENEDEN, viin ba'ne-dOn, PIERRE JOSEPH. A Belgian zoologist. See BENEDEN. VANBRUGH, viinrbroo, Sir JOHN ( G64 1726 I. An eminent English architect and dramatist. Ile was born in London, the grand son of a Protestant refugee from Flanders, said to have settled in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth. John Vanbrugh at about nineteen went to France, presumably to study architecture, but he returned to England some two years later and got a commission in the army, in which he presently became a captain. In 1690 he was again in France, and was arrested on suspicion of being a spy, at length being made a prisoner in the Bastille. HP was released late in 1692 and returned to England. His first play was The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger, a sequel to Colley Cibber's Lore's Lust Shift, from which Sir Novelty Fashion reappears in Vanbrugh's piece as the inimitable Lord Foppington. It was produced at Drury Lane about the end of 1690, and it at once established its author as one of the leading wits and dramatists of tin day. In the following spring his comedy of The Prorok'd Wife, brought out at the Lincoln's Trot Fields Theatre, met with an even better reception. The year 1698 is notable in dramatic Iii,tery for the publication of .Jeremy Collier's famous Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage. Vanhrugh was among those specially attacked, and he published in the same year a pamphlet in reply called .t Short Vindica tion of The Relapse and The Prorok'd Wife front and Profaneness. 1)1 his other works, several of them more or less free adaptations frlan the French, the best is The Confederacy. a brilliant comedy, which was produced in 1705 at the new theatre that he built in the Hay market for himself and Congreve.
Meanwhile, he had been making his way as an arehiteet. In 1701 lie began erecting for the Earl of Carlisle the palace of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. In l702 he was appointed Comptrol ler of the Board of Works. His was such that in 1705 he was engaged to erect Blen heim Palace, which Parliament. had voted to the Duke of Alarlborongli: but the Dueliess, a fter her husband's death. refused to pay Vanbrugh his salary and dismissed him from his office. After much trouble, lie managed to get nearly all the money due. lie was knighted in 1714, and died at Whitehall.
His Nina-dips have not maintained their pop ularity, their licentious tone preventing their being read to the extent to which the keenness of tlicir satire and the genuine eharacter of their humor won hi otherwise entitle them. Larking the polish of ('ongreve's style, they are at the same time free from the stiff artificiality that disfig ures so much of his work.
At his death V:1111)1111411 left an unfinished com edy called The Journey to London, which Cib ber completed and produced at Drury Lane in 1728 as The Prorok'd Husband. Consult: \V. C. Ward, 'Introduction to ed.. Sir John Vanbrugh (London, 1S98) ; Swain, Introduction to the Best Plays of Sir John l'anbrugh (ib., 1896) ; Leigh Hunt, The Dramatic Works of Wycherlcy, Vanbrugh, and rargahar, with Bio graphical and Critical Notes (new ed.. ib.. 18551 ; Hazlitt. Lectures on the English Comic Writers (ib., 1819) ; Dametz, John Vanbrughs Leben sold Werke (Vienna, 1898).