otted with some eighty islets, and
built on piles partly of wood and partly of stone, the streets of which
are canals traversed by gondolas and crossed here and there by bridges;
the city dates from the year 432, when the islands were a place of refuge
from the attacks of the Huns, and took shape as an independent State with
magistrates of its own about 687, to assume at length the form of a
republic and become "Queen of the Adriatic Sea," the doge, or chief
magistrate, ranking as one of the sovereign powers of the Western world;
from its situation it became in the 10th century a great centre of trade
with the East, and continued to be till the discovery of the route round
the Cape, after which it began to decline, till it fell eventually under
the yoke of Austria, from which it was wrested in 1866, and is now part
of the modern kingdom of Italy, with much still to show of what it was in
its palmy days, and indications of a measure of recovery from its
down-trodden state; for an interesting and significant sketch in brief of
its rise and fall see the "SHADOW ON THE DIAL" in Ruskin's "St.
Mark's Rest."

VENTNOR, a town and favourite watering-place on the S. shore of the
Isle of Wight, with a fine beach; much resorted to in winter from its
warm Southern exposure.

VENUS, the Roman goddess of love, of wedded love, and of beauty
(originally of the spring), and at length identified with the Greek
APHRODITE (q. v.); she was regarded as the tutelary goddess of
Rome, and had a temple to her honour in the Forum.

VENUS, an interior planet of the solar system, revolving in an orbit
outside that of Mercury and within that of the earth, nearly as large as
the latter; is 67 millions of miles from the sun, round which it revolves
in 224 days, while it takes 231/4 hours to rotate on its own axis; it is
the brightest of the heavenly bodies, and appears in the sky now as the
morning star, now as the evening star, according as it rises before the
sun or sets after it, so that it is always seen either in the E. or the
W.; when right between us and the sun it is seen moving as a black spot
on the sun's disk, a phenomenon known as "Transit of Venus," the last
instance of which occurred in 1882, and that will not occur again till
after 1051/2 years.

VERA CRUZ (24), a chief seaport of Mexico, on the Gulf of Mexico,
263 m. SE. of the capital; is regularly built and strongly fortified, but
is unhealthily situated, and the yellow an