# The Nuttall Encyclopædia/A

A
A'ali Pasha, an eminent reforming Turkish statesman (1815-1871).
Aachen. See Aix-la-Chapelle.
Aalborg (19), a trading town on the Liimfiord, in the N. of Jutland.
Aar, a large Swiss river about 200 m. long, which falls into the Rhine as it leaves Switzerland.
Aargau, a fertile Swiss canton bordering on the Rhine.
Aarhuus (33), a port on the E. of Jutland, with a considerable export and import trade, and a fine old Gothic cathedral.
Aaron, the elder brother of Moses, and the first high-priest of the Jews, an office he held for forty years.
Abaca, Manila hemp, or the plant, native to the Philippines, which yield it in quantities.
Abacus, a tablet crowning a column and its capital.
Abaddon, the bottomless pit, or the angel thereof.
Abarim, a mountain chain in Palestine, NE. of the Dead Sea, the highest point being Mount Nebo.
Abatement, a mark of disgrace in a coat of arms.
Abauzit, Firmin, a French Protestant theologian and a mathematician, a friend of Newton, and much esteemed for his learning by Rousseau and Voltaire (1679-1767).
Abbadie, two brothers of French descent, Abyssinian travellers in the years 1837-1848; also a French Protestant divine (1658-1727).
Abbas, uncle of Mahomet, founder of the dynasty of the Abbasides (566-652).
Abbas Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, studied five years in Vienna, ascended the throne at eighteen, accession hailed with enthusiasm; shows at times an equivocal attitude to Britain; b. 1874.
Abbas the Great, shah of Persia, of the dynasty of the Sophis, great alike in conquest and administration (1557-1628).
Abbas-Mirza, a Persian prince, a reformer of the Persian army, and a leader of it, unsuccessfully, however, against Russia (1783-1833).
Abbasides, a dynasty of 37 caliphs who ruled as such at Bagdad from 750 to 1258.
Ab′bati, Niccolo dell', an Italian fresco-painter (1512-1571).
Abbé, name of a class of men who in France prior to the Revolution prepared themselves by study of theology for preferment in the Church, and who, failing, gave themselves up to letters or science.
Abbeville (19), a thriving old town on the Somme, 12 m. up, with an interesting house architecture, and a cathedral, unfinished, in the Flamboyant style.
Abbot, head of an abbey. There were two classes of abbots: Abbots Regular, as being such in fact, and Abbots Commendatory, as guardians and drawing the revenues.
Abbot, George, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., and one of the translators of King James's Bible; an enemy of Laud's, who succeeded him (1562-1633).
Abbot of Misrule, a person elected to superintend the Christmas revelries.
Abbotsford, the residence of Sir Walter Scott, on the Tweed, near Melrose, built by him on the site of a farm called Clarty Hole.
Abbott, Edwin, a learned Broad Church theologian and man of letters; wrote, besides other works, a volume of sermons “Through Nature to Christ”; esteemed insistence on miracles injurious to faith; b. 1838.
Abdal′lah, the father of Mahomet, famed for his beauty (545-570); also a caliph of Mecca (622-692).
Abdalrah′man, the Moorish governor of Spain, defeated by Charles Martel at Tours in 732.
Abdals (lit. servants of Allah), a set of Moslem fanatics in Persia.
Abd-el-Ka′dir, an Arab emir, who for fifteen years waged war against the French in N. Africa, but at length surrendered prisoner to them in 1847. On his release in 1852 he became a faithful friend of France (1807-1883).
Abde′ra, a town in ancient Thrace, proverbial for the stupidity of its inhabitants.
Abdications, of which the most celebrated are those of the Roman Dictator Sylla, who in 70 B.C. retired to Puteoli; of Diocletian, who in A.D. 305 retired to Salone; of Charles V., who in 1556 retired to the monastery St. Yuste; of Christina of Sweden, who in 1654 retired to Rome, after passing some time in France; of Napoleon, who in 1814 and 1815 retired first to Elba and then died at St. Helena; of Charles X. in 1830, who died at Goritz, in Austria; and of Louis Philippe, who in 1848 retired to end his days in England.
Abdiel, one of the seraphim, who withstood Satan in his revolt against the Most High.
Abdul-Aziz, sultan of Turkey from 1861, in succession to Abdul-Medjid (1830-1876).
Abdul-Aziz, sultan of Morocco, was only fourteen at his accession; b. 1880.
Abdul-Ha′mid II., sultan of Turkey in 1876, brother to Abdul-Aziz, and his successor; under him Turkey has suffered serious dismemberment, and the Christian subjects in Armenia and Crete been cruelly massacred; b. 1842.
Abd-ul-Med′jid, sultan, father of the two preceding, in whose defence against Russia England and France undertook the Crimean war (1823-1861).
Abdur-Rah′man, the ameer of Afghanistan, subsidised by the English; b. 1830.
À'Becket, Gilbert, an English humourist, who contributed to Punch and other organs; wrote the “Comic Blackstone” and comic histories of England and Rome (1811-1856).
À'Becket, A. W., son of the preceding, a littérateur and journalist; b. 1844.
Abel, the second son of Adam and Eve; slain by his brother. The death of Abel is the subject of a poem by Gessner and a tragedy by Legouvé.
Abel, Sir F. A., a chemist who has made a special study of explosives; b. 1827.
Abel, Henry, an able Norwegian mathematician, who died young (1802-1828).
Ab′elard, Peter, a theologian and scholastic philosopher of French birth, renowned for his dialectic ability, his learning, his passion for Héloïse, and his misfortunes; made conceivability the test of credibility, and was a great teacher in his day (1079-1142).
Abelli, a Dominican monk, the confessor of Catharine de Medici (1603-1691).
Abencerra′ges, a powerful Moorish tribe in Grenada, whose fate in the 15th century has been the subject of interesting romance.
Aben-Ez′ra, a learned Spanish Jew and commentator on the Hebrew scriptures (1090-1168).
Abera′von (6), a town and seaport in Glamorganshire, with copper and iron works.
Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, a distinguished British general of Scottish birth, who fell in Egypt after defeating the French at Aboukir Bay (1731-1801).
Aberdeen (124), the fourth city in Scotland, on the E. coast, between the mouths of the Dee and Don; built of grey granite, with many fine public edifices, a flourishing university, a large trade, and thriving manufactures. Old Aberdeen, on the Don, now incorporated in the municipality, is the seat of a cathedral church, and of King's College, founded in 1404, united with the university in the new town.
Aberdeen, Earl of, a shrewd English statesman, Prime Minister of England during the Crimean war (1784-1860).—Grandson of the preceding, Gov.-Gen. of Canada; b. 1847.
Aberdeenshire (281), a large county in NE. of Scotland; mountainous in SW., lowland N. and E.; famed for its granite quarries, its fisheries, and its breed of cattle.
Abernethy, a small burgh in S. Perthshire, with a Pictish round tower, and once the capital of the Pictish kingdom.
Aberration of light, an apparent motion in a star due to the earth's motion and the progressive motion of light.
Aberyst′with (16), a town and seaport in Cardiganshire, Wales, with a university.
Ab′gar XIV., a king of Edessa, one of a dynasty of the name, a contemporary of Jesus Christ, and said to have corresponded with Him.
Abhorrers, the Royalist and High Church party in England under Charles II., so called from their abhorrence of the principles of their opponents.
Abigail, the widow of Nabal, espoused by David.
Abich, W. H., a German mineralogist and traveller (1806-1886).
Abingdon (6), a borough in Berks, 6 m. S. of Oxford.
Abiogenesis, the doctrine of spontaneous generation.
Abipones, a once powerful warlike race in La Plata, now nearly all absorbed.
Able man, man with “a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute” (Gibbon).
Abner, a Hebrew general under Saul; assassinated by Joab.
Abo, the old capital of Finland and seat of the government, on the Gulf of Bothnia.
Ab′omey, the capital of Dahomey, in W. Africa.
Abou′kir, village near Alexandria, in Egypt, on the bay near which Nelson destroyed the French fleet in 1799; where Napoleon beat the Turks, 1799; and where Abercrombie fell, 1801.
About, Edmond, spirited French littérateur and journalist (1828-1885).
Abraham, the Hebrew patriarch, ancestor of the Jews, the very type of an Eastern pastoral chief at once by his dignified character and simple faith.
Abraham, the plains of, a plain near Quebec.
Abraham-men, a class of lunatics allowed out of restraint, at one time, to roam about and beg; a set of impostors who wandered about the country affecting lunacy.
Abran′tes, a town in Portugal, on the Tagus; taken by Marshal Junot, 1807, and giving the title of Duke to him.
Abraxas stones, stones with cabalistic figures on them used as talismans.
Abruz′zi, a highland district in the Apennines, with a pop. of 100,000.
Absalom, a son of David, who rebelled against his father, and at whose death David gave vent to a bitter wail of grief. A name given by Dryden to the Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles II.
Absolute, The, the philosophical name for the uncreated Creator, or creating cause of all things, dependent on nothing external to itself.
Absyrtus, a brother of Medea, whom she cut in pieces as she fled with Jason, pursued by her father, throwing his bones behind her to detain her father in his pursuit of her by stopping to pick them up.
Abt, Franz, a German composer of song-music (1819-1885).
Abu, a mountain (6000 ft.) in Rajputana, with a footprint of Vishnu on the top, and two marble temples half-way up, held sacred by the Jains.
Ab′ubekr, as the father of Ayesha, the father-in-law of Mahomet, the first of the caliphs and the founder of the Sunnites; d. 634.
Ab′u-klea, in the Soudan, where the Mahdi's forces were defeated by Sir H. Stewart in 1885.
A′bul-faraj, a learned Armenian Jew, who became bishop of Aleppo, and wrote a history of the world from Adam onwards (1226-1286).
Abul-fazel, the vizier of the great Mogul emperor Akbar, and who wrote an account of his reign and of the Mogul empire; he was assassinated in 1604.
Abul-feda, a Moslem prince of Hamat in Syria, who in his youth took part against the Crusaders, and wrote historical works in Arabic (1273-1331).
Abu-Tha′leb, uncle of Mahomet, and his protector against the plots of his enemies the Koreish.
Aby′dos, a town on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, famous as the home of Leander, who swam the Hellespont every night to visit Hero in Sestos, and as the spot where Xerxes built his bridge of boats to cross into Europe in 480 B.C.; also a place of note in Upper Egypt.
Abyssin′ia, a mountainous country SE. of Nubia, with an area of 200,000 sq. m., made up of independent states, and a mixed population of some four millions, the Abyssinians proper being of the Semite stock. It is practically under the protectorate of Italy.
Acacia, a large group of trees with astringent and gum-yielding properties, natives of tropical Africa and Australia.
Academy, a public shady park or place of groves near Athens, where Plato taught his philosophy and whence his school derived its name, of which there are three branches, the Old, the Middle, and the New, represented respectively by Plato himself, Arcesilaos, and Carneades. The French Academy, of forty members, was founded by Richelieu in 1635, and is charged with the interests of the French language and literature, and in particular with the duty of compiling an authoritative dictionary of the French language. Besides these, there are in France other four with a like limited membership in the interest of other departments of science and art, all now associated in the Institute of France, which consists in all of 229 members. There are similar institutions in other states of Europe, all of greater or less note.
Acadia, the French name for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Acanthus, a leaf-like ornament on the capitals of the columns of certain orders of architecture.
Acapul′co, a Mexican port in the Pacific, harbour commodious, but climate unhealthy.
Acarna′nia, a province of Greece N. of Gulf of Corinth; its pop. once addicted to piracy.
Acca′dians, a dark, thick-lipped, short-statured Mongol race in Central Asia, displaced by the Babylonians and Assyrians, who were Semitic.
Acca-Laurentia, the wife of Faustulus, shepherd of Numitor, who saved the lives of Romulus and Remus.
Acciaioli, a Florentine family of 15th century, illustrious in scholarship and war.
Accolade, a gentle blow with a sword on the shoulder in conferring knighthood.
Accol′ti, a Tuscan family, of 15th century, famous for their learning.
Accor′so, the name of a Florentine family, of 12th and 13th centuries, great in jurisprudence.
Accra (16), capital and chief port in British Gold Coast colony.
Accrington (39), a manufacturing town 22 m. N. of Manchester.
Accum, Friedrich, a German chemist, the first promoter of gas-lighting (1769-1838).
Accumulator, a hydraulic press for storing up water at a high pressure; also a device for storing up electric energy.
Acerra (14), an ancient city 9 m. NE. of Naples; is in an unhealthy district.
Acetic acid, the pure acid of vinegar; the salts are called acetates.
Acetone, a highly inflammable liquid obtained generally by the dry distillation of acetates.
Acet′ylene, a malodorous gaseous substance from the incomplete combustion of hydro-carbons.
Achæan League, a confederation of 12 towns in the Peloponnesus, formed especially against the influence of the Macedonians.
Achæ′ans, the common name of the Greeks in the heroic or Homeric period.
Achai′a, the N. district of the Peloponnesus, eventually the whole of it.
Achard, a Prussian chemist, one of the first to manufacture sugar from beetroot (1753-1821).
Achard′, Louis Amédée, a prolific French novelist (1814-1876).
Acha′tes, the attendant of Æneas in his wandering after the fall of Troy, remarkable for, and a perennial type of, fidelity.
Achelo′üs, a river in Greece, which rises in Mt. Pindus, and falls into the Ionian Sea; also the god of the river, the oldest of the sons of Oceanus, and the father of the Sirens.
Achen, an eminent German painter (1556-1621).
Achenwall, a German economist, the founder of statistic science (1719-1772).
Ach′eron, a river in the underworld; the name of several rivers in Greece more or less suggestive of it.
Ach′ery, a learned French Benedictine of St. Maur (1609-1685).
Ach′ill, a rocky, boggy island, sparsely inhabited, off W. coast of Ireland, co. Mayo, with a bold headland 2222 ft. high.
Achille′id, an unfinished poem of Statius.
Achil′les, the son of Peleus and Thetis, king of the Myrmidons, the most famous of the Greek heroes in the Trojan war, and whose wrath with the consequences of it forms the subject of the Iliad of Homer. He was invulnerable except in the heel, at the point where his mother held him as she dipt his body in the Styx to render him invulnerable.
Achilles of Germany, Albert, third elector of Brandenburg, “fiery, tough old gentleman, of formidable talent for fighting in his day; a very blazing, far-seen character,” says Carlyle (1414-1486).
Achilles tendon, the great tendon of the heel, where Achilles was vulnerable.
Achmed Pasha, a French adventurer, served in French army, condemned to death, fled, and served Austria; condemned to death a second time, pardoned, served under the sultan, was banished to the shores of the Black Sea (1675-1747).
Ach′met I., sultan of Turkey from 1603 to 1617; A. II., from 1691 to 1695; A. III., from 1703 to 1730, who gave asylum to Charles XII. of Sweden after his defeat by the Czar at Pultowa.
Achit′ophel, name given by Dryden to the Earl of Shaftesbury of his time.
Achromatism, transmission of light, undecomposed and free from colour, by means of a combination of dissimilar lenses of crown and flint glass, or by a single glass carefully prepared.
Acierage, coating a copper-plate with steel by voltaic electricity.
A′ci-Rea′lë (38), a seaport town in Sicily, at the foot of Mount Etna, in NE. of Catania, with mineral waters.
A′cis, a Sicilian shepherd enamoured of Galatea, whom the Cyclops Polyphemus, out of jealousy, overwhelmed under a rock, from under which his blood has since flowed as a river.
Ack′ermann, R., an enterprising publisher of illustrated works in the Strand, a native of Saxony (1764-1834).
Acland, Sir Henry, regius professor of medicine in Oxford, accompanied the Prince of Wales to America in 1860, the author of several works on medicine and educational subjects, one of Ruskin's old and tried friends (1815).
Aclinic Line, the magnetic equator, along which the needle always remains horizontal.
Acne, a skin disease showing hard reddish pimples; Acne rosacea, a congestion of the skin of the nose and parts adjoining.
Acoemetæ, an order of monks in the 5th century who by turns kept up a divine service day and night.
Aconca′gua, the highest peak of the Andes, about 100 m. NE. of Valparaiso, 22,867 ft. high; recently ascended by a Swiss and a Scotchman, attendants of Fitzgerald's party.
Aconite, monk's-hood, a poisonous plant of the ranunculus order with a tapering root.
Aconitine, a most virulent poison from aconite, and owing to the very small quantity sufficient to cause death, is very difficult of detection when employed in taking away life.
Acorn-shells, a crustacean attached to rocks on the sea-shore, described by Huxley as “fixed by its head,” and “kicking its food into its mouth with its legs.”
Acoustics, the science of sound as it affects the ear, specially of the laws to be observed in the construction of halls so that people may distinctly hear in them.
Acrasia, an impersonation in Spenser's “Faërie Queen,” of intemperance in the guise of a beautiful sorceress.
Acre, St. Jean d' (7), a strong place and seaport in Syria, at the foot of Mount Carmel, taken, at an enormous sacrifice of life, by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191, held out against Bonaparte in 1799; its ancient name Ptolemaïs.
Acres, Bob, a coward in the “Rivals” whose “courage always oozed out at his finger ends.”
Acroamatics, esoteric lectures, i. e. lectures to the initiated.
Acrolein, a light volatile limpid liquid obtained by the destructive distillation of fats.
Acroliths, statues of which only the extremities are of stone.
Acrop′olis, a fortified citadel commanding a city, and generally the nucleus of it, specially the rocky eminence dominating Athens.
Acrote′ria, pedestals placed at the middle and the extremities of a pediment to support a statue or other ornament, or the statue or ornament itself.
Acta diurna, a kind of gazette recording in a summary way daily events, established at Rome in 131 B.C., and rendered official by Cæsar in 50 B.C.
Acta Sanctorum, the lives of the saints in 62 vols. folio, begun in the 17th century by the Jesuits, and carried on by the Bollandists.
Actæon, a hunter changed into a stag for surprising Diana when bathing, and afterwards devoured by his own dogs.
Actinic rays, “non-luminous rays of higher frequency than the luminous rays.”
Actinism, the chemical action of sunlight.
Actinomycosis, a disease of a fungous nature on the mouth and lower jaw of cows.
Actium, a town and promontory at the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf (Arta), in Greece, where Augustus gained his naval victory over Antony and Cleopatra, Sept. 2, 31 B.C.
Acton, an adventurer of English birth, who became prime minister of Naples, but was driven from the helm of affairs on account of his inveterate antipathy to the French (1737-1808).
Acton, Lord, a descendant of the former, who became a leader of the Liberal Catholics in England, M.P. for Carlow, and made a peer in 1869; a man of wide learning, and the projector of a universal history by experts in different departments of the field; b. 1834.
Acts of the Apostles, a narrative account in the New Testament of the founding of the Christian Church chiefly through the ministry of Peter and Paul, written by Luke, commencing with the year 33, and concluding with the imprisonment of Paul in Rome in 62.
Acun′ha, Tristram d', a Portuguese navigator, companion of Albuquerque; Nuna d', his son, viceroy of the Indies from 1528 to 1539; Rodrique d', archbishop of Lisbon, who in 1640 freed Portugal from the Spanish domination, and established the house of Braganza on the throne.
Acupressure, checking hemorrhage in arteries during an operation by compressing their orifices with a needle.
Acupuncture, the operation of pricking an affected part with a needle, and leaving it for a short time in it, sometimes for as long as an hour.
Adair, Sir Robert, a distinguished English diplomatist, and frequently employed on the most important diplomatic missions (1763-1855).
Adal, a flat barren region between Abyssinia and the Red Sea.
Adalbe′ron, the archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of Lothaire and Louis V.; consecrated Hugh Capet; d. 998.
Adalbert, a German ecclesiastic, who did much to extend Christianity over the North (1000-1072).
Adalbert, St., bishop of Prague, who, driven from Bohemia, essayed to preach the gospel in heathen Prussia, where the priests fell upon him, and “struck him with a death-stroke on the head,” April 27, 997, on the anniversary of which day a festival is held in his honour.
Ada′lia (30), a seaport on the coast of Asia Minor, on a bay of the same name.
Adam (i. e. man), the first father, according to the Bible, of the human race.
Adam, Alex., a distinguished Latin scholar, rector for 40 years of the Edinburgh High School, Scott having been one of his pupils (1741-1809).
Adam, Lambert, a distinguished French sculptor (1700-1759).
Adam, Robert, a distinguished architect, born at Kirkcaldy, architect of the Register House and the University, Edinburgh (1728-1792).
Adam Bede, George Eliot's first novel, published anonymously in 1859, took at once with both critic and public.
Adam Kadmon, primeval man as he at first emanated from the Creator, or man in his primeval rudimentary potentiality.
Adam of Bromen, distinguished as a Christian missionary in the 11th century; author of a celebrated Church history of N. Europe from 788 to 1072, entitled Gesta Hammenburgensis Ecclesiæ Pontificum.
Adamas′tor, the giant spirit of storms, which Camoëns, in his “Luciad,” represents as rising up before Vasco de Gama to warn him off from the Cape of Storms, henceforth called, in consequence of the resultant success in despite thereof, the Cape of Good Hope.
Adamawa, a region in the Lower Soudan with a healthy climate and a fertile soil, rich in all tropical products.
Adamites, visionaries in Africa in the 2nd century, and in Bohemia in the 14th and 15th, who affected innocence, rejected marriage, and went naked.
Adamnan, St., abbot of Iona, of Irish birth, who wrote a life of St. Columba and a work on the Holy Places, of value as the earliest written (625-704).
Adams, Dr. F., a zealous student and translator of Greek medical works (1797-1861).
Adams, John, the second president of the United States, and a chief promoter of their independence (1739-1826).
Adams, John Quincy, his eldest son, the sixth president (1767-1848).
Adams, John Couch, an English astronomer, the discoverer simultaneously with Leverrier of the planet Neptune (1819-1892).
Adams, Parson, a country curate in Fielding's “Joseph Andrews,” with a head full of learning and a heart full of love to his fellows, but in absolute ignorance of the world, which in his simplicity he takes for what it professes to be.
Adams, Samuel, a zealous promoter of American independence, who lived and died poor (1722-1803).
Adam's Bridge, a chain of coral reefs and sandbanks connecting Ceylon with India.
Adam's Peak, a conical peak in the centre of Ceylon 7420 ft. high, with a foot-like depression 5 ft. long and 2½ broad atop, ascribed to Adam by the Mohammedans, and to Buddha by the Buddhists; it was here, the Arabs say, that Adam alighted on his expulsion from Eden and stood doing penance on one foot till God forgave him.
Ada′na (40), a town SE. corner of Asia Minor, 30 m. from the sea.
Adanson, Michel, a French botanist, born in Aix, the first to attempt a natural classification of plants (1727-1806).
Ad′da, an affluent of the Po, near Cremona; it flows through Lake Como; on its banks Bonaparte gained several of his famous victories over Austria.
Addington, Henry, Lord Sidmouth, an English statesman was for a short time Prime Minister, throughout a supporter of Pitt (1757-1844).
Addison, Joseph, a celebrated English essayist, studied at Oxford, became Fellow of Magdalen, was a Whig in politics, held a succession of Government appointments, resigned the last for a large pension; was pre-eminent among English writers for the purity and elegance of his style, had an abiding, refining, and elevating influence on the literature of the country; his name is associated with the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, as well as with a number of beautiful hymns (1672-1749).
A′delaar, the name of honour given to Cort Sivertsen, a famous Norse seaman, who rendered distinguished naval services to Denmark and to Venice against the Turks (1622-1675).
Adelaide (133), the capital of S. Australia, on the river Torrens, which flows through it into St. Vincent Gulf, 7 m. SE. of Port Adelaide; a handsome city, with a cathedral, fine public buildings, a university, and an extensive botanical garden; it is the great emporium for S. Australia; exports wool, wine, wheat, and copper ore.
Adelaide, eldest daughter of Louis XV. of France (1732-1806).
Adelaide, Port, the haven of Adelaide, a port of call, with a commodious harbour.
Adelaide, Queen, consort of William IV. of England (1792-1849).
Adelaide of Orleans, sister of Louis Philippe, his Egeria (1771-1841).
Adelberg, a town of Carniola, 22 m. from Trieste, with a large stalactite cavern, besides numerous caves near it.
Adelung, Johann Christoph, a distinguished German philologist and lexicographer, born in Pomerania (1732-1806).
A′den (42), a fortified town on a peninsula in British territory S. of Arabia, 105 m. E. of Bab-el-Mandeb; a coaling and military station, in a climate hot, but healthy.
Ad′herbal, son of Micipsa, king of Numidia, killed by Jugurtha, 249 B.C.
Adi Granth, the sacred book of the Sikhs.
Adiaph′orists, Lutherans who in 16th century maintained that certain practices of the Romish Church, obnoxious to others of them, were matters of indifference, such as having pictures, lighting candles, wearing surplices, and singing certain hymns in worship.
Ad′ige, a river of Italy, which rises in the Rhetian Alps and falls into the Adriatic after a course of 250 m.; subject to sudden swellings and overflowings.
Adipocere, a fatty, spermaceti-like substance, produced by the decomposition of animal matter in moist places.
Adipose tissue, a tissue of small vesicles filled with oily matter, in which there is no sensation, and a layer of which lies under the skin and gives smoothness and warmth to the body.
Adirondack Mountains, a high-lying, picturesque, granite range in the State of New York; source of the Hudson.
Adjutant, a gigantic Indian stork with an enormous beak, about 5 ft. in height, which feeds on carrion and offal, and is useful in this way, as storks are.
Adler, Hermann, son and successor of the following, born in Hanover; a vigorous defender of his co-religionists and their faith, as well as their sacred Scriptures; was elected Chief Rabbi in 1891; b. 1839.
Adler, Nathan Marcus, chief Rabbi in Britain, born in Hanover (1803-1890).
Adlercreutz, a Swedish general, the chief promoter of the revolution of 1808, who told Gustavus IV. to his face that he ought to retire (1759-1815).
Adme′tus, king of Pheræ in Thessaly, one of the Argonauts, under whom Apollo served for a time as neat-herd. See Alcestis.
Admirable Doctor, a name given to Roger Bacon.
Admiral, the chief commander of a fleet, of which there are in Britain three grades—admirals, vice-admirals, and rear-admirals, the first displaying his flag on the main mast, the second on the fore, and the third on the mizzen.
Admiralty, Board of, board of commissioners appointed for the management of naval affairs.
Admiralty Island, an island off the coast of Alaska.
Admiralty Islands, a group NE. of New Guinea, in the Pacific, which belong to Germany.
Adolf, Friedrich, king of Sweden, under whose reign the nobles divided themselves into the two factions of the Caps, or the peace-party, and the Hats, or the war-party (1710-1771).
Adolph, St., a Spanish martyr: festival, Sept. 27.
Adolph of Nassau, Kaiser from 1291 to 1298, “a stalwart but necessitous Herr” Carlyle calls him; seems to have been under the pay of Edward Longshanks.
Adolphus, John, an able London barrister in criminal cases, and a voluminous historical writer (1766-1845).
Adona′i, the name used by the Jews for God instead of Jehovah, too sacred to be pronounced.
Adona′is, Shelley's name for Keats.
Ado′nis, a beautiful youth beloved by Aphrodité (Venus), but mortally wounded by a boar and changed by her into a flower the colour of his blood, by sprinkling nectar on his body.
Adoptionists, heretics who in the 8th century maintained that Christ was the son of God, not by birth, but by adoption, and as being one with Him in character and will.
Ador′no, an illustrious plebeian family in Genoa, of the Ghibelline party, several of whom were Doges of the republic.
Adour, a river of France, rising in the Pyrenees and falling into the Bay of Biscay.
Adowa′, a highland town in Abyssinia, and chief entrepôt of trade.
Adras′tus, a king of Argos, the one survivor of the first expedition of the Seven against Thebes, who died of grief when his son fell in the second.
Adrets, Baron des, a Huguenot leader, notorious for his cruelty; died a Catholic (1513-1587).
A′dria, an ancient town between the Po and the Adige; a flourishing seaport at one time, but now 14 m. from the sea.
A′drian, name of six Popes: A. I., from 772 to 795, did much to embellish Rome; A. II., from 867 to 872, zealous to subject the sovereigns of Europe to the Popehood; A. III., from 884 to 885; A. V., from 1054 to 1059, the only Englishman who attained to the Papal dignity; A. V., in 1276; A. VI., from 1222 to 1223. See Breakspeare.
Adrian, St., the chief military saint of N. Europe for many ages, second only to St. George; regarded as the patron of old soldiers, and protector against the plague.
Adriano′ple (60), a city in European Turkey, the third in importance, on the high-road between Belgrade and Constantinople.
Adria′tic, The, a sea 450 m. long separating Italy from Illyria, Dalmatia, and Albania.
Adullam, David's hiding-place (1 Sam. xxii. 1), a royal Canaanitish city 10 m. NW. of Hebron.
Adullamites, an English political party who in 1866 deserted the Liberal side in protest against a Liberal Franchise Bill then introduced. John Bright gave them this name. See 1 Sam. xxii.
Adumbla, a cow, in old Norse mythology, that grazes on hoar-frost, “licking the rime from the rocks—a Hindu cow transported north,” surmises Carlyle.
Advocate, Lord, chief counsel for the Crown in Scotland, public prosecutor of crimes, and a member of the administration in power.
Advocates, Faculty of, body of lawyers qualified to plead at the Scottish bar.
Advocates' Library, a library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, founded in 1632; it alone of Scotch libraries still holds the privilege of receiving a copy of every book entered at Stationers' Hall.
Advocatus diaboli, the devil's advocate, a functionary in the Roman Catholic Church appointed to show reason against a proposed canonization.
Æacus, a Greek king renowned as an administrator of distributive justice, after death appointed one of the three judges in Hades. See Minos and Rhadamanthus.
Ædiles, magistrates of ancient Rome who had charge of the public buildings and public structures generally.
Æe′tis, king of Colchis and father of Medea.
Æge′an Sea, the Archipelago.
Ægeus, the father of Theseus, who threw himself into the Ægean Sea, so called after him, in the mistaken belief that his son, who had been to slay the Minotaur, had been slain by him.
Ægi′na, an island 20 m. SW. of Athens, in a gulf of the same name.
Ægir, the god of the sea in the Norse mythology.
Ægis (lit. a goat's skin), the shield of Zeus, made of the hide of the goat Amalthea (q. v.), representing originally the storm-cloud in which the god invested himself when he was angry; it was also the attribute of Athena, bearing in her case the Gorgon's head.
Ægis′thus. See Agamemnon.
Æl′fric, a Saxon writer of the end of the 10th century known as the “Grammarian.”
Ælia′nus, Claudius, an Italian rhetorician who wrote in Greek, and whose extant works are valuable for the passages from prior authors which they have preserved for us.
Æmi′lius Paulus, the Roman Consul who fell at Cannæ, 216 B.C.; also his son, surnamed Macedonicus, so called as having defeated Perseus at Pydna, in Macedonia.
Æne′as, a Trojan, the hero of Virgil's “Æneid,” who in his various wanderings after the fall of Troy settled in Italy, and became, tradition alleges, the forefather of the Julian Gens in Rome.
Æneas Silvius. See Piccolomini.
Æ′neid, an epic poem by Virgil, of which Æneas is the hero.
Ænesidemus, a sceptical philosopher, born in Crete, who flourished shortly after Cicero, and summed up under ten arguments the contention against dogmatism in philosophy. See “Schwegler,” translated by Dr. Hutchison Stirling.
Æolian action, action of the wind as causing geologic changes.
Æolian Islands, the Lipari Islands (q. v.).
Æo′lians, one of the Greek races who, originating in Thessaly, spread north and south, and emigrated into Asia Minor, giving rise to the Æolic dialect of the Greek language.
Æolotropy, a change in the physical properties of bodies due to a change of position.
Æ′olus, the Greek god of the winds.
Æon, among the Gnostics, one of a succession of powers conceived as emanating from God and presiding over successive creations and transformations of being.
Æpyor′nis, a gigantic fossil bird of Madagascar, of which the egg is six times larger than that of an ostrich.
Æ′qui, a tribe on NE. of Latium, troublesome to the Romans until subdued in 302 B.C.
Aerated bread, bread of flour dough charged with carbonic acid gas.
Aerated waters, waters aerated with carbonic acid gas.
Æs′chines, a celebrated Athenian orator, rival of Demosthenes, who in the end prevailed over him by persuading the citizens to believe he was betraying them to Philip of Macedon, so that he left Athens and settled in Rhodes, where he founded a school as a rhetorician (389-314 B.C.).
Æs′chylus, the father of the Greek tragedy, who distinguished himself as a soldier both at Marathon and Salamis before he figured as a poet; wrote, it is said, some seventy dramas, of which only seven are extant—the “Suppliants,” the “Persæ,” the “Seven against Thebes,” the “Prometheus Bound,” the “Agamemnon,” the “Choephori,” and the “Eumenides,” his plays being trilogies; born at Eleusis and died in Sicily (525-456 B.C.).
Æscula′pius, a son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis, whom, for restoring Hippolytus to life, Zeus, at the prayer of Pluto, destroyed with a thunderbolt, but afterwards admitted among the gods as god of medicine and the healing art; the cock, the emblem of vigilance, and the serpent, of prudence, were sacred to him.
Aeson, the father of Jason, was restored to youth by Medea.
Æ′sop, a celebrated Greek fabulist of the 6th century B.C., of whose history little is known except that he was originally a slave, manumitted by Iadmon of Samos, and put to death by the Delphians, probably for some witticism at their expense.
Æso′pus, a celebrated Roman actor, a friend of Pompey and Cicero.
Æsthetics, the science of the beautiful in nature and the fine arts.
Ae′tius, a Roman general, who withstood the aggressions of the Barbarians for twenty years, and defeated Attila at Châlons, 451; assassinated out of jealousy by the Emperor Valentinian III., 454.
Æto′lia, a country of ancient Greece N. of the Gulf of Corinth.
Affre, archbishop of Paris, suffered death on the barricades, as, with a green bough in his hand, he bore a message of peace to the insurgents (1793-1848).
Afghan′istan′ (5,000), a country in the centre of Asia, between India on the east and Persia on the west, its length about 600 m. and its breadth about 500 m., a plateau of immense mountain masses, and high, almost inaccessible, valleys, occupying 278,000 sq. m., with extremes of climate, and a mixed turbulent population, majority Afghans. The country, though long a bone of contention between England and Russia, is now wholly under the sphere of British influence.
Af′ghans, The, a fine and noble but hot-tempered race of the Mohammedan faith inhabiting Afghanistan. The Afghans proper are called Pathans in India, and call themselves Beni Israel (sons of Israel), tracing their descent from King Saul.
Afra′nius, a Latin comic poet who flourished 100 B.C.; also a Roman Consul who played a prominent part in the rivalry between Cæsar and Pompey, 60 B.C.
Africa, one of the five great divisions of the globe, three times larger than Europe, seven-tenths of it within the torrid zone, and containing over 200,000,000 inhabitants of more or less dark-skinned races. It was long a terra incognita, but it is now being explored in all directions, and attempts are everywhere made to bring it within the circuit of civilisation. It is being parcelled out by European nations, chiefly Britain, France, and Germany, and with more zeal and appliance of resource by Britain than any other.
Africa′nus, Julius, a Christian historian and chronologist of the 3rd century.
Afridis, a treacherous tribe of eight clans, often at war with each other, in a mountainous region on the North-Western frontier of India W. of Peshawar.
Afrikan′der, one born in S. Africa of European parents.
Afrit′, a powerful evil spirit in the Mohammedan mythology.
Aga′des, a once important depôt of trade in the S. of the Sahara, much decayed.
Agag, a king of the Amalekites, conquered by Saul, and hewn in pieces by order of Samuel.
Agamem′non, a son of Atreus, king of Mycenæ and general-in-chief of the Greeks in the Trojan war, represented as a man of stately presence and a proud spirit. On the advice of the soothsayer Calchas sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia (q. v.) for the success of the enterprise he conducted. He was assassinated by Ægisthus and Clytæmnestra, his wife, on his return from the war. His fate and that of his house is the subject of Æschylus' trilogy “Oresteia.”
Agamogenesis, name given to reproduction without sex, by fission, budding, &c.
Aganippe, a fountain in Boeotia, near Helicon, dedicated to the Muses as a source of poetic inspiration.
Ag′ape, love-feasts among the primitive Christians in commemoration of the Last Supper, and in which they gave each other the kiss of peace as token of Christian brotherhood.
Agar-agar, a gum extracted from a sea-weed, used in bacteriological investigations.
Aga′sias, a sculptor of Ephesus, famous for his statue of the “Gladiator.”
Agass′iz, a celebrated Swiss naturalist, in the department especially of ichthyology, and in connection with the glaciers; settled as a professor of zoology and geology in the United States in 1846 (1807-1873).
Ag′athe, St., a Sicilian virgin who suffered martyrdom at Palermo under Decius in 251; represented in art as crowned with a long veil and bearing a pair of shears, the instruments with which her breast were cut off. Festival, Feb. 5.
Aga′thias, a Byzantine poet and historian (536-582).
Agath′ocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, by the massacre of thousands of the inhabitants, was an enemy of the Carthaginians, and fought against them; was poisoned in the end (361-289 B.C.).
Ag′athon, an Athenian tragic poet, a rival of Euripides (447-400 B.C.).
Ag′athon, St., pope from 676 to 682.
Ag′de (6), a French seaport on the Hérault, 3 m. from the Mediterranean.
A′gen (21), a town on the Garonne, 84 m. above Bordeaux.
Ages, in the Greek mythology four—the Golden, self-sufficient; the Silver, self-indulgent; the Brazen, warlike; and the Iron, violent; together with the Heroic, nobly aspirant, between the third and fourth. In archeology, three—the Stone Age, the Bronze, and the Iron. In history, the Middle and Dark, between the Ancient and the Modern. In Fichte, five—of Instinct, of Law, of Rebellion, of Rationality, of Conformity to Reason. In Shakespeare, seven—Infancy, Childhood, Boyhood, Adolescence, Manhood, Age, Old Age.
Agesan′der, a sculptor of Rhodes of the first century, who wrought at the famous group of the Laocoon.
Agesila′us, a Spartan king, victorious over the Persians in Asia and over the allied Thebans and Athenians at Coronea, but defeated by Epaminondas at Mantinea after a campaign in Egypt; d. 360 B.C., aged 84.
Aggas, Ralph, a surveyor and engraver of the 16th century, who first drew a plan of London as well as of Oxford and Cambridge.
Agglutinate languages, languages composed of parts which are words glued together, so to speak, as cowherd.
Agincourt′, a small village in Pas-de-Calais, where Henry V. in a bloody battle defeated the French, Oct. 25, 1415.
A′gis, the name of several Spartan kings, of whom the most famous were Agis III. and IV., the former famous for his resistance to the Macedonian domination, d. 330 B.C.; and the latter for his attempts to carry a law for the equal division of land, d. 240 B.C.
Aglaia. See Graces.
Ag′nadel, a Lombard village, near which Louis XII. defeated the Venetians in 1509, and Vendôme, Prince Eugène in 1705.
Agna′no, Lake of, a lake near Naples, now drained; occupied the crater of an extinct volcano, its waters in a state of constant ebullition.
Agnello, Col d', passage by the S. of Monte Viso between France and Italy.
Agnes, an unsophisticated maiden in Molière's L'École des Femmes, so unsophisticated that she does not know what love means.
Agnes, St., a virgin who suffered martyrdom, was beheaded because the flames would not touch her body, under Diocletian in 303; represented in art as holding a palm-branch in her hand and a lamb at her feet or in her arms. Festival, Jan. 21.
Agnes de Méranie, the second wife of Philip Augustus by a marriage in 1193, declared null by the Church, who, being dismissed in consequence, died broken-hearted in 1201.
Agnes Sorel, surnamed Dame de beauté, mistress of Charles VII. of France (1409-1450).
Agne′si, Maria Gætana, a native of Milan, a woman of extraordinary ability and attainments, prelected for her father in mathematics in the University of Bologna under sanction of the Pope; died a nun at her birthplace (1718-1799).
Ag′ni, the god of fire in the Vedic mythology, begets the gods, organises the world, produces and preserves universal life, and throughout never ceases to be fire. One of the three terms of the Vedic trinity, Soma and Indra being the other two.
Agnolo, a Florentine artist, friend of Michael Angelo and Raphael, distinguished for his carvings in wood (1460-1543).
Agnosticism, the doctrine which disclaims all knowledge of the supersensuous, or denies that we know or can know the absolute, the infinite, or God.
Agnus Dei, the figure of a lamb bearing a cross as a symbol of Christ, or a medal with this device; also a prayer in the Mass beginning with the words, “Lamb of God.”
Agonic line, line along which the needle points due north and south.
Agora, the forum of a Grecian town.
Agos′ta, a city on east coast of Sicily.
Agoult, Countess of, a French authoress under the pseudonym of Daniel Stern (1805-1876).
Agoust, Capt. de, a “cast-iron” captain of the Swiss Guards, who on May 4, 1788, by order of the Court of Versailles, marched the Parliament of Paris out of the Palais de Justice and carried off the key. See Carlyle's “French Revolution,” Bk. I. chap. viii.
Agou′ti, a rodent, native of Brazil, Paraguay, and Guiana; very destructive to roots and sugar-canes.
A′gra (168), a handsome city on the Jumna, in NW. Province of India, famous for, among other monuments, the Taj Mahal, a magnificent mausoleum erected near it by the Emperor Shah Jehan for himself and his favourite wife; it is a centre of trade, and seat of manufactures of Indian wares.
Ag′ram, (37), a Hungarian town, the capital of Croatia, with a fine Gothic cathedral and a university; is subject to earthquakes.
Agrarian laws, laws among the Romans regulating the division of lands.
Agric′ola, a Roman general, father-in-law of Tacitus, who conquered Great Britain in 80, recalled by the Emperor Domitian in 87, and retired into private life (37-93).
Agricola, Johann, a follower and friend of Luther, who became his antagonist in the matter of the binding obligation of the law on Christians (1492-1566).
Agricola, Rudolphus, a learned and accomplished Dutchman, much esteemed by Erasmus, and much in advance of his time; his most important work, “Dialectics,” being an attack on the scholastic system (1442-1485).
Agrigen′tum, an ancient considerable city, now Girgenti, on the S. of Sicily, of various fortune, and still showing traces of its ancient grandeur.
Agrippa, H. Cornelius, a native of Cologne, of noble birth, for some time in the service of Maximilian, but devoted mainly to the study of the occult sciences, which exposed him to various persecutions through life (1486-1535).
Agrippa, Herod. See Herod.
Agrip′pa, M. Vipsanius, a Roman general, the son-in-law and favourite of Augustus, who distinguished himself at the battle of Actium, and built the Pantheon of Rome (63-12 B.C.).
Agrippi′na, the daughter of Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia, and thus the granddaughter of Augustus; married Germanicus, accompanied him in his campaigns, and brought his ashes to Rome on his death, but was banished from Rome by Tiberius, and d. in 33.
Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus and the former, born at Cologne, and the mother of Nero. Her third husband was her uncle, the Emperor Claudian, whom she got to adopt her son, and then poisoned him, in order to place her son on the throne; but the latter, resenting her intolerable ascendancy, had her put to death in 59.
Agtelek, a village NE. of Pesth, in Hungary with vast stalactite caverns, some of them of great height.
Agua′do, A. M., an enormously wealthy banker of Spanish-Jewish descent, born in Seville, and naturalised in France (1784-1842).
Aguas Calientes (31), a high-lying inland trading town in Mexico.
Ague-cheek, Sir Andrew, a silly squire in “Twelfth Night.”
Aguesseau′, d', a French magistrate under Louis XIV. and Louis XV., of unimpeachable integrity and unselfish devotion, a learned jurist and law reformer, and held high posts in the administration of justice (1668-1751).
Aguilar, Grace, a Jewess, born at Hackney; authoress of “Magic Wreath,” “Home Influence,” “Vale of Cedars”; of a delicate constitution, died young (1816-1847).
A′gulhas, Cape (i. e. the Needles), the most southerly point of Africa, 100 m. ESE. of the Cape, and along with the bank of the whole south coast, dangerous to shipping.
A′hab, a king of Israel fond of splendour, and partial to the worship of Baal (918-896 B.C.).
Ahasue′rus, a traditionary figure known as the Wandering Jew; also the name of several kings of Persia.
Ahaz, a king of Judah who first brought Judea under tribute to Assyria.
Ahlden, Castle of, a castle in Lüneburg Heath, the nearly lifelong prison-house of the wife of George I. and the mother of George II. and of Sophie Dorothea of Prussia.
Ahmadabad (148), a chief town of Guzerat, in the Bombay Presidency, a populous city and of great splendour in the last century, of which gorgeous relics remain.
Ahmed, a prince in the “Arabian Nights,” noted for a magic tent which would expand so as to shelter an army, and contract so that it could go into one's pocket.
Ah′med Shah, the founder of the Afghan dynasty and the Afghan power (1724-1773).
Ahmednug′ar (41), a considerable Hindu town 122 m. E. of Bombay.
Aholibah, prostitution personified. See Ezek. xxiii.
Aholibamah, a grand daughter of Cain, beloved by a seraph, who at the Flood bore her away to another planet.
Ah′riman, the Zoroastrian impersonation of the evil principle, to whom all the evils of the world are ascribed.
Aidan, St., the archbishop of Lindisfarne, founder of the monastery, and the apostle of Northumbria, sent thither from Iona on the invitation of King Oswald in 635.
Aignan, St., the bishop of Orleans, defended it against Attila and his Huns in 451.
Aiguillon, Duke d', corrupt minister of France, previously under trial for official plunder of money, which was quashed, at the corrupt court of Louis XV., and the tool of Mme. Du Barry, with whom he rose and fell (1720-1782).
Aikin, Dr. John, a popular writer, and author, with Mrs. Barbauld, his sister, of “Evenings at Home” (1747-1822).
Aikman, W., an eminent Scotch portrait-painter (1682-1731).
Ailly, Pierre d', a cardinal of the Romish Church, and eminent as a theologian, presided at the council of Constance which condemned Huss (1350-1420).
Ailsa Craig, a rocky islet of Ayrshire, 10 m. NW. of Girvan, 2 m. in circumference, which rises abruptly out of the sea at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde to a height of 1114 ft.
Aimard, Gustave, a French novelist, born in Paris; died insane (1818-1883).
Aimé, St., archbishop of Sens, in France; d. 690; festival, 13th Sept.
Ain, a French river, has its source in the Jura Mts., and falls into the Rhône; also a department of France between the Rhône and Savoy.
Ainmiller, a native of Münich, the reviver of glass-painting in Germany (1807-1870).
Ai′nos, a primitive thick-set, hairy race, now confined to Yezo and the islands N. of Japan, aboriginal to that quarter of the globe, and fast dying out.
Ainsworth, R., an English Latin lexicographer (1660-1743).
Ainsworth, W. H., a popular English novelist, the author of “Rookwood” and “Jack Sheppard,” as well as novels of an antiquarian and historical character (1805-1882).
Ain-Tab (20), a Syrian garrison town 60 m. NE. of Aleppo; trade in hides, leather, and cotton.
Aird, Thomas, a Scottish poet, author of the “Devil's Dream,” the “Old Bachelor,” and the “Old Scotch Village”; for nearly 30 years editor of the Dumfries Herald (1802-1876).
Airdrie (19), a town in Lanarkshire, 11 m. E. of Glasgow, in a district rich in iron and coal; is of rapid growth; has cotton-mills, foundries, etc.
Airds Moss, a moor in Ayrshire, between the rivers Ayr and Lugar.
Aire, a Yorkshire river which flows into the Ouse; also a French river, affluent of the Aisne.
Airy, Sir G. B., an eminent English astronomer, mathematician, and man of science, astronomer-royal from 1836 to 1881, retired on a pension; was the first to enunciate the complete theory of the rainbow.
Aisne, a French river which, after a course of 150 m., falls into the Oise near Compiègne; also a department in the N. of France.
Aïsse, Mlle., a Circassienne brought to France about 1700; left letters on French society in the eighteenth century, sparkling with wit and full of interest.
Aiton, Wm., a botanist, born in Lanarkshire, the first director of the Royal Gardens at Kew (1731-1793).
Aitzema, Leo, historian of Friesland (1600-1669).
Aix (22), a town, the ancient capital of Provence, 20 m. N. of Marseilles, the seat of an archbishop and a university; founded by the Romans 123 B.C.; near it Marius defeated the Teutons.
Aix, Isle of, island in the Atlantic, at the mouth of the Charente.
Aix-la-Chapelle′ (103), in Rhenish Prussia, one of the oldest cities in Germany, made capital of the German empire by Charlemagne; derives its name from its mineral springs; is a centre of manufacturing industries and an important trade; is celebrated for its octagonal cathedral (in the middle of which is a stone marking the burial-place of Charlemagne), for treaties of peace in 1668 and 1748, and for a European congress in 1818.
Aix-les-Bains′, a small town near Chambéry, in the dep. of Savoy, and much frequented by invalids for its waters and baths.
Ajac′cio (18), the capital of Corsica, the birthplace of the Bonaparte family, of Cardinal Fesch, and Bacciochi.
Ajalon, Valley of, in Palestine, scene of a battle between Joshua and five Canaanitish kings, during which the sun and moon stood still at the prayer of Joshua, to enable him to finish his victory.
A′jan Coast, a district on the E. coast of Africa, from Cape Guardafui to the mouth of the Juba, under the protectorate of Germany.
A′jax the name of two Greek heroes in the Trojan war, and the synonym of a fiery and impetuous warrior: Ajax, the son of Telamon of Sparta, one of the bravest of the Greeks, who, on the death of Achilles, contended with Ulysses for his arms, but was defeated, in consequence of which he lost his reason and put an end to his life; and Ajax, the son of Oïleus, swift of foot, like Achilles, who suffered shipwreck on his homeward voyage, as a judgment for an outrage he perpetrated on the person of Cassandra in the temple of Athena in Troy.
Ajmere′ (68), a city in a small territory in the heart of Rajputana, under the rule of the Viceroy; well built, and contains some famous edifices.
Ajodhya, an ancient city of Oudh, 77 m. E. of Lucknow, once, on religious grounds, one of the largest and most magnificent cities of India, now in ruins; the modern town is an insignificant place, but has an annual fair, attended by often 600,000 pilgrims.
Ak′aba, a gulf forming the NE. inlet of the Red Sea.
Akakia, Doctor, a satire of a very biting nature by Voltaire, directed against pretentious pedants of science in the person of Maupertuis, the President of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, which so excited the anger of Frederick the Great, the patron of the Academy, that he ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman, after 30,000 copies of it had been sold in Paris!
Akakia, Martin, physician of Francis I., born at Châlons-sur-Marne, his real name being Sans-Malice; d. 1551.
Ak′bar, the great Mogul emperor of India, who, after a minority of a few years, assumed the reins of government at the age of eighteen, and in ten or twelve years, such was his power of conquest, had the whole of India north of the Vindhya Mts. subject to his rule. He was wise in government as well as powerful in war, and one of the most large-minded and largest-hearted rulers recorded in history. He reigned half a century (1542-1605).
Akenside, Mark, an English physician, who wrote, among other productions and pieces, the “Hymn to the Naiads,” especially a poem entitled the “Pleasures of Imagination,” much quoted from at one time, and suggested by the study of Addison on the Imagination in the Spectator (1721-1770).
Akers, B. P., an able American sculptor (1825-1861).
Akerman′ (55), a fortified town in Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Dniester.
Akiba, Ben Joseph, a famous Jewish rabbi of the 2nd century, a great authority in the matter of Jewish tradition, flayed alive by the Romans for being concerned in a revolt in 135.
Akkas, a wandering race of negro dwarfs in Central Africa, with large heads and slender necks, who live by hunting.
Akron (27), a town in Ohio, U.S., seat of manufactures and center of traffic.
Aksakof′, a Russian littérateur and advocate of Panslavism (1823-1886).
Aksu (20), a trading town in E. Turkestan, 250 m. NE. of Yarkand.
Ak′yab (37), the capital of Aracan, in British Burmah, 90 m. SE. of Calcutta.
Al Rakim, the dog that guarded the Seven Sleepers (q. v.), and that stood by them all through their long sleep.
Alaba′ma (1,513), one of the United States of N. America, traversed by a river of the name, a little larger than England, highly fertile and a great cotton-growing country, and abounding in iron, coal, and marble, bounded on the W. by the Mississippi, on the N. by Tennessee, and the E. by Georgia.
Alabama, The, a vessel built in Birkenhead for the Confederates in the late American Civil War, for the devastation done by which, according to the decision of a court of arbitration, the English Government had to pay heavy damages of three millions of money.
Alacoque, Marie, a French nun of a mystic tendency, the founder of the devotion of the Sacred Heart (1647-1690).
Alad′din, one of the chiefs of the Assassins in the 13th century, better known by the name of the Old Man of the Mountain.
Aladdin, a character in the “Arabian Nights,” who became possessed of a wonderful lamp and a wonderful ring, by rubbing which together he could call two evil genii to do his bidding.
Aladinists, free-thinkers among the Mohammedans.
Alago′as (397), a maritime province of Brazil, N. of Pernambuco, with tropical products as well as fine timber and dye-woods.
Alain de L'Isle, a professor of theology in the University of Paris, surnamed the Doctor universel (1114-1203).
Alains. See Alans.
Alais′ (18), a town at the foot of the Cévennes, in the centre of a mining district; once the stronghold of French Protestantism.
Alaman′ni, Luigi, an Italian poet and diplomatist, born at Florence (1495-1556).
Aland Isles, a group of 300 small islands in the Gulf of Bothnia, of which 80 are inhabited; fortified by Russia.
Alans, a barbarous horde from the East, who invaded W. Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries, but were partly exterminated and partly ousted by the Visigoths.
Alar′con y Mendo′za, Juan Ruiz de, a Spanish dramatist born in Mexico, who, though depreciated by his contemporaries, ranks after 200 years of neglect among the foremost dramatic geniuses of Spain, next even to Cervantes and Lope de Vega; he was a humpback, had an offensive air of conceit, and was very unpopular; he wrote at least twenty dramas, some of which have been translated into French; d. in 1639.
Al′aric I., the king of the Visigoths, a man of noble birth, who, at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century, ravaged Greece, invaded Italy, and took and pillaged Rome; died at Cosenza, in Calabria, in 412, at the early age of thirty-four.
Alaric II., king of the Visigoths, whose dominions included all Gaul and most of Spain; defeated by the Franks at Poitiers, and killed by the hand of Clovis, their king, in 567.
Alaric Cotin, Voltaire's nickname for Frederick the Great, the former in recognition of him as a warrior, the latter as a would-be littérateur, after an indifferent French poet of the name of Cotin.
Alas′co, John, the uncle of Sigismund, king of Poland, and a zealous promoter in Poland of the Reformation, the friend of Erasmus and Zwinglius (1499-1560).
Alas′ka (32), an immense territory belonging to the U.S. by purchase from Russia, extending from British N. America to Behring Strait; it is poor in resources, and the inhabitants, who are chiefly Indians and Eskimos, live by hunting and fishing, and by the export of salmon; seal fishery valuable, however.
Alasnam, a hero related of in the “Arabian Nights” as having erected eight statues of gold, and in quest of a statue for a ninth unoccupied pedestal, finding what he wanted in the person of a beautiful woman for a wife.
Alas′tor, an avenging spirit, given to torment families whose history has been stained by some crime.
A′lava (97), the southernmost of the three Basque provinces of Spain, largest, but least populous; rich in minerals, and fertile in soil.
Alava, Ricardo de, a Spanish general, born in Vittoria, joined the national party, and was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington, and became eventually ambassador to London and Paris (1771-1843).
Alba Longa, a city of Latium older than Rome.
Albacete (229), a province in Spain, with a capital (30) of same name, 173 m. SE. of Madrid.
Alban Lake, near Alban Mount, 6 m. in circuit, occupying the basin of an extinct volcano, its surface 961 ft. above the sea-level.
Alban Mount, a small mountain overlooking Alba Longa.
Alban, St., the first martyr in Britain to the Christian faith in 303; represented in art as carrying his head between his hands, having been beheaded.
Alba′ni, an Italian painter, a disciple of Caracci, born at Bologna; surnamed the Anacreon of painting; his pictures more distinguished for grace than vigour.
Alba′ni, an illustrious Roman family, members of which attained the highest dignities in the Church, one, Clement XI., having been Pope.
Albani, Mme., née Emma la Jeunesse, a well-known and highly popular operatic singer of French-Canadian descent; b. 1847.
Alba′nia, a region in Balkan peninsula, on the Adriatic, extending from Servia to Greece.
Albano, Lake of, a small crater-like lake 15 m. SE. of Rome, near which rises the Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope has a villa.
Albany, the old Celtic name for the Scottish highlands.
Albany, a town in W. Australia, on King George Sound, 261 m. SE. of Perth, a port of call for Australian liners; also the capital (94) of the State of New York, on the Hudson River, a well-appointed city; seat of justice for the State, with a large trade and numerous manufactures.
Albany, Countess of, wife of English pretender, Prince Charles Stuart, a dissolute woman (1753-1824).
Albany, the Duke of, a title formerly given to a member of the royal family, and revived in the present reign.
Albany, Duchess of, daughter of Prince Waldeck Pyrmont and widow of Prince Leopold of England; b. 1861, widow since 1884.
Albategni, a distinguished Arabian astronomer, born in Mesopotamia in the 9th or 10th century of our era; his observations extended over 50 years; he so improved the methods and instruments of observation as to earn the title of the Ptolemy of the Arabs.
Albatross, the largest and strongest of sea-birds, that ranges over the southern seas, often seen far from land; it is a superstition among sailors that it is disastrous to shoot one.
Albero′ni, an Italian of humble birth, became a Cardinal of the Church and Prime Minister to Philip V. of Spain, wrought hard to restore Spain to its ancient grandeur, was defeated in his project by the quadruple alliance of England, France, Austria, and Holland, and obliged to retire (1664-1752).
Albert, archbishop of Mainz, a dignity granted him by Pope Leo X. at the ransom of £15,000, which he was unable to pay, and which, as the Pope needed it for building St. Peter's, he borrowed, the Pope granting him the power to sell indulgences in order to repay the loan, in which traffic Tetzel was his chief salesman, a trade which roused the wrath of Luther, and provoked the German Reformation (1450-1545).
Albert, the last Grandmaster of the Teutonic knights, who being “religious in an eminent degree and shaken in his belief” took zealously to Protestantism and came under the influence of Luther, who advised him to declare himself Duke of Prussia, under the wing of Sigismund of Poland, in defiance of the Teutonic order as no longer worthy of bed and board on the earth, and so doing, became founder of the Prussian State (1490-1568).
Albert, markgrave of Brandenburg, defined by Carlyle “a failure of a Fritz,” with “features” of a Frederick the Great in him, “but who burnt away his splendid qualities as a mere temporary shine for the able editors, and never came to anything, full of fire, too much of it wildfire, not in the least like an Alcibiades except in the change of fortune he underwent” (1522-1557).
Albert, Prince, second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, born Aug. 26, 1819, an accomplished man with a handsome presence, who became the consort of Queen Victoria in 1840, and from his prudence and tact was held in the highest honour by the whole community, but died at Windsor of typhoid fever, Dec. 14, 1861, to the unspeakable sorrow of both Queen and country.
Albert, St., bishop of Liège, was assassinated by the emissaries of the Emperor Henry VI. in 1195. Festival, Nov. 21.
Albert Edward. See Wales, Prince of.
Albert I., emperor of Germany from 1298 to 1308, eldest son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, “a most clutching, strong-fisted, dreadfully hungry, tough, and unbeautiful man, whom his nephew at last had to assassinate, and did assassinate, as he crossed the river Reuss with him in a boat, May 1, 1308.”
Albert II., a successor, “who got three crowns—Hungary, Bohemia, and the Imperial—in one year, and we hope a fourth,” says the old historian, “which was a heavenly and eternal one,” for he died the next year, 1439.
Albert III., elector of Brandenburg. See Achilles of Germany.
Albert Medal, a medal of gold and of bronze, instituted in 1866, awarded to civilians for acts of heroism by sea or land.
Albert the Bear, markgrave of Brandenburg, called the Bear, “not from his looks or qualities, for he was a tall handsome man, but from the cognisance on his shield, an able man, had a quick eye as well as a strong hand, and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things, was the shining figure and the great man of the North in his day, got much in the North and kept it, got Brandenburg for one there, a conspicuous country ever since,” says Carlyle, “and which grows more so in our late times” (1100-1175).
Albert Nyan′za, a lake in Equatorial Africa, in the Nile basin, discovered by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864, 150 m. long by 40 broad, and 2500 feet above sea-level.
Alber′ta (26), a fertile region with large forests in British America, on the E. slope of the Rocky Mountains, the south abounding in cattle ranches, and the mountainous districts in minerals.
Alberti, an illustrious Florentine family, rivals of the Medicis and the Albrizzi.
Alber′tus Magnus, one of the greatest of the scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, teacher of Thomas Aquinas, supreme in knowledge of the arts and sciences of the time, and regarded by his contemporaries in consequence as a sorcerer (1190-1280).
Albi, a town of some antiquity and note in S. of France, 22 m. NE. of Toulouse.
Albigen′ses, a religious sect, odious, as heretical, to the Church, which sprung up about Albi, in the S. of France, in the 12th century, against which Pope Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade, which was carried on by Simon de Montfort in the 13th century, and by the Inquisition afterwards, to their utter annihilation.
Albinos, persons or animals with preternaturally pale skin and fair hair, also with pupils of a red or pink colour, and eyes too weak to bear full light.
Albinus, an able professor of anatomy and therapeutics at Leyden (1696-1770).
Albion, a white cliff, the ancient name of Great Britain.
Alboin, king of the Lombards in the 6th century, from 561 to 573; invaded Italy as far as the Tiber, and set up his capital in Pavia; incurred the resentment of his wife, who had him assassinated for forcing her to drink wine out of the skull of her father.
Alborak, a wonderful horse of Mahomet, an impersonation of the lightning as his steed.
Albor′noz, a Spanish statesman, archbishop of Toledo, a bold defender of the faith against the Moor and a plain-spoken man in the interest of Christianity (1310-1367).
Albrecht. See Albert.
Albrizzi, a powerful Florentine family, rivals of the Medicis and the Alberti.
Albue′ra, a Spanish village 12 m. SE. of Badajoz, scene of a victory (May 16, 1811) of General Beresford over Marshal Soult.
Albufe′ra, a lake on the coast of Spain, 7 m. S. of Valencia, near which Marshal Suchet gained a victory over the English in 1811.
Al′bula, Swiss mountain pass in the canton of Grisons, 7595 ft. high.
Albumen, a glairy substance a constituent of plants and animals, and found nearly pure in the white of an egg or in the serum of the blood.
Albuquerque′, Alfonso d', a celebrated Portuguese patriot and navigator, the founder of the Portuguese power in India, who, after securing a footing in India for Portugal that he sought for, settled in Goa, where his recall at the instance of jealous rivals at home gave him such a shock that he died of a broken heart just as he was leaving. The Indians long remembered his benign rule, and used to visit his tomb to pray him to deliver them from the oppression of his successors (1453-1513).
Albyn, ancient Celtic name of Scotland.
Alcæ′us of Mitylene, a Greek lyric poet, an aristocrat by birth, a contemporary and an alleged lover of Sappho, and much admired by Horace; flourished about 600 B.C.
Alca′la de Hena′res (14), a town in Spain, the birthplace of Cervantes, 21 m. E. of Madrid, long the seat of a famous university founded by Cardinal Ximenes.
Alcan′tara, a town of Spain, on the Tagus, near Portugal, with a bridge of six arches, 670 ft. long and 210 ft. high, built in honour of Trajan in 104. The Order of Alcantara, a religious and military order, was established in 1176 here, for defence against the Moors, and was suppressed in 1835.
Alceste, the chief character in Molière's Misanthrope.
Alces′tis, the wife of Admetus, who gave herself up to death to save her husband. Hercules descended to the lower world and brought her back. She is the subject of one of the tragedies of Euripides.
Alchemy, the early analysis of substances which has in modern times developed into chemistry, and which aimed chiefly at the discovery of the philosopher's stone, of a universal solvent, and of the elixir of life; it has been defined to be “an art without art, which has its beginning in falsehood, its middle in toil, and its end in poverty.”
Alcibi′ades, an Athenian of high birth, and related to Pericles, possessed of a handsome person, brilliant abilities, and great wealth, but was of a wayward temper and depraved, whom Socrates tried hard to win over to virtue, but failed. He involved his country in a rash expedition against Sicily, served and betrayed it by turns in the Peloponnesian war, and died by assassination in exile (450-404 B.C.).
Alci′des, the grandson of Alcæus, a patronymic of Hercules.
Alcin′ous, a king of the Phæacians, the father of Nausicaa, who figures in the Odyssey as the host of Ulysses, who had been shipwrecked on his shore.
Alci′ra (18), a walled town in Spain, on an island 22 m. SW. of Valencia.
Alcman, an early Greek lyric poet, born at Sardis.
Alcme′ne, the wife of Amphitryon and the mother of Hercules.
Alcmeonidæ, a powerful Athenian family, of which Pericles and Alcibiades were members, who professed to be descended from Alcmæon, the grandson of Nestor.
Alcock, John, an eminent ecclesiastic of the reign of Edward IV., distinguished for his love of learning and learned men; d. 1500.
Alcohol, pure or highly rectified spirit obtained from fermented saccharine solutions by distillation, and the intoxicating principle of all spirituous liquors.
Alcoholism, the results, acute or chronic, of the deleterious action of alcohol on the human system.
Alcoran′. See Korân.
Alcott, Louisa Mary, a popular American authoress, who acted as a nurse to the wounded during the Civil War; her works mostly addressed to the young (1832-1888).
Alcoy (30), a town in Spain, N. of Alicanti; staple manufacture, paper.
Al′cuin, a learned Englishman, a disciple of Bede; invited by Charlemagne to introduce scholarly culture into the empire and establish libraries and schools of learning; was one of those men whose work lies more in what they influence others to do than in what they do themselves (735-804).
Alcy′one, daughter of Æolus, who threw herself into the sea after her husband, who had perished in shipwreck, and was changed into the kingfisher.
Alde′baran, the bull's-eye, a star of the first magnitude in the eye of the constellation Taurus; it is the sun in the Arabian mythology.
Aldehyde, a limpid, very volatile liquid, of a suffocating odour, obtained from the oxidation of alcohol.
Al′derney (2), one of the Channel Islands, 3 or 4 m. long by 2 broad, celebrated for its breed of cows; separated from Cape de la Hogue by the dangerous Race of Alderney.
Al′dershot, a permanent camp, established in 1855, for instruction in military manoeuvres, on a moorland 35 m. SW. of London.
Aldine Editions, editions, chiefly of the classics, issued from the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice in the 16th century, and remarkable for the correctness of the text and the beauty and clearness of the printing.
Aldingar, Sir, legendary character, the steward of Eleanor, wife of Henry II., who accused her of infidelity, and offered to substantiate the charge by combat, when an angel in the form of a child appeared and certified her innocence.
Aldobrandini, a Florentine jurisconsult (1500-1558).
Al′dred, bishop of Worcester in the reign of Edward the Confessor, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, became archbishop of York, and crowned the last of the Saxon and the first of the Norman kings of England; d. 1063.
Al′drich, dean of Oxford, an accomplished ecclesiastic; was a skilful musician, and composed many services for the Church; wrote a system of logic, long in use in Oxford University (1647-1710).
Aldrovan′di, Ulysses, a famous Italian naturalist of Bologna, who collected an immense body of interesting facts in natural history, published partly in his lifetime and partly after his death (1522-1607).
Aldus Manutius, or Aldo Manuzio, an Italian printer, born at Bassano, established a printing-office in Venice in 1488, issued the celebrated Aldine Editions of the classics, and invented the italic type, for the exclusive use of which for many years he obtained a patent, though the honour of the invention is more probably due to his typefounder, Franciso de Bologna, than to him (1447-1515).
Alec′to, one of the three Eumenides or Furies.
Aleman′, a Spanish novelist, author of the celebrated romance Guzman de Alfarache, which in 6 years ran through 26 editions, was translated several times into French; died in Mexico in 1610.
Aleman′ni, a confederacy of tribes which appeared on the banks of the Rhine in the 3rd cent., and for long gave no small trouble to Rome, but whose incursions were arrested, first by Maximinus, and finally by Clovis in 496, who made them subject to the Franks, hence the modern names in French for Germany and the Germans.
Alemte′jo (369), a southern province of Portugal; soil fertile to the east.
Alençon (17), a town in the dep. of Orne, 105 m. W. of Paris, once famous for its lace.
Alençon, Counts and Dukes of, a title borne by several members of the house of Valois—e. g. Charles of Valois, who fell at Crécy (1346); Jean IV., who fell at Agincourt (1415).
Alep′po (130), a city in Northern Syria, one of the finest in the East, once one of the greatest trading centres in the world.
Ale′sia, a strong place in the E. of Gaul, which, as situated on a hill and garrisoned by 80,000 Gauls, cost Cæsar no small trouble to take.
Alesius, or Alane, a noted Reformer, born in Edinburgh, converted to Protestantism by Patrick Hamilton; was driven first from Scotland and then from England, till he settled as a theological professor in Germany, and took an active part in the Reformation there (1500-1563).
Alessandria (78), a strongly fortified and stirring town on the Tenaro, in Northern Italy, the centre of 8 railways, 55 m. SE. of Turin.
Alessi, architect, born at Perugia, architect of the monastery and church of the Escurial, q. v. (1500-1572).
Aletsch Glacier, The, the largest of the glaciers of the Alps, which descends round the south of the Jungfrau into the valley of the Upper Rhône.
Aleu′tian Islands (2) a chain of volcanic islands, 150 in number, stretching over the N. Pacific from Alaska in N. America, to Kamchatka, in Asia.
Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia, son of Philip by Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus; born at Pella, 356 B.C.; had the philosopher Aristotle for tutor, and being instructed by him in all kinds of serviceable knowledge, ascended the throne on the death of his father, at the age of 20; after subduing Greece, had himself proclaimed generalissimo of the Greeks against the Persians, and in 2 years after his accession crossed the Hellespont, followed by 30,000 foot and 5000 horse; with these conquered the army of Darius the Persian at Granicus in 334 and at Issus in 333; subdued the principal cities of Syria, overran Egypt, and crossing the Euphrates and Tigris, routed the Persians at Arbela; hurrying on farther, he swept everything before him, till the Macedonians refusing to advance, he returned to Babylon, when he suddenly fell ill of fever, and in eleven days died at the early age of 32. He is said to have slept every night with his Homer and his sword under his pillow, and the inspiring idea of his life, all unconsciously to himself belike, is defined to have been the right of Greek intelligence to override and rule the merely glittering barbarity of the East.
Alexander, St., patriarch of Alexandria from 311 to 326, contributed to bring about the condemnation of Arius at the Council of Nice; festival, Feb 26.
Alexander, Solomon, first Protestant bishop of Jerusalem, of Jewish birth, cut off during a journey to Cairo (1799-1845).
Alexander III., pope, successor to Adrian IV., an able man, whose election Barbarossa at first opposed, but finally assented to; took the part of Thomas à Becket against Henry II. and canonised him, as also St. Bernard. Pope from 1159 to 1181.
Alexander VI., called Borgia from his mother, a Spaniard by birth, obtained the popehood by bribery in 1492 in succession to Innocent VIII., lived a licentious life and had several children, among others the celebrated Lucretia and the infamous Cæsar Borgia; d. in 1503, after a career of crime, not without suspicion of poison. In addition to Alexanders III. and VI., six of the name were popes: Alexander I., pope from 108 to 117; Alexander II., pope from 1061 to 1073; Alexander IV., pope from 1254 to 1261; Alexander V., pope from 1409 to 1410; Alexander VII., pope from 1653 to 1667, who was forced to kiss his hand to Louis XIV.; Alexander VIII., pope from 1689 to 1691.
Alexander I., king of Scotland, son of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling, a vigorous prince, surnamed on that account The Fierce; subdued a rising in the North, and stood stoutly in defence of the independent rights of both Crown and Church against the claim of supremacy over both on the part of England; d. 1124.
Alexander II., of Scotland, successor of William the Lion, his father, a just and wise ruler, aided the English barons against John, and married Joan, the sister of Henry III.; d. 1249.
Alexander III., son of the preceding, married a daughter of Henry III., sided with him against the barons, successfully resisted the invasion of Haco, king of Norway, and on the conclusion of peace gave his daughter in marriage to Haco's successor Eric; accidentally killed by falling over a cliff near Kinghorn when hunting in 1285.
Alexander I., emperor of Russia, son and successor of Paul I., took part in the European strife against the encroachments of Napoleon, was present at the battle of Austerlitz, fought the French at Pultusk and Eylau, was defeated at Friedland, had an interview with Napoleon at Tilsit in 1813, entered into a coalition with the other Powers against France, which ended in the capture of Paris and the abdication of Napoleon in 1814. Under his reign Russia rose into political importance in Europe (1777-1825).
Alexander II., emperor of Russia, son and successor of Nicholas I., fell heir to the throne while the siege of Sebastopol was going on; on the conclusion of a peace applied himself to reforms in the state and the consolidation and extension of the empire. His reign is distinguished by a ukase decreeing in 1861 the emancipation of the serfs numbering 23 millions, by the extension of the empire in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and by the war with Turkey in the interest of the Slavs in 1877-78, which was ended by the peace of San Stephano, revised by the treaty of Berlin. His later years were clouded with great anxiety, owing to the spread of Nihilism, and he was killed by a bomb thrown at him by a Nihilist (1818-1881).
Alexander III., emperor of Russia, son of the preceding, followed in the footsteps of his father, and showed a marked disposition to live on terms of peace with the other Powers; his reign not distinguished by any very remarkable event. The present Czar is his son and successor (1845-1894).
Alexander I., king of Servia, b. 1876.
Alexander Nevsky, grand-duke of Russia, conquered the Swedes, the Danes, and the Teutonic Knights on the banks of the Neva, freed Russia from tribute to the Mongols, is one of the saints of the Russian Church.
Alexander of Hales, the Doctor irrefragabilis of the Schools, an English ecclesiastic, a member of the Franciscan order, who in his “Summa Universæ Theologiæ” formulated, by severe rigour of Aristotelian logic, the theological principles and ecclesiastical rites of the Romish Church; d. in 1222.
Alexander of Paris, a Norman poet of the 16th century, who wrote a poem on Alexander the Great in twelve-syllabled lines, called after him Alexandrines.
Alexander of the North, Charles XII. of Sweden.
Alexander Seve′rus, a Roman emperor, a wise, virtuous, and pious prince, conquered Artaxerxes, king of Persia, in an expedition against him, but setting out against the Germans, who were causing trouble on the frontiers of the empire, fell a victim, along with his mother, to an insurrection among his troops not far from Mainz (205-235).
Alexan′dria (230), a world-famous city, the chief port of Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., at one time a great centre of learning, and in possession of the largest library of antique literature in the world, which was burned by the Caliph Omar in 640; at one time a place of great commerce, but that has very materially decayed since the opening of the Suez Canal. Alexandria, from its intimate connection with both East and West, gave birth in early times to a speculative philosophy which drew its principles from eastern as well as western sources, which was at its height on the first encounter of these elements.
Alexandria (14), a town on the Potomac, 7 m. S. of Washington, accessible to vessels of the largest size; also a thriving town (7) on the river Leven, 3 m. N. of Dumbarton.
Alexandrian Codex, an MS. on parchment of the Septuagint Scriptures in Greek in uncial letters, which belonged to the library of the patriarchs of Alexandra.
Alexandrian Library, the library burned by the Caliph Omar in 642, said to have contained 700,000 volumes.
Alexandri′na Lake, a lake in Australia into which the river Murray flows.
Alexandrine Philosophy, a Gnostic philosophy, combining eastern with western forms of thought.
Alexandrines. See Alexander of Paris.
Alexan′dropol (22), the largest town in the Erivan district of Russian Armenia, and a fortress of great strength.
Alexis, St., the patron saint of beggars and pilgrims, represented in art with a staff and in a pilgrim's habit; sometimes lying on a mat, with a letter in his hand, dying.
Alexis Michaelovitch, czar of Russia, the father of Peter the Great, the first czar who acted on the policy of cultivating friendly relations with other European states (1630-1677).
Alexis Petrovitch, son of Peter the Great, conspired against his father as he had broken the heart of his mother, was condemned to death; after his trial by secret judges he was found dead in prison (1695-1718).
Alexius Comne′nus, emperor of the East, began life as a soldier, was a great favourite with the soldiers, who, in a period of anarchy, raised him to the throne at the period of the first crusade, when the empire was infested by Turks on the one hand and Normans on the other, while the crusaders who passed through his territory proved more troublesome than either. He managed to hold the empire together in spite of these troubles, and to stave off the doom that impended all through his reign of thirty-seven years (1048-1118).
Alfa, an esparto grass valuable for making paper.
Al′fadur, the All-Father or uncreated supreme in the Norse mythology.
Alfara′bi, an Arabian philosopher of the 10th century, had Avicenna for a disciple, wrote on various subjects, and was the first to attempt an encyclopedic work.
Alfie′ri, an Italian dramatist, spent his youth in dissipation before he devoted himself to the dramatic art; on the success of his first drama “Cleopatra,” met at Florence with the Countess of Albany, the wife of Charles Edward Stuart, on whose death he married her; was at Paris when the Revolution broke out, and returned to Florence, where he died and was buried. Tragedy was his forte as a dramatist (1749-1803).
Alfonsine Tables, astronomical tables drawn up at Toledo by order of Alfonso X. in 1252 to correct the anomalies in the Ptolemaic tables; they divided the year into 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 16 seconds.
Alfonso I., the “Conqueror,” founder of the kingdom of Portugal, was the first king, originally only count, as his father before him; in that capacity took up arms against the Moors, and defeating them had himself proclaimed king on the field of battle, a title confirmed to him by the Pope and made good by his practically subjecting all Portugal to his sway (1110-1185).
Alfonso X., the Wise, or the Astronomer, king of Castile and Leon, celebrated as an astronomer and a philosopher; after various successes over the Moors, first one son and then another rose against him and drove him from the throne; died of chagrin at Seville two years later. His fame connects itself with the preparation of the Alfonsine Tables, and the remark that “the universe seemed a crank machine, and it was a pity the Creator had not taken advice.” It was a saying of his, “old wood to burn, old books to read, old wine to drink, and old friends to converse with” (1226-1284).
Alfonso III., surnamed the Great, king of Asturias, ascended the throne in 866, fought against and gained numerous victories over the Moors; the members of his family rose against him and compelled him to abdicate, but on a fresh incursion of the Moors he came forth from his retreat and triumphantly beat them back; died in Zamora, 910.
Alford, Henry, vicar of Wymeswold and afterwards Dean of Canterbury; his works and writings were numerous, and included poems and hymns. His great work, however, was an edition of the Greek New Testament, with notes, various readings, and comments (1810-1871).
Alford, Michael, a learned English Jesuit, left two great works, “Britannia Illustrata” and “Annales Ecclesiastici et Civiles Britannorum.”
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, son of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria; b. 1844.
Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons, and the most celebrated and greatest of all the Saxon kings. His troubles were with the Danes, who at the time of his accession infested the whole country north of the Thames; with these he fought nine battles with varied success, till after a lull of some years he was surprised by Gunthrum, then king, in 878, and driven to seek refuge on the island of Athelney. Not long after this he left his retreat and engaged Gunthrum at Edington, and after defeating him formed a treaty with him, which he never showed any disposition to break. After this Alfred devoted himself to legislation, the administration of government, and the encouragement of learning, being a man of letters himself. England owes much to him both as a man and a ruler, and it was he who in the creation of a fleet laid the first foundation of her greatness as monarch of the deep. His literary works were translations of the “General History” of Orosius, the “Ecclesiastical History” of Bede, Boëthius's “Consolations of Philosophy,” and the “Cura Pastoralis” of Pope Gregory, all executed for the edification of his subjects (849-901).
Algæ, sea-weeds and plants of the same order under fresh water as well as salt; they are flowerless, stemless, and cellular throughout.
Algar′di, an Italian sculptor of note, born at Bologna; his greatest work is an alto-relievo, the largest existing, of Pope Leo restraining Attila from marching on Rome (1602-1654).
Algaro′tti, Francesco, a clever Italian author, born at Venice, whom, for his wit, Frederick the Great was attached to and patronised, “one of the first beaux esprits of the age,” according to Wilhelmina, Frederick's sister. Except his wit, it does not appear Frederick got much good out of him, for the want of the due practical faculty, all the faculty he had having evaporated in talk (1712-1764).
Algar′ve (240), the southernmost province of Portugal, hilly, but traversed with rich valleys, which yield olives, vines, oranges, &c.
Algebra, a universal arithmetic of Arabian origin or Arabian transmission, in which symbols are employed to denote operations, and letters to represent number and quantity.
Alge′ria, in the N. of Africa, belongs to France, stretches between Morocco on the W. and Tripoli and Tunis on the E., the country being divided into the Tell along the sea-coast, which is fertile, the Atlas Highlands overlooking it on the S., on the southern slopes of which are marshy lakes called “shotts,” on which alfa grows wild, and the Sahara beyond, rendered habitable here and there by the creation of artesian wells; its extent nearly equal in area to that of France, and the population numbers about four millions, of which only a quarter of a million is French. The country is divided into Departments, of which Algiers, Oran, and Constantine are the respective capitals. It has been successively under the sway of the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Arabs, the Byzantines, and the Berbers, which last were in the 16th century supplanted by the Turks. At the end of this period it became a nest of pirates, against whom a succession of expeditions were sent from several countries of Europe, but it was only with the conquest of it by the French in 1830 that this state of things was brought to an end.
Algesi′ras (12), a town and port in Spain on the Bay of Gibraltar, 5 m. across the bay; for centuries a stronghold of the Moors, but taken from them by Alfonso IX. after a siege of twenty months.
Algiers′ (75), the capital of Algeria, founded by the Arabs in 935, called the “silver city,” from the glistening white of its buildings as seen sloping up from the sea, presenting a striking appearance, was for centuries under its Bey the head-quarters of piracy in the Mediterranean, which only began to cease when Lord Exmouth bombarded the town and destroyed the fleet in the harbour. Since it fell into the hands of the French the city has been greatly improved, the fortifications strengthened, and its neighbourhood has become a frequent resort of English people in winter.
Algine, a viscous gum obtained from certain sea-weeds, used as size for textile fabrics, and for thickening soups and jellies.
Algo′a Bay, an inlet at the E. of Cape Colony, 20 m. wide, on which Port Elizabeth stands, 425 m. E. of the Cape of Good Hope.
Al′gol, a double star in the constellation Perseus, of changing brightness.
Algonquins, one of the three aboriginal races of N. American Indians, originally occupying nearly the whole region from the Churchill and Hudson Bay southward to N. Carolina, and from the E. of the Rocky Mts. to Newfoundland; the language they speak has been divided into five dialects.
Alham′bra (Red Castle), an ancient palace and stronghold of the Moorish kings of Granada, founded by Muhammed II. in 1213, decorated with gorgeous arabesques by Usuf I. (1345), erected on the crest of a hill which overlooks Granada; has suffered from neglect, bad usage, and earthquake.
A′li, the cousin of Mahomet, and one of his first followers at the age of sixteen, “a noble-minded creature, full of affection and fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him; brave as a lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood.” Became Caliph in 656, died by assassination in the Mosque at Bagdad; the Sheiks yearly commemorate his death. See Carlyle's “Heroes.”
Ali Baba. See Baba, Ali.
A′li Pasha, pasha of Janina, a bold and crafty Albanian, able man, and notorious for his cruelty as well as craft; alternately gained the favour of the Porte and lost it by the alliances he formed with hostile powers, until the Sultan sentenced him to deposition, and sent Hassan Pasha to demand his head; he offered violent resistance but being overpowered at length surrendered, when his head was severed from his body and sent to Constantinople (1741-1822).
Alican′te (40), the third seaport-town in Spain, with a spacious harbour and strongly fortified, in a province of the same name on the Mediterranean.
Aligarh′ (61), a town with a fort between Agra and Delhi, the garrison of which mutinied in 1857.
Alighie′ri, the family name of Dante.
Al′ima, an affluent on the right bank of the Congo, in French territory.
Alimentary canal, a passage 5 or 6 times the length of the body, lined throughout with mucous membrane, extends from the mouth to the anus, and includes mouth, fauces, pharynx, oesophagus, stomach, and small and large intestines.
Alison, Archibald, an Episcopal clergyman in Edinburgh, of which he was a native, best known for his “Essay on the Nature and Principles of Taste” (1757-1839).
Alison, Sir Archibald, son of the preceding, a lawyer who held several prominent legal appointments, and a historian, his great work being a “Modern History of Europe from the French Revolution to the Fall of Napoleon,” afterwards extended to the “Accession of Louis Napoleon” (1792-1867).
Alison, W. Pulteney, brother of the preceding, professor of medicine in Edinburgh University, and a philanthropist (1790-1859).
Aliwal′, a village in the Punjab, on the Sutlej, where Sir Harry Smith gained a brilliant victory over the Sikhs, who were provided with forces in superior numbers, in 1846.
Al′kahest, the presumed universal solvent of the alchemists.
Alkalies, bodies which, combining with acids form salts, are soluble in water, and properly four in number, viz., potash, soda, lithia, and ammonia.
Alkaline earths, earths not soluble in water, viz., lime, magnesia, strontia, and baryta.
Alkaloids, bodies of vegetable origin, similar in their properties, as well as toxicologically, to alkalies; contain as a rule carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen; many of them are poisonous and invaluable in medicine.
Alkmaar′ (14), the capital of N. Holland, 25 m. NW. of Amsterdam, with a large trade in cattle, grain, and cheese.
Alkmer, Henrik van, the reputed author of the first German version of “Reynard the Fox.”
All the Talents, Administration of, a ministry formed by Lord Grenville on the death of Pitt in 1806.
Al′lah, the Adorable, the Arab name for God, adopted by the Mohammedans as the name of the one God.
Allahabad′ (175), the City of God, a central city of British India, on the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, 550 m. from Calcutta, and on the railway between that city and Bombay.
Allan, David, a Scottish portrait and historical painter, born at Alloa; illustrated Ramsay's “Gentle Shepherd”; his greatest work is the “Origin of Painting,” now in the National Gallery at Edinburgh (1744-1796).
Allan, Sir William, a distinguished Scottish historical painter, born at Edinburgh, many of his paintings being on national subjects; he was a friend of Scott, who patronised his work, and in succession to Wilkie, president of the Royal Scottish Academy; painted “Circassian Captives” and “Slave-Market at Constantinople” (1782-1850).
Allantois, a membrane enveloping the foetus in mammals, birds, and reptiles.
Allard′, a French general, entered the service of Runjeet Singh at Lahore, trained his troops in European war tactics, and served him against the Afghans; died at Peshawar (1785-1839).
Allegha′ny (105), a manufacturing city in Pennsylvania, on the Ohio, opposite Pittsburg, of which it is a kind of suburb.
Allegha′ny Mountains, a range in the Appalachian system in U.S., extending from Pennsylvania to N. Carolina; do not exceed 2400 ft. in height, run parallel with the Atlantic coast, and form the watershed between the Atlantic rivers and the Mississippi.
Allegorical interpretation, assigning a higher than a literal interpretation to the Scripture record of things, in particular the Old Testament story.
Allegory, a figurative mode of representation, in which a subject of a higher spiritual order is described in terms of that of a lower which resembles it in properties and circumstances, the principal subject being so kept out of view that we are left to construe the drift of it from the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.
Allegri, the family name of Correggio; the name of an Italian composer, born at Rome, the author of a still celebrated Miserere (1580-1652).
Al′leine, Joseph, a Puritan writer, author of a book once, and to some extent still, much in favour among religious people, entitled “Alarm to the Unconverted” (1632-1674).
Allen, Bog of, a dreary expanse of bogs of peat E. of the Shannon, in King's Co. and Kildare, Ireland; Lough of, an expansion of the waters of the Shannon.
Allen, Ethan, one of the early champions of American independence, taken prisoner in a raid into Canada; wrote a defence of deism and rational belief (1738-1789).
Allen, Grant, man of letters, born in Kingston, Canada, 1848, and a prolific writer; an able upholder of the evolution doctrine and an expounder of Darwinism.
Allen, John, an M.D. of Scotch birth, and a contributor to the Edinburgh Review (1771-1843).
Allen, Wm., a distinguished chemist and philanthropist, son of a Spitalfields weaver, a member of the Society of Friends, and a devoted promoter of its principles (1770-1843).
Allentown (34), a town on the Lehigh River, 50 m. NW. of Philadelphia, the great centre of the iron trade in the U.S.
Alle′rion, in heraldry, an eagle with expanded wings, the points turned downwards, and without beak or feet.
Alleyn, Edward, a celebrated actor in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., the founder of Dulwich College, and was voluntarily along with his wife one of its first beneficiaries and inmates; was a contemporary of Shakespeare (1566-1626).
Al′lia, a stream flowing into the Tiber 11 m. from Rome, where the Romans were defeated by the Gauls under Brennus, 387 B.C.
Alliance, the Triple, in 1668, between England, Holland, and Sweden against Louis XIV.; the Quadruple, in 1718, between France, England, Holland, and the Empire to maintain the treaty of Utrecht; the Holy, in 1815, between Russia, Austria, and Prussia against Liberal ideas; the Triple, in 1872, between Germany, Austria, and Russia, at the instigation of Bismarck, from which Russia withdrew in 1886, when Italy stepped into her place. Under it the signatories in 1887 guarantee the integrity of their respective territories.
Allier, a confluent of the river Loire, in France, near Nevers; also the department through which it flows.
Allies, the name generally given to the confederate Powers who in 1814 and 1815 entered France and restored the Bourbons.
Allies, Thomas William, an English clergyman who turned Roman Catholic, and wrote, in defence of the step, among others, the “See of St. Peter, the Rock of the Church.”
Alligator, a N. American fresh-water crocodile, numerous in the Mississippi and the lakes and rivers of Louisiana and Carolina; subsists on fish, and though timid, is dangerous when attacked; is slow in turning, however, and its attacks can be easily evaded.
Allingham, William, a poet and journalist, born in Ireland, of English origin; his most celebrated works are “Day and Night Songs” and “Lawerence Bloomfield in Ireland”; was for a time editor of Fraser's Magazine (1824-1889).
Allman, George J., M.D., Emeritus Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh, an eminent naturalist; born in Ireland (1812-1898).
Alloa (12), a thriving seaport on north bank of the Forth, in Clackmannan, 6 m. below Stirling, famous for its ale.
Allob′roges, a Celtic race troublesome to the Romans, who occupied the country between the Rhône and the Lake of Geneva, corresponding to Dauphiné and Savoy.
Allopathy, in opposition to homoeopathy, the treatment of disease by producing a condition of the system different from or opposite to the condition essential to the disease to be cured.
Allotropy, the capability which certain compounds show of assuming different properties and qualities, although composed of identical elements.
Alloway, the birthplace of Burns, on the Doon, 2 m. from Ayr, the assumed scene of Tam o' Shanter's adventure.
Alloway Kirk, a ruin S. of Ayr, celebrated as the scene of the witches' dance in “Tam o' Shanter.”
All-Saints' Day, the 1st of November, a feast dedicated to all the Saints.
All-Souls' Day, a festival on the 2nd November to pray for the souls of the faithful deceased, such as may be presumed to be still suffering in Purgatory.
Allspice, the berry of the pimento, or Jamaica pepper.
Allston, Washington, an American painter and poet, whose genius was much admired by Coleridge (1779-1843).
Alma, a river in the Crimea, half-way between Eupatoria and Sebastopol, where the allied English, French, and Turkish armies defeated the Russians under Prince Menschikoff, Sept. 20, 1854.
Almack's, a suite of assembly rooms, afterwards known as Willis's Rooms, where select balls used to be given, admission to which was a certificate of high social standing.
Almaden (9), a town on the northern slope of the Sierra Morena, in Spain, with rich mines of quicksilver.
Alma′gro, Diego d', a confederate of Pizzaro in the conquest of Peru, but a quarrel with the brothers of Pizzaro about the division of the spoil on the capture of Cuzco, the capital of Chile, led to his imprisonment and death (1475-1538).—Diego d', his son, who avenged his death by killing Pizzaro, but being conquered by Vaca de Castro, was himself put to death (1520-1542).
Al-mamoun, the son of Haroun-el-Raschid, the 7th Abbaside caliph, a great promoter of science and learning; b. 833.
Almanach de Gotha, a kind of European peerage, published annually by Perthes at Gotha; of late years extended so as to include statesmen and military people, as well as statistical information.
Almansur, Abu Giafar, the 2nd Abbaside caliph and the first of the caliphs to patronise learning; founded Bagdad, and made it the seat of the caliphate; d. 775.
Almansur, Abu Mohammed, a great Moorish general in the end of the 10th century, had overrun and nearly made himself master of all Spain, when he was repulsed and totally defeated by the kings of Leon and Navarre in 948.
Al′ma-Tad′ema, Laurence, a distinguished artist of Dutch descent, settled in London; famous for his highly-finished treatment of classic subjects; b. 1836.
Almaviva, a character in Beaumarchais' Marriage de Figaro, representative of one of the old noblesse of France, recalling all their manners and vices, who is duped by his valet Figaro, a personification of wit, talent, and intrigue.
Almeida, a strong fortress in the province of Beira, on the Spanish frontier of Portugal.
Almeida, Francesco, the first Portuguese viceroy of India, a firm and wise governor, superseded by Albuquerque, and killed on his way home by the Kaffirs at the Cape in 1510.—Lorenzo, his son, acting under him, distinguished himself in the Indian seas, and made Ceylon tributary to Portugal.
Almeria (37), a chief town and seaport in the S. of Spain, an important and flourishing place, next to Granada, under the Moors, and at one time a nest of pirates more formidable than those of Algiers.
Almighty dollar, the Almighty whom the Americans are charged with worshipping, first applied to them, it would seem, by Washington Irving.
Almohades, a Moslem dynasty which ruled in N. Africa and Spain from 1129 to 1273.
Almo′ra, a high-lying town at the foot of the Himalayas, 85 m. N. of Bareilly.
Almoravides, a Moslem dynasty which subdued first Fez and Morocco, and then S. Spain, from 1055 to 1147.
Alnwick, the county town of Northumberland, on the Aln; at the north entrance is Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, one of the most magnificent structures of the kind in England, and during the Border wars a place of great strength.
Aloe, a genus of succulent plants embracing 200 species, the majority natives of S. Africa, valuable in medicine, in particular a purgative from the juice of the leaves of several species.
Aloes wood, the heart of certain tropical trees, which yields a fragrant resinous substance and admits of high polish.
Alost (25), a Belgian town on the Dender, 19 m. NW. from Brussels, with a cathedral, one of the grandest in Belgium, which contains a famous painting by Rubens, “St. Roche beseeching Christ to arrest the Plague at Alost.”
Aloysius, St., See Gonzaga.
Aloysius, St., an Italian nobleman, who joined the Society of Jesus; canonised for his devotion to the sick during the plague in Rome, to which he himself fell a victim, June 21, 1591.
Alpaca, a gregarious ruminant of the camel family, a native of the Andes, and particularly the tablelands of Chile and Peru; is covered with a long soft silky wool, of which textile fabrics are woven; in appearance resembles a sheep, but is larger in size, and has a long erect neck with a handsome head.
Alp-Arslan (Brave Lion), a sultan of the Seljuk dynasty in Persia, added Armenia and Georgia to his dominions (1030-1072).
Alpes, three departments in SE. France: the Basses-A, in NE. part of Provence, bounded by Hautes-Alpes on the N. and Var on the S., sterile in the N., fertile in the S., cap. Digne; Hautes-A., forming part of Dauphiné, traversed by the Cottian Alps, climate severe, cap. Gap; A. Maritimes, E. of the Basses-A., bordering on Italy and the Mediterranean, made up of the territory of Nice, ceded by Italy, and of Monaco and Var; cap. Nice.
Alphe′us, a river in the Peloponnesus, flowing west, with its source in Arcadia; also the name of the river-god enamoured of the nymph Arethusa, and who pursued her under the sea as far as Sicily, where he overtook her and was wedded to her.
Alpine Club, a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of which have successfully addressed themselves to attempts of the kind on loftier mountains.
Alpine plants, plants whose natural habitat approaches the line of perpetual snow.
Alps, The, the vastest mountain system in Europe; form the boundary between France, Germany, and Switzerland on the N. and W., and Italy on the S., their peaks mostly covered with perpetual snow, the highest being Mont Blanc, within the frontiers of France. According to height, they have been distributed into Fore, Middle, and High: the Fore rising to the limit of trees; the Middle, to the line of perpetual snow; and the High, above the snow-line. In respect of range or extent, they have been distributed into Western, Middle, and Eastern: the Western, including the Maritime, the Cottian, the Dauphiné, and the Graian, extend from the Mediterranean to Mont Blanc; the Middle, including the Pennine and Bernese, extend from Mont Blanc to the Brenner Pass; and the Eastern, including the Dolomite, the Julian, and the Dinaric, extend from the Brenner and Hungarian plain to the Danube. These giant masses occupy an area of 90,000 sq. m., and extend from the 44th to the 48th parallel of latitude.
Alpujar′ras, a rich and lovely valley which stretches S. from the Sierra Nevada in Spain.
Alruna-wife, the household goddess of a German family.
Alsace-Lorraine′ (1,640), a territory originally of the German empire, ceded to Louis XIV. by the peace of Westphalia in 1648, but restored to Germany after the Franco-German war in 1870-71, by the peace of Frankfort; is under a governor general bearing the title of “Statthalter”; is a great wine-producing country, yields cereals and tobacco, its cotton manufacture the most important in Germany.
Alsa′tia, Whitefriars, London, which at one time enjoyed the privilege of a debtors' sanctuary, and had, till abolished in 1697, become a haunt of all kinds of nefarious characters.
Alsen (25), a Danish island adjacent to Sleswig, one of the finest in the Baltic, now ceded to Germany.
Al-Sirat, the hair-narrow hell-bridge of the Moslem, which every Mohammedan must pass to enter Paradise.
Alsten, an island off the coast of Northland, Norway, with seven snow-capped hills, called the Seven Sisters.
Altai′ Mountains, in Central Asia, stretching W. from the Desert of Gobi, and forming the S. boundary of Asiatic Russia, abounding, to the profit of Russia, in silver and copper, as well as other metals.
Altdor′fer, Albrecht, a German painter and engraver, a distinguished pupil of Albert Dürer, and as a painter, inspired with his spirit; his “Battle of Arbela” adorns the Münich Picture Gallery (1488-1538).
Al′ten, Karl August, a distinguished officer, native of Hanover, who entered the British service, bore arms under Sir John Moore, was chief of a division, under Wellington, in the Peninsular war, and closed his military career at the battle of Waterloo (1763-1840).
Al′tenburg (33), capital of Saxe-Altenburg, and 4 m. S. of Leipsic; its castle is the scene of the famous “Prinzenraub” (q. v.), related by Carlyle in his “Miscellanies.”
Althen, a Persian refugee, who introduced into France the cultivation of madder, which became one of the most important products of the S. of France.
Alton Locke, a novel, by Charles Kingsley, written in sympathy with the Chartist movement, in which Carlyle is introduced as one of the personages.
Alto′na (148), a town and seaport of Sleswig-Holstein, now belonging to Germany, close to Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe, and healthier, and as good as forming one city with it.
Alto-relievo, figures carved out of a tablet so as to project at least one half from its surface.
Al′torf, an old town in the canton Uri, at the S. end of the Lake of Lucerne; associated with the story of William Tell; a place of transit trade.
Altruism, a Comtist doctrine which inculcates sacrifice of self for the good of others as the rule of human action.
Alumbra′do, a member of a Spanish sect that laid claim to perfect enlightenment.
Alured of Beverley, an English chronicler of the 12th century; his annals comprise the history of the Britons, Saxons, and Normans up to his own time; d. 1129.
Alva, Duke of, a general of the armies of Charles V. and Philip of Spain; his career as a general was uniformly successful, but as a governor his cruelty was merciless, especially as the viceroy of Philip in the Low Countries, “very busy cutting off high heads in Brabant, and stirring up the Dutch to such fury as was needful for exploding Spain and him” (1508-1582).
Alvara′do, Pedro de, one of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico, and comrade of Cortez; was appointed Governor of Guatemala by Charles V. as a reward for his valiant services in the interest of Spain; was a generous man as well as a brave.
Alvarez, Francesco, a Portuguese who, in the 15th century, visited Abyssinia and wrote an account of it.
Alvarez, Don José, the most distinguished of Spanish sculptors, born near Cordova, and patronised by Napoleon, who presented him with a gold medal, but to whom, for his treatment of his country, he conceived so great an aversion, that he would never model a bust of him (1768-1827).
Alviano, an eminent Venetian general, distinguished himself in the defence of the republic against the Emperor Maximilian (1455-1515).
Amadeus, Lake, a lake in the centre of Australia, subject to an almost total drying-up at times.
Amade′us V., count of Savoy, surnamed the Great from his wisdom and success as a ruler (1249-1323).
Amadeus VIII., 1st duke of Savoy, increased his dominions, and retired into a monastery on the death of his wife; he was elected Pope as Felix V., but was not acknowledged by the Church (1383-1451).
Amadeus I., of Spain, 2nd son of Victor Emmanuel of Italy, elected king of Spain in 1870, but abdicated in 1873 (1845-1890).
Am′adis de Gaul, a celebrated romance in prose, written partly in Spanish and partly in French by different romancers of the 15th century; the first four books were regarded by Cervantes as a masterpiece. The hero of the book, Amadis, surnamed the Knight of the Lion, stands for a type of a constant and deferential lover, as well as a model knight-errant, of whom Don Quixote is the caricature.
Amadou, a spongy substance, consisting of slices of certain fungi beaten together, used as a styptic, and, after being steeped in saltpetre, used as tinder.
Amaimon, a devil who could he restrained from working evil from the third hour till noon and from the ninth till evening.
Amalaric, king of the Visigoths, married a daughter of Clovis; d. 581.
Amalekites, a warlike race of the Sinaitic peninsula, which gave much trouble to the Israelites in the wilderness; were as good as annihilated by King David.
Amal′fi, a port on the N. of the Gulf of Salerno, 24 m. SE. of Naples; of great importance in the Middle Ages, and governed by Doges of its own.
Amalfian Laws, a code of maritime law compiled at Amalfi.
Ama′lia, Anna, the Duchess of Weimar, the mother of the grand-duke; collected about her court the most illustrious literary men of the time, headed by Goethe, who was much attached to her (1739-1807).
Amalric, one of the leaders in the crusade against the Albigenses, who, when his followers asked him how they were to distinguish heretics from Catholics, answered, “Kill them all; God will know His own;” d. 1225.
Amalthe′a, the goat that suckled Zeus, one of whose horns became the cornucopia—horn of plenty.
Ama′ra Sinha, a Hindu Buddhist, left a valuable thesaurus of Sanskrit words.
Ama′ri, Michele, an Italian patriot, born at Palermo, devoted a great part of his life to the history of Sicily, and took part in its emancipation; was an Orientalist as well; he is famous for throwing light on the true character of the Sicilian Vespers (1806-1889).
Amaryl′lis, a shepherdess in one of Virgil's pastorals; any young rustic maiden.
Ama′sia (25), a town in Asia Minor, once the capital of the kings of Pontus.
Ama′sis, king of Egypt, originally a simple soldier, took part in an insurrection, dethroned the reigning monarch and assumed the crown, proved an able ruler, and cultivated alliances with Greece; reigned from 570 to 546 B.C.
Ama′ti, a celebrated family of violin-makers; Andrea and Niccolo, brothers, at Cremona, in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Amatitlan (10), a town in Guatemala, the inhabitants of which are mainly engaged in the preparation of cochineal.
Amaurosis, a weakness or loss of vision, the cause of which was at one time unknown.
Amazon, a river in S. America and the largest on the globe, its basin nearly equal in extent to the whole of Europe; traverses the continent at its greatest breadth, rises in the Andes about 50 m. from the Pacific, and after a course of 4000 m. falls by a delta into the Atlantic, its waters increased by an immense number of tributaries, 20 of which are above 1000 m. in length, one 2000 m., its mouth 200 m. wide; its current affects the ocean 150 m. out; is navigable 3000 m. up, and by steamers as far as the foot of the Andes.
Amazons, a fabulous race of female warriors, who had a queen of their own, and excluded all men from their community; to perpetuate the race, they cohabited with men of the neighbouring nations; slew all the male children they gave birth to, or sent them to their fathers; burnt off the right breasts of the females, that they might be able to wield the bow in war.
Ambassador, “an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth” (Wotton).
Amber, a fossil resin, generally yellow and semi-transparent, derived, it is presumed, from certain extinct coniferous trees; becomes electric by friction, and gives name to electricity, the Greek word for it being electron; has been fished up for centuries in the Baltic, and is now used in varnishes and for tobacco pipes.
Amberger, a painter of Nürnberg in the 16th century, a disciple of Holbein, his principal work being the history of Joseph in twelve pictures.
Ambergris, an ashy-coloured odorous substance used in perfumery, presumed to be a morbid fragment of the intestines of the spermaceti whale, being often found floating on the ocean which it frequents.
Amberley, Lord, son of Lord John Russell, wrote an “Analysis of Religious Belief,” which, as merely sceptical, his father took steps to secure the suppression of, without success.
Ambleside, a small market-town near the head of Lake Windermere, in the Wordsworth or so-called Lake District.
Amblyopsis, a small fish without eyes, found in the Mammoth Cave, U.S.
Amboise (5), a town on the Loire, 14 m. E. of Tours, with a castle, once the residence of the French kings. The Conspiracy of A., the conspiracy of Condé and the Huguenots in 1560 against Francis II., Catharine de Medici, and the Guises. The Edict of A. (1563) conceded the free exercise of their worship to the Protestants.
Amboise, George de, Cardinal, the popular Prime Minister of Louis XII., who, as such, reduced the Public burdens, and as the Pope's legate in France effected a great reform among the religious orders; is said to have died immensely rich (1460-1510).
Amboyna (238), with a chief city of the name, the most important of the Moluccas, in the Malay Archipelago, and rich before all in spices; it belongs to the Dutch, who have diligently fostered its capabilities.
Am′brose, St., bishop of Milan, born at Trèves, one of the Fathers of the Latin Church, and a zealous opponent of the Arian heresy; as a stern puritan refused to allow Theodosius to enter his church, covered as his hands were with the blood of an infamous massacre, and only admitted him to Church privilege after a severe penance of eight months; he improved the Church service, wrote several hymns, which are reckoned his most valuable legacy to the Church; his writings fill two vols. folio. He is the Patron saint of Milan; his attributes are a scourge, from his severity; and a beehive, from the tradition that a swarm of bees settled on his mouth when an Infant without hurting him (340-397). Festival, Dec. 7.
Ambro′sia, the fragrant food of the gods of Olympus, fabled to preserve in them and confer on others immortal youth and beauty.
Amelia, a character in one of Fielding's novels, distinguished for her conjugal affection.
Amende honorable, originally a mode of punishment in France which required the offender, stripped to his shirt, and led into court with a rope round his neck held by the public executioner, to beg pardon on his knees of his God, his king, and his country; now used to denote a satisfactory apology or reparation.
Amerbach, Johann, a celebrated printer in Basel in the 15th century, the first who used the Roman type instead of Gothic and Italian; spared no expense in his art, taking, like a true workman, a pride in it; d. 1515.
America, including both North and South, 9000 m. in length, varies from 3400 m. to 28 m. in breadth, contains 16½ millions of sq. m., is larger than Europe and Africa together, but is a good deal smaller than Asia; bounded throughout by the Atlantic on the E. and the Pacific on the W.
America, British N., is bounded on the N. by the Arctic Ocean, on the E. by the Atlantic, on the S. by the United States, and on the W. by the Pacific; occupies one-third of the continent, and comprises the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland.
America, Central, extends from Mexico on the north to Panama on the south, and is about six times as large as Ireland; is a plateau with terraces descending to the sea on each side, and rich in all kinds of tropical vegetation; consists of seven political divisions: Guatemala, San Salvador, British Honduras, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mosquitia, and Costa Rica.
America, North, is 4560 m. in length, contains over 8½ millions sq. m., is less than half the size of Asia, consists of a plain in the centre throughout its length, a high range of mountains, the Rocky, on the W., and a lower range, the Appalachian, on the E., parallel with the coast, which is largely indented with gulfs, bays, and seas; has a magnificent system of rivers, large lakes, the largest in the world, a rich fauna and flora, and an exhaustless wealth of minerals; was discovered by Columbus in 1492, and has now a population of 80 millions, of which a fourth are negroes, aborigines, and half-caste; the divisions are British North America, United States, Mexico, Central American Republics, British Honduras, the West Indian Republics, and the Spanish, British, French, and Dutch West Indies.
America, Russian, now called Alaska; belongs by purchase to the United States.
America, South, lies in great part within the Tropics, and consists of a high mountain range on the west, and a long plain with minor ranges extending therefrom eastward; the coast is but little indented, but the Amazon and the Plate Rivers make up for the defect of seaboard; abounds in extensive plains, which go under the names of Llanos, Selvas, and Pampas, while the river system is the vastest and most serviceable in the globe; the vegetable and mineral wealth of the continent is great, and it can match the world for the rich plumage of its birds and the number and splendour of its insect tribes.
America, Spanish, the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, till lately belonging to Spain, though the designation is often applied to all the countries in N. America where Spanish is the spoken language.
American Fabius, George Washington.
American Indians, a race with a red or copper-coloured skin, coarse black straight hair, high cheek-bones, black deep-set eyes, and tall erect figure, limited to America, and seems for most part fast dying out; to be found still as far south as Patagonia, the Patagonians being of the race.
Ameri′go-Vespuc′ci, a Florentine navigator, who, under the auspices first of Spain, and afterwards of Portugal, four times visited the New World, just discovered by Columbus, which the first cartographers called America, after his name; these visits were made between 1499 and 1505, while Columbus's discovery, as is known, was in 1492 (1451-1512).
Ames, Joseph, historian of early British typography, in a work which must have involved him in much labour (1689-1759).
Amha′ra, the central and largest division of Abyssinia.
Amherst, Lord, a British officer who distinguished himself both on the Continent and America, and particularly along with General Wolfe in securing for England the superiority in Canada (1717-1797).
Amice, a flowing cloak formerly worn by pilgrims, also a strip of linen cloth worn over the shoulder of a priest when officiating at mass.
Am′iel, a professor of æsthetics, and afterwards of ethics at Geneva, who is known to the outside world solely by the publication of selections from his Journal in 1882-84, which teems with suggestive thoughts bearing on the great vital issues of the day, and which has been translated into English by Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
Amiens′ (88), the old capital of Picardy, on the Somme, with a cathedral begun in 1220, described as the “Parthenon of Gothic architecture,” and by Ruskin as “Gothic, clear of Roman tradition and of Arabian taint, Gothic pure, authoritative, unsurpassable, and unaccusable”; possesses other buildings of interest; was the birthplace of Peter the Hermit, and is celebrated for a treaty of peace between France and England concluded in 1802.
Amiran′tes, a group of small coral islands NE. of Madagascar, belonging to Britain; are wooded, are 11 in number, and only a few feet above the sea-level.
Ammana′ti, Bartolomeo, a Florentine architect and sculptor of note, was an admirer of Michael Angelo, and executed several works in Rome, Venice, and Padua (1511-1592).
Ammia′nus Marcelli′nus, a Greek who served as a soldier in the Roman army, and wrote a history of the Roman Empire, specially valuable as a record of contemporary events; d. 390.
Ammirato, an Italian historian, author of a history of Florence (1531-1601).
Am′mon, an Egyptian deity, represented with the head of a ram, who had a temple at Thebes and in the Lybian Desert; was much resorted to as an oracle of fate; identified in Greece with Zeus, and in Rome with Jupiter.
Ammonia, a pungent volatile gas, of nitrogen and hydrogen, obtained from sal-ammonia.
Ammonio, Andrea, a Latin poet born in Lucca, held in high esteem by Erasmus; sent to England by the Pope, he became Latin secretary to Henry and a prebendary of Salisbury; d. 1517.
Ammonites, a Semitic race living E. of the Jordan; at continual feud with the Jews, and a continual trouble to them, till subdued by Judas Maccabæus.
Ammonites, a genus of fossil shells curved into a spiral form like the ram-horn on the head of the image of Ammon.
Ammo′nius Saccas, a philosopher of Alexandria, and founder of Neo-Platonism; Longinus, Origen, and Plotinus were among his pupils; d. 243, at a great age.
Amnion, name given to the innermost membrane investing the foetus in the womb.
Amoeba, a minute animalcule of the simplest structure, being a mere mass of protoplasm; absorbs its food at every point all over its body by means of processes protruded therefrom at will, with the effect that it is constantly changing its shape.
Amomum, a genus of plants, such as the cardamom and grains of paradise, remarkable for their pungency and aromatic properties.
Amorites, a powerful Canaanitish tribe, seemingly of tall stature, NE. of the Jordan; subdued by Joshua at Gibeon.
Amory, Thomas, an eccentric writer of Irish descent, author of the “Life of John Buncle, Esq.,” and other semi-insane productions; he was a fanatical Unitarian (1691-1789).
Amos, a poor shepherd of Tekoa, near Bethlehem, in Judah, who in the 8th century B.C. raised his voice in solitary protest against the iniquity of the northern kingdom of Israel, and denounced the judgment of God as Lord of Hosts upon one and all for their idolatry, which nothing could avert.
Amoy′ (96), one of the open ports of China, on a small island in the Strait of Fukien; has one of the finest harbours in the world, and a large export and import trade; the chief exports are tea, sugar, paper, gold-leaf, &c.
Ampère′, André Marie, a French mathematician and physicist, born at Lyons; distinguished for his discoveries in electro-dynamics and magnetism, and the influence of these on electro-telegraphy and the general extension of science (1775-1836).
Ampère, Jean Jacques, son of the preceding; eminent as a littérateur, and a historian and critic of literature; attained to the rank of a member of the French Academy (1800-1864).
Amphic′tyonic Council, a council consisting of representatives from several confederate States of ancient Greece, twelve in number at length, two from each, that met twice a year, sitting alternately at Thermopylæ and Delphi, to settle any differences that might arise between them, the decisions of which were several times enforced by arms, and gave rise to what were called sacred wars, of which there were three; it was originally instituted for the conservation of religious interests.
Amphi′on, a son of Zeus and Antiope, who is said to have invented the lyre, and built the walls of Thebes by the sound of it, a feat often alluded to as an instance of the miraculous power of music.
Amphisbæna, a genus of limbless lizards; a serpent fabled to have two heads and to be able to move backward or forward.
Am′phitrite, a daughter of Oceanus or Nereus, the wife of Neptune, mother of Triton, and goddess of the sea.
Amphit′ryon, the king of Tiryns, and husband of Alcmene, who became by him the mother of Iphicles, and by Zeus the mother of Hercules.
Amphitryon the True, the real host, the man who provides the feast, as Zeus proved himself to the household to be when he visited Alcmene.
Am′ran range, pronounced the “scientific frontier” of India towards Afghanistan.
Amrit′sar (136), a sacred city of the Sikhs in the Punjab, and a great centre of trade, 32 m. E. of Lahore; is second to Delhi in Northern India; manufactures cashmere shawls.
Am′ru, a Mohammedan general under the Caliph Omar, conquered Egypt among other military achievements; he is said to have executed the order of the Caliph Omar for burning the library of Alexandria; d. 663.
Amsterdam (456), the capital of Holland, a great trading city and port at the mouth of the Amsel, on the Zuyder Zee, resting on 90 islands connected by 300 bridges, the houses built on piles of wood driven into the marshy ground; is a largely manufacturing place, as well as an emporium of trade, one special industry being the cutting of diamonds and jewels; birthplace of Spinoza.
Amur′, a large eastward-flowing river, partly in Siberia and partly in China, which, after a course of 3060 m., falls into the Sea of Okhotsk.
Amurnath, a place of pilgrimage in Cashmere, on account of a cave believed to be the dwelling-place of Siva.
Amyot, Jacques, grand-almoner of France and bishop of Auxerre; was of humble birth; was tutor of Charles, who appointed him grand-almoner; he was the translator, among other works, of Plutarch into French, which remains to-day one of the finest monuments of the old literature of France, it was much esteemed by Montaigne (1513-1593).
Amyot, Joseph, a French Jesuit missionary to China, and a learned Orientalist (1713-1794).
Anabaptists, a fanatical sect which arose in Saxony at the time of the Reformation, and though it spread in various parts of Germany, came at length to grief by the excesses of its adherents in Münster. See Baptists.
Anab′asis, an account by Xenophon of the ill-fated expedition of Cyrus the Younger against his brother Artaxerxes, and of the retreat of the 10,000 Greeks under Xenophon who accompanied him, after the battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C.
Anacharsis, a Scythian philosopher of the 6th century B.C., who, in his roamings in quest of wisdom, arrived at Athens, and became the friend and disciple of Solon, but was put to death on his return home by his brother; he stands for a Scythian savant living among a civilised people, as well as for a wise man living among fools.
Anacharsis Clootz. See Clootz.
Anacon′da, a gigantic serpent of tropical America.
Anac′reon, a celebrated Greek lyric poet, a native of Teos, in Asia Minor; lived chiefly at Samos and Athens; his songs are in praise of love and wine, not many fragments of them are preserved (560-418 B.C.).
Anacreon of Painters, Francesco Albani; A. of Persia, Häfiz; A. of the Guillotine, Barère.
Anadyom′ene, Aphrodité, a name meaning “emerging,” given to her in allusion to her arising out of the sea; the name of a famous painting of Apelles so representing her.
Anadyr, a river in Siberia, which flows into Behring Sea.
Anag′ni, a small town 40 m. SE. of Rome, the birthplace of several Popes.
Anahuac′, a plateau in Central Mexico, 7580 ft. of mean elevation; one of the names of Mexico prior to the conquest of it by the Spaniards.
An′akim, a race of giants that lived in the S. of Palestine, called also sons of Anak.
Anam′alah Mountains, a range of the W. Ghâts in Travancore.
Anamu′di, the highest point in the Anamalah Mts., 7000 ft.
Anarchism, a projected social revolution, the professed aim of which is that of the emancipation of the individual from the present system of government which makes him the slave of others, and of the training of the individual so as to become a law to himself, and in possession, therefore, of the right to the control of all his vital interests, the project definable as an insane attempt to realise a social system on the basis of absolute individual freedom.
Anasta′sius, the name of four popes: A. I., the most eminent, pope from 398 to 401; A. II., pope from 496 to 498; A. III., pope from 911 to 913; A. IV., pope from 1153 to 1154.
Anastasius, St., a martyr under Nero; festival, April 15.
Anastasius I., emperor of the East, excommunicated for his severities to the Christians, and the first sovereign to be so treated by the Pope (430-515).
Anato′lia, the Greek name for Asia Minor.
Anatomy of Melancholy, a “mosaic” work by Burton, described by Professor Saintsbury as “a wandering of the soul from Dan to Beersheba, through all employments, desires, pleasures, and finding them barren except for study, of which in turn the tædium is not obscurely hinted.”
Anaxag′oras, a Greek philosopher of Clazomenæ, in Ionia, removed to Athens and took philosophy along with him, i. e. transplanted it there, but being banished thence for impiety to the gods, settled in Lampsacus, was the first to assign to the nous, conceived of “as a purely immaterial principle, a formative power in the origin and organisation of things”; d. 425 B.C.
Anaxar′chus, a Greek philosopher of the school of Democritus and friend of Alexander the Great.
Anaximander, a Greek philosopher of Miletus, derived the universe from a material basis, indeterminate and eternal (611-547 B.C.).
Anaxim′enes, also of Miletus, made air the first principle of things; d. 500 B.C.; A., of Lampsacus, preceptor and biographer of Alexander the Great.
Ancæus, a son of Neptune, who, having left a flagon of wine to pursue a boar, was killed by it.
Ancelot, a French dramatic poet, distinguished both in tragedy and comedy; his wife also a distinguished writer (1792-1875).
Ancenis (4), a town on the Loire, 23 m. NE. of Nantes.
Ancestor-worship, the worship of ancestors that prevails in primitive nations, due to a belief in Animism (q. v.).
Anchieta, a Portuguese Jesuit, born at Teneriffe, called the Apostle of the New World (1538-1597).
Anchi′ses, the father of Æneas, whom his son bore out of the flames of Troy on his shoulders to the ships; was buried in Sicily.
Anchitherium, a fossil animal with three hoofs, the presumed original of the horse.
Anchovy, a small fish captured for the flavour of its flesh and made into sauce.
Anchovy pear, fruit of a W. Indian plant, of the taste of the mango.
Ancient Mariner, a mariner doomed to suffer dreadful penalties for having shot an albatross, and who, when he reaches land, is haunted by the recollection of them, and feels compelled to relate the tale of them as a warning to others; the hero of a poem by Coleridge.
Ancillon, Frederick, a Prussian statesman, philosophic man of letters, and of French descent (1766-1837).
Anco′na (56), a port of Italy in the Adriatic, second to that of Venice; founded by Syracusans.
Ancre, Marshal, a profligate minister of France during the minority of Louis XIII.
Ancus Marcius, 4th king of Rome, grandson of Numa, extended the city and founded Ostia.
Andalusia (3,370), a region in the S. of Spain watered by the Guadalquivir; fertile in grains, fruits, and vines, and rich in minerals.
Andamans, volcanic islands in the Bay of Bengal, surrounded by coral reefs; since 1858 used as a penal settlement.
Andelys, Les, a small town on the Seine, 20 m. NE. of Evreux, divided into Great and Little.
Andermatt, a central Swiss village in Uri, 18 m. S. of Altorf.
Andersen, Hans Christian, a world-famous story-teller of Danish birth, son of a poor shoemaker, born at Odense; was some time before he made his mark, was honoured at length by the esteem and friendship of the royal family, and by a national festival on his seventieth birthday (1805-1875).
Anderson, James, a Scotch lawyer, famous for his learning and his antiquarian knowledge (1662-1728).
Anderson, James, native of Hermiston, near Edinburgh, a writer on agriculture and promoter of it in Scotland (1739-1808).
Anderson, John, a native of Roseneath, professor of physics in Glasgow University, and the founder of the Andersonian College in Glasgow (1726-1796).
Anderson, Lawrence, one of the chief reformers of religion in Sweden (1480-1552).
Anderson, Mary, a celebrated actress, native of California; in 1890 married M. Navarro de Viano of New York; b. 1859.
Anderson, Sir Edmund, Lord Chief-Justice of Common Pleas under Elizabeth, sat as judge at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots. Anderson's Reports is still a book of authority; d. 1605.
Andes, an unbroken range of high mountains, 150 of them actively volcanic, which extend, often in double and triple chains, along the west of South America from Cape Horn to Panama, a distance of 4500 m., divided into the Southern or Chilian as far as 23½° S., the Central as far as 10° S., and the Northern to their termination.
Andocides, an orator and leader of the oligarchical faction in Athens; was four times exiled, the first time for profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries (467-393 B.C.).
Andor′ra (6), a small republic in the E. Pyrenees, enclosed by mountains, under the protection of France and the Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia; cattle-rearing is the chief occupation of the inhabitants, who are a primitive people and of simple habits.
Andover, an old municipal borough and market-town in Hampshire, 66 m. SW. of London; also a town 23 m. from Boston, U.S., famous for its theological seminary, founded in 1807.
Andral, Gabriel, a distinguished French pathologist, professor in Paris University (1797-1876).
An′drassy, Count, a Hungarian statesman, was exiled from 1848 to 1851, became Prime Minister in 1867, played a prominent part in diplomatic affairs on the Continent to the advantage of Austria (1823-1890).
Andre, John, a brave British officer, tried and hanged as a spy in the American war in 1780; a monument is erected to him in Westminster Abbey.
André II., king of Hungary from 1205 to 1235, took part in the fifth crusade.
Andrea del Sarto. See Sarto.
Andrea Pisano, a sculptor and architect, born at Pisa, contributed greatly to free modern art from Byzantine influence (1270-1345).
Andreossy, Count, an eminent French general and statesman, served under Napoleon, ambassador at London, Vienna, and Constantinople, advocated the recall of the Bourbons on the fall of Napoleon.
Andreossy, François, an eminent French engineer and mathematician (1633-1688).
Andrew, St., one of the Apostles, suffered martyrdom by crucifixion, became patron saint of Scotland; represented in art as an old man with long white hair and a beard, holding the Gospel in his right hand, and leaning on a transverse cross.
Andrew, St., Russian Order of, the highest Order in Russia.
Andrew, St., the Cross of, cross like a X, such having, it is said, been the form of the cross on which St. Andrew suffered.
Andrewes, Lancelot, an English prelate, born in Essex, and zealous High Churchman in the reign of Elizabeth and James I.; eminent as a scholar, a theologian, and a preacher; in succession bishop of Ely, Chichester, and Winchester; was one of the Hampton Court Conference, and of the translators of the Authorised Version of the Bible; he was fervent in devotion, but of his sermons the criticism of a Scotch nobleman, when he preached at Holyrood once, was not inappropriate: “He rather plays with his subject than preaches on it” (1555-1626).
Andrews, Joseph, a novel by Fielding, and the name of the hero, who is a footman, and the brother of Richardson's Pamela.
Andrews, Thomas, an eminent physicist, born and professor in Belfast (1813-1885).
Andrieux, St., a French littérateur and dramatist, born at Strassburg, professor in the College of France, and permanent secretary to the Academy (1759-1822).
Andro′clus, a Roman slave condemned to the wild beasts, but saved by a lion, sent into the arena to attack him, out of whose foot he had long before sucked a thorn that pained him, and who recognised him as his benefactor.
Androm′ache, the wife of Hector and the mother of Astyanax, famous for her conjugal devotion; fell to Pyrrhus, Achilles' son, at the fall of Troy, but was given up by him to Hector's brother; is the subject of tragedies by Euripides and Racine respectively.
Androm′eda, a beautiful Ethiopian princess exposed to a sea monster, which Perseus slew, receiving as his reward the hand of the maiden; she had been demanded by Neptune as a sacrifice to appease the Nereids for an insult offered them by her mother.
Androni′cus, the name of four Byzantine emperors: A. I., Comnenus, killed his ward, Alexis II., usurped the throne, and was put to death, 1183; A. II., lived to see the empire devastated by the Turks (1282-1328); A. III., grandson of the preceding, dethroned him, fought stoutly against the Turks without staying their advances (1328-1341); A. IV. dethroned his father, Soter V., and was immediately stripped of his possessions himself (1377-1378).
Andronicus, Livius, the oldest dramatic poet in the Latin language (240 B.C.).
Andronicus of Rhodes, a disciple of Aristotle in the time of Cicero, and to whom we owe the preservation of many of Aristotle's works.
Andros (22), the most northern of the Cyclades, fertile soil and productive of wine and silk.
Androuet du Cerceau′, an eminent French architect who designed the Pont Neuf at Paris (1530-1600).
Andujar (11), a town of Andalusia, on the Guadalquivir, noted for the manufacture of porous clay water-cooling vessels.
Anemometer, an instrument for measuring the force, course, and velocity of the wind.
Aneroid, a barometer, consisting of a small watch-shaped, air-tight, air-exhausted metallic box, with internal spring-work and an index, affected by the pressure of the air on plates exposed to its action.
Aneu′rin, a British bard at the beginning of the 7th century, who took part in the battle of Cattraeth, and made it the subject of a poem.
Aneurism, a tumour, containing blood, on the coat of an artery.
Angara, a tributary of the Yenisei, which passes through Lake Baikal.
Angel, an old English coin, with the archangel Michael piercing the dragon on the obverse of it.
Angel-fish, a hideous, voracious fish of the shark family.
Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas.
Angel′ica, a faithless lady of romance, for whose sake Orlando lost his heart and his senses.
Angelica draught, something which completely changes the affection.
Angelico, Fra, an Italian painter, born at Mugello, in Tuscany; became a Dominican monk at Fiesole, whence he removed to Florence, and finally to Rome, where he died; devoted his life to religious subjects, which he treated with great delicacy, beauty, and finish, and conceived in virgin purity and child-like simplicity of soul; his work in the form of fresco-painting is to be found all over Italy (1387-1455).
An′gelus, a devotional service in honour of the Incarnation.
Angers′ (77), on the Maine, the ancient capital of Anjou, 160 m. SW. of Paris, with a fine cathedral, a theological seminary, and a medical school; birthplace of David the sculptor.
Angerstein, John, born in St. Petersburg, a distinguished patron of the fine arts, whose collection of paintings, bought by the British Government, formed the nucleus of the National Gallery (1735-1822).
Angi′na pec′toris, an affection of the heart of an intensely excruciating nature, the pain of which at times extends to the left shoulder and down the left arm.
Angler, a fish with a broad, big-mouthed head and a tapering body, both covered with appendages having glittering tips, by which, as it burrows in the sand, it allures other fishes into its maw.
Angles, a German tribe from Sleswig who invaded Britain in the 5th century and gave name to England.
An′glesea (50), i. e. Island of the Angles, an island forming a county in Wales, separated from the mainland by the Menai Strait, flat, fertile, and rich in minerals.
Anglesey, Marquis of, eldest son of the first Earl of Uxbridge, famous as a cavalry officer in Flanders, Holland, the Peninsula, and especially at Waterloo, at which he lost a leg, and for his services at which he received his title; was some time viceroy in Ireland, where he was very popular (1768-1854).
Anglia, East territory in England occupied in the 6th century by the Angles, corresponding to counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.
Ang′lican Church, the body of Episcopal churches all over the British Empire and Colonies, as well as America, sprung from the Church of England, though not subject to her jurisdiction, the term Anglo-Catholic being applied to the High Church section.
Anglo-Saxon, the name usually assigned to the early inflected form of the English language.
Ango′la (2,400), a district on the W. coast of Africa, between the Congo and Benguela, subject to Portugal, the capital of which is St. Paul de Loando.
Ango′ra (20), a city in the centre of Anatolia, in a district noted for its silky, long-haired animals, cats and dogs as well as goats.
Angostu′ra, capital of the province of Guayana, in Venezuela, 240 m. up the Orinoco; also a medicinal bark exported thence.
Angoulême′ (31), an old French city on the Charente, 83 m. NE. of Bordeaux, with a fine cathedral, the birthplace of Marguerite de Valois and Balzac.
Angoulême, Charles de Valois, Duc d', natural son of Charles IX., gained great reputation as a military commander, left Memoirs of his life (1575-1650).
Angoulême, Duc d', the eldest son of Charles X., after the Revolution of 1830 gave up his rights to the throne and retired to Goritz (1778-1844).
Angoulême, Duchesse d', daughter of Louis XVI. and wife of the preceding (1778-1851).
An′gra, the capital of the Azores, on the island of Terceira, a fortified place.
An′gra Peque′na, a port in SW. Africa, N. of the Orange River, and the nucleus of the territory belonging to Germany.
Ang′strom, a Swedish physicist and professor at Upsala, distinguished for his studies on the solar spectrum; b. 1814.
Anguil′la (2), or Snake Island, one of the Lesser Antilles, E. of Porto Rico, belonging to Britain.
Anguier, the name of two famous French sculptors in the 17th century.
An′halt (293), a duchy of Central Germany, surrounded and split up by Prussian Saxony, and watered by the Elbe and Saale; rich in minerals.
Anhalt-Dessau, Leopold, Prince of, a Prussian field-marshal, served and distinguished himself in the war of the Spanish Succession and in Italy, was wounded at Cassano; defeated Charles XII. at the Isle of Rügen, and the Saxons and Austrians at Kesseldorf (1676-1747).
Anichini, an Italian medallist of the 16th century; executed a medal representing the interview of Alexander the Great with the High Priest of the Jews, which Michael Angelo pronounced the perfection of the art.
Aniline, a colourless transparent oily liquid, obtained chiefly from coal-tar, and extensively used in the production of dyes.
Animal heat, the heat produced by the chemical changes which go on in the animal system, the intensity depending on the activity of the process.
Animal magnetism, a name given to the alleged effects on the animal system, in certain passive states, of certain presumed magnetic influences acting upon it.
Animism, a belief that there is a psychical body within the physical body of a living being, correspondent with it in attributes, and that when the connection between them is dissolved by death the former lives on in a ghostly form; in other words, a belief of a ghost-soul existing conjointly with and subsisting apart from the body, its physical counterpart.
An′io, an affluent of the Tiber, 4 m. above Rome; ancient Rome was supplied with water from it by means of aqueducts.
Anise, an umbelliferous plant, the seed of which is used as a carminative and in the preparation of liqueurs.
Anjou′, an ancient province in the N. of France, annexed to the crown of France under Louis XI. in 1480; belonged to England till wrested from King John by Philip Augustus in 1203.
Ankarström, the assassin of Gustavus III. of Sweden, at a masked ball, March 15, 1792, for which he was executed after being publicly flogged on three successive days.
Anklam (12), an old Hanse town in Pomerania, connected by railway with Stettin.
Ankobar, capital of Shoa, in Abyssinia; stands 8200 ft. above the sea-level.
Ann Arbor (10), a city of Michigan, on the Huron, with an observatory and a flourishing university.
Anna Comne′na, a Byzantine princess, who, having failed in a political conspiracy, retired into a convent and wrote the life of her father, Alexius I., under the title of the “Alexiad” (1083-1148).
An′na Ivanov′na, niece of Peter the Great, empress of Russia in succession to Peter II. from 1730 to 1740; her reign was marred by the evil influence of her paramour Biren over her, which led to the perpetration of great cruelties; was famed for her big cheek, “which, as shown in her portraits,” Carlyle says, “was comparable to a Westphalian ham” (1693-1740).
An′nam (6,000), an empire, of the size of Sweden, along the east coast of Indo-China, under a French protectorate since 1885; it has a rich well-watered soil, which yields tropical products, and is rich in minerals.
An′nan (3), a burgh in Dumfries, on river Annan; birthplace of Edward Irving, and where Carlyle was a schoolboy, and at length mathematical schoolmaster.
Annap′olis (3), seaport of Nova Scotia, on the Bay of Fundy; also the capital (7) of Maryland, U.S., 28 m. E. of Washington.
Anne, Queen, daughter of James II.; by the union of Scotland with England during her reign in 1707 became the first sovereign of the United Kingdom; her reign distinguished by the part England played in the war of the Spanish succession and the number of notabilities, literary and scientific, that flourished under it, though without any patronage on the part of the Queen (1665-1714).
Anne, St., wife of St. Joachim, mother of the Virgin Mary, and the patron saint of carpentry; festival, July 26.
Anne of Austria, the daughter of Philip III. of Spain, wife of Louis XIII., and mother of Louis XIV., became regent on the death of her husband, with Cardinal Mazarin for minister; during the minority of her son, triumphed over the Fronde; retired to a convent on the death of Mazarin (1610-1666).
Anne of Brittany, the daughter of Francis II., Duke of Brittany; by her marriage, first to Charles VIII. then to Louis XII., the duchy was added to the crown of France (1476-1514).
Anne of Clèves, daughter of Duke of Clèves, a wife of Henry VIII., who fell in love with the portrait of her by Holbein, but being disappointed, soon divorced her; d. 1577.
Annecy (11), the capital of Haute-Savoie, in France, on a lake of the name, 22 m. S. of Geneva, at which the Counts of Geneva had their residence, and where Francis of Sales was bishop.
Annobon, a Spanish isle in the Gulf of Guinea.
Annonay (14), a town in Ardèche, France; paper the chief manufacture.
Annunciation Day, a festival on the 25th of March in commemoration of the salutation of the angel to the Virgin Mary on the Incarnation of Christ.
Anquetil′, Louis Pierre, a French historian in holy orders, wrote “Précis de l'Histoire Universelle” and a “Histoire de France” in 14 vols.; continued by Bouillet in 6 more (1723-1806).
Anquetil′-Duperron, brother of the preceding, an enthusiastic Orientalist, to whom we owe the discovery and first translation of the Zend-Avesta and Schopenhauer his knowledge of Hindu philosophy, and which influenced his own system so much (1731-1805).
Ansbach (14), a manufacturing town in Bavaria, 25 m. SW. of Nürnberg, the capital of the old margraviate of the name, and the margraves of which were Hohenzollerns (q. v.).
Anschar or Ansgar, St., a Frenchman born, the first to preach Christianity to the pagans of Scandinavia, was by appointment of the Pope the first archbishop of Hamburg (801-864).
Anselm, St., archbishop of Canterbury, a native of Aosta, in Piedmont, monk and abbot; visited England frequently, gained the favour of King Rufus, who appointed him to succeed Lanfranc, quarrelled with Rufus and left the country, but returned at the request of Henry I., a quarrel with whom about investiture ended in a compromise; an able, high-principled, God-fearing man, and a calmly resolute upholder of the teaching and authority of the Church (1033-1109). See Carlyle's “Past and Present.”
Anson, Lord, a celebrated British naval commander, sailed round the world, during war on the part of England with Spain, on a voyage of adventure with a fleet of three ships, and after three years and nine months returned to England, his fleet reduced to one vessel, but with £500,000 of Spanish treasure on board. Anson's “Voyage Round the World” contains a highly interesting account of this, “written in brief, perspicuous terms,” witnesses Carlyle, “a real poem in its kind, or romance all fact; one of the pleasantest little books in the world's library at this time” (1697-1762).
Anstruther, East and West, two contiguous royal burghs on the Fife coast, the former the birthplace of Tennant the poet, Thomas Chalmers, and John Goodsir the anatomist.
Antæus, a mythical giant, a terræ filius or son of the earth, who was strong only when his foot was on the earth, lifted in air he became weak as water, a weakness which Hercules discovered to his discomfiture when wrestling with him. The fable has been used as a symbol of the spiritual strength which accrues when one rests his faith on the immediate fact of things.
Antal′cidas, a Spartan general, celebrated for a treaty which he concluded with Persia whereby the majority of the cities of Asia Minor passed under the sway of the Persians, to the loss of the fruit of all the victories gained over them by Athens (387 B.C.).
Antananari′vo (100), the capital of Madagascar, in the centre of the island, on a well-nigh inaccessible rocky height 5000 ft. above the sea-level.
Antar, an Arab chief of the 6th century, a subject of romance, and distinguished as a poet.
Ant-eaters, a family of edentate mammals, have a tubular mouth with a small aperture, and a long tongue covered with a viscid secretion, which they thrust into the ant-hills and then withdraw covered with ants.
Antelope, an animal closely allied to the sheep and the goat, very like the latter in appearance, with a light and elegant figure, slender, graceful limbs, small cloven hoofs, and generally a very short tail.
Anteque′ra (27), a town in Andalusia, 22 m. N. of Malaga, a stronghold of the Moors from 712 to 1410.
Anthe′lia, luminous rings witnessed in Alpine and Polar regions, seen round the shadow of one's head in a fog or cloud opposite the sun.
Anthe′mius, the architect of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople; d. 534.
Anthon, Charles, a well-known American classical scholar and editor of the Classics (1797-1867).
Anthrax, a disease, especially in cattle, due to the invasion of a living organism which, under certain conditions, breeds rapidly; called also splenic fever.
Anthropoid apes, a class of apes, including the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang-outang, and gibbon, without tails, with semi-erect figures and long arms.
Anthropology, the science of man as he exists or has existed under different physical and social conditions.
Anthropomorphism, the ascription of human attributes to the unseen author of things.
Anti′bes (5) a seaport and place of ancient date on a peninsula in the S. of France, near Cannes and opposite Nice.
Antichrist, a name given in the New Testament to various incarnations of opposition to Christ in usurpation of His authority, but is by St. John defined to involve that form of opposition which denies the doctrine of the Incarnation, or that Christ has come in the flesh.
Anticosti, a barren rocky island in the estuary of St Lawrence, frequented by fishermen, and with hardly a permanent inhabitant.
Antig′one′, the daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes, led about her father when he was blind and in exile, returned to Thebes on his death; was condemned to be buried alive for covering her brother's exposed body with earth in defiance of the prohibition of Creon, who had usurped the throne; Creon's son, out of love for her, killed himself on the spot where she was buried. She has been immortalised in one of the grandest tragedies of Sophocles.
Antigone, The Modern, the Duchess of Angoulême, daughter of Louis XV. See the parting scene in Carlyle's “French Revolution.”
Antig′onus, surnamed the Cyclops or One-eyed, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, made himself master of all Asia Minor, excited the jealousy of his rivals; was defeated and slain at Ipsus, in Phrygia, 301 B.C.
Antigonus, the last king of the Jews of the Asmonean dynasty; put to death in 77 B.C.
Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia, grandson of the preceding; twice deprived of his kingdom, but recovered it; attempted to prevent the formation of the Achæan League (275-240 B.C.).
Antigua, one of the Leeward Islands, the seat of the government; the most productive of them belongs to Britain.
Antilles, an archipelago curving round from N. America to S. America, and embracing the Caribbean Sea; the Greater A., on the N. of the sea, being Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, and Porto Rico; and the Lesser A., on the E., forming the Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands, and the Venezuelan Islands—the Leeward as far as Dominica, the Windward as far as Trinidad, and the Venezuelan along the coast of S. America.
Antimony, a brittle white metal, of value both in the arts and medicine.
Antinomianism, the doctrine that the law is superseded in some sense or other by the all-sufficing, all-emancipating free spirit of Christ.
Antinomy, in the transcendental philosophy the contradiction which arises when we carry the categories of the understanding above experience and apply them to the sphere of that which transcends it.
Antin′ous, a Bithynian youth of extraordinary beauty, a slave of the Emperor Hadrian; became a great favourite of his and accompanied him on all his journeys. He was drowned in the Nile, and the grief of the emperor knew no bounds; he enrolled him among the gods, erected a temple and founded a city in his honour, while artists vied with each other in immortalising his beauty.
An′tioch (23), an ancient capital of Syria, on the Orontes, called the Queen of the East, lying on the high-road between the E. and the W., and accordingly a busy centre of trade; once a city of great splendour and extent, and famous in the early history of the Church as the seat of several ecclesiastical councils and the birthplace of Chrysostom. There was an Antioch in Pisidia, afterwards called Cæsarea.
Anti′ochus, name of three Syrian kings of the dynasty of the Seleucidæ: A. I., Soter, i. e. Saviour, son of one of Alexander's generals, fell heir of all Syria; king from 281 to 261 B.C. A. II., Theos, i. e. God, being such to the Milesians in slaying the tyrant Timarchus; king from 261 to 246. A. III., the Great, extended and consolidated the empire, gave harbour to Hannibal, declared war against Rome, was defeated at Thermopylæ and by Scipio at Magnesia, killed in attempting to pillage the temple at Elymaïs; king from 223 to 187. A. IV., Epiphanes, i. e. Illustrious, failed against Egypt, tyrannised over the Jews, provoked the Maccabæan revolt, and died delirious; king from 175 to 104. A. V., Eupator, king from 164 to 162.
Anti′ope, queen of the Amazons and mother of Hippolytus. The Sleep of Antiope, chef-d'oeuvre of Correggio in the Louvre.
Antip′aros (2), one of the Cyclades, W. of Paros, with a stalactite cavern.
Antip′ater, a Macedonian general, governed Macedonia with great ability during the absence of Alexander, defeated the confederate Greek states at Cranon, reigned supreme on the death of Perdiccas (397-317 B.C.).
Antiph′ilus, a Greek painter, contemporary and rival of Apelles.
An′tiphon, an Athenian orator and politician, preceptor of Thucydides, who speaks of him in terms of honour, was the first to formulate rules of oratory (479-411 B.C.).
Antipope, a pope elected by a civil power in opposition to one elected by the cardinals, or one self-elected and usurped; there were some 26 of such, first and last.
Antipyretics, medicines to reduce the temperature in fever, of which the chief are quinine and salicylate of soda.
Antipyrin, a febrifuge prepared from coal-tar, and used as a substitute for quinine.
Antisa′na, a volcano of the N. Andes, in Ecuador, 19,200 ft. high; also a village on its flanks, 13,000 ft. high, the highest village in the world.
Antise′mites, a party in Russia and the E. of Germany opposed to the Jews on account of the undue influence they exercise in national affairs to the alleged detriment of the natives.
Antiseptics, substances used, particularly in surgery, to prevent or arrest putrefaction.
Antis′thenes, a Greek philosopher, a disciple of Socrates, the master of Diogenes, and founder of the Cynic school; affected to disdain the pride and pomp of the world, and was the first to carry staff and wallet as the badge of philosophy, but so ostentatiously as to draw from Socrates the rebuke, “I see your pride looking out through the rent of your cloak, O Antisthenes.”
Anti-Taurus, a mountain range running NE. from the Taurus Mts.
Antium, a town of Latium on a promontory jutting into the sea, long antagonistic to Rome, subdued in 333 B.C.; the beaks of its ships, captured in a naval engagement, were taken to form a rostrum in the Forum at Home; it was the birthplace of Caligula and Nero.
Antiva′ri, a fortified seaport lately ceded to Montenegro.
Antofagas′ta (7), a rising port in Chile, taken from Bolivia after the war of 1879; exports silver ores and nitrate of soda.
Antommar′chi, Napoleon's attached physician at St. Helena, wrote “The Last Moments of Napoleon” (1780-1838).
Antonelli, Cardinal, the chief adviser and Prime Minister of Pope Pius IX., accompanied the Pope to Gaeta, came back with him to Rome, acting as his foreign minister there, and offered a determined opposition to the Revolution; left immense wealth (1806-1876).
Antonel′lo, of Messina, Italian painter of the 15th century, introduced from Holland oil-painting into Italy (1414-1493).
Antoni′nus, Itinerary of, a valuable geographical work supposed of date 44 B.C.
Antoni′nus, Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, successor to the following, and who surpassed him in virtue, being also of the Stoic school and one of its most exemplary disciples, was surnamed the “philosopher,” and has left in his “Meditations” a record of his religious and moral principles (121-180).
Antoni′nus Pius, a Roman emperor, of Stoic principles, who reigned with justice and moderation from 138 to 161, during which time the Empire enjoyed unbroken peace.
Antoni′nus, Wall of, an earthen rampart about 36 m. in length, from the Forth to the Clyde, in Scotland, as a barrier against invasion from the north, erected in the year 140 A.D.
Anto′nius, Marcus, a famous Roman orator and consul, slain in the civil war between Marius and Sulla, having sided with the latter (143-87 B.C.).
Anto′nius, Marcus (Mark Antony), grandson of the preceding and warm partisan of Cæsar; after the murder of the latter defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, formed a triumvirate with Octavius and Lepidus, fell in love with the famous Cleopatra, was defeated by Octavius in the naval battle of Actium, and afterwards killed himself (83-30 B.C.).
An′tony, St., a famous anchorite of the Thebaïd, where from the age of thirty he spent 20 years of his life, in a lonely ruin by himself, resisting devils without number; left his retreat for a while to institute monasteries, and so became the founder of monachism, but returned to die; festival, Jan. 17 (251-351).
Antony of Padua, a Minorite missionary to the Moors in Africa; preached to the fishes, who listened to him when no one else would; the fishes came in myriads to listen, and shamed the pagans into conversion, says the fable; festival, June 13 (1195-1234)
Antraigues, Count d', one of the firebrands of the French Revolution; “rose into furor almost Pythic; highest where many were high,” but veered round to royalism, which he at length intrigued on behalf of—to death by the stiletto (1765-1812).
Ant′rim (471), a maritime county in the NE. of Ulster, in Ireland; soil two-thirds arable, linen the chief manufacture, exports butter, inhabitants mostly Protestant.
Antwerp (240), a large fortified trading city in Belgium, on the Scheldt, 50 m. from the sea, with a beautiful Gothic cathedral, the spire 402 ft. high; the burial-place of Rubens; has a large picture-gallery full of the works of the Dutch and Flemish artists.
Anu′bis, an Egyptian deity with the body of a man and the head of a jackal, whose office, like that of Hermes, it was to see to the disposal of the souls of the dead in the nether world, on quitting the body.
Anwari, a Persian lyric poet who flourished in the 12th century.
An′ytus, the most vehement accuser of Socrates; banished in consequence from Athens, after Socrates' death.
Aos′ta (5), a town of Italy, N. of Turin, in a fertile Alpine level valley, but where goitre and cretinism prevail to a great extent; the birthplace of Anselm.
Apa′ches, a fierce tribe of American Indians on the S. and W. of the United States; long a source of trouble to the republic.
Apel′les, the most celebrated painter of antiquity; bred, if not born, at Ephesus; lived at the court of Alexander the Great; his great work “Aphrodité Anadyomene” (q. v.); a man conscious, like Dürer, of mastery in his art, as comes out in his advice to the criticising shoemaker to “stick to his last.”
Ap′ennines, a branch of the Alps extending, with spurs at right angles, nearly through the whole length of Italy, forming about the middle of the peninsula a double chain which supports the tableland of Abruzzi.
Apes, Dead Sea, dwellers by the Dead Sea who, according to the Moslem tradition, were transformed into apes because they turned a deaf ear to God's message to them by the lips of Moses, fit symbol, thinks Carlyle, of many in modern time to whom the universe, with all its serious voices, seems to have become a weariness and a humbug See “Past and Present,” Bk. iii. chap. iii.
Aph′ides, a family of insects very destructive to plants by feeding on them in countless numbers.
Aphrodi′te, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, wife of Hephæstos and mother of Cupid; sprung from sea-foam; as queen of beauty had the golden apple awarded her by Paris, and possessed the power of conferring beauty, by means of her magic girdle, the cestus, on others.
Api′cius, the name of three famous Roman epicures, the first of whom was contemporary with Sulla, the second with Augustus, and the third with Trajan.
A′pion, an Alexandrian grammarian of the 1st century, and an enemy of the Jews, and hostile to the privileges conceded them in Alexandria.
A′pis, the sacred live bull of the Egyptians, the incarnation of Osiris; must be black all over the body, have a white triangular spot on the forehead, the figure of an eagle on the back, and under the tongue the image of a scarabæus; was at the end of 25 years drowned in a sacred fountain, had his body embalmed, and his mummy regarded as an object of worship.
Apocalyptic writings, writings composed among the Jews in the 2nd century B.C., and ascribed to one and another of the early prophets of Israel, forecasting the judgments ordained of God to overtake the nation, and predicting its final deliverance at the hands of the Messiah.
Apocrypha, The, a literature of sixteen books composed by Jews, after the close of the Hebrew canon, which though without the unction of the prophetic books of the canon, are instinct, for most part, with the wisdom which rests on the fear of God and loyalty to His law. The word Apocrypha means hidden writing, and it was given to it by the Jews to distinguish it from the books which they accepted as canonical.
Apol′da (20), a town in Saxe-Weimar with extensive hosiery manufactures; has mineral springs.
Apollina′ris, bishop of Laodicea, denied the proper humanity of Christ, by affirming that the Logos in Him took the place of the human soul, as well as by maintaining that His body was not composed of ordinary flesh and blood; d. 390.
Apollo, the god par excellence of the Greeks, identified with the sun and all that we owe to it in the shape of inspiration, art, poetry, and medicine; son of Zeus and Leto; twin brother of Artemis; born in the island of Delos (q. v.), whither Leto had fled from the jealous Hera; his favourite oracle at Delphi.
Appllodo′rus (1), an Athenian painter, the first to paint figures in light and shade, 408 B.C.; (2) a celebrated architect of Damascus, d. A.D. 129; and (3), an Athenian who wrote a well-arranged account of the mythology and heroic age of Greece.
Apollonius of Rhodes, a grammarian and poet, flourished in the 3rd century B.C., author of the “Argonautica,” a rather prosaic account of the adventures of the Argonauts.
Apollonius of Tyana, a Pythagorean philosopher, who, having become acquainted with some sort of Brahminism, professed to have a divine mission, and, it is said, a power to work miracles; was worshipped after his death, and has been compared to Christ; d. 97.
Apol′los, a Jew of Alexandria, who became an eloquent preacher of Christ, and on account of his eloquence rated above St. Paul.
Apollyon, the destroying angel, the Greek name for the Hebrew Abaddon.
Apologetics, a defence of the historical verity of the Christian religion in opposition to the rationalist and mythical theories.
Apostate, an epithet applied to the Emperor Julian, from his having, conscientiously however, abjured the Christian religion established by Constantine, in favour of paganism.
Apostle of Germany, St. Boniface; A. of Ireland, St. Patrick; of the English, St. Augustine; of the French, St. Denis; of the Gauls, Irenæus; or the Gentiles, St. Paul; of the Goths, Ulfilas; of the Indian, John Eliot; of the Scots, Columba; of the North, Ansgar; of the Picts, St. Ninian; of the Indies, Francis Xavier; of Temperance, Father Mathew.
Apostles, The Four, picture of St. John, St. Peter, St. Mark, and St. Paul, in the museum at Münich, painted by Albert Dürer.
Apostolic Fathers, Fathers of the Church who lived the same time as the Apostles: Clemens, Barnabas Polycarp, Ignatius, and Hermas.
Apostolic succession, the derivation of episcopal power in an unbroken line from the Apostles, a qualification believed by High Churchmen to be essential to the discharge of episcopal functions and the transmission of promised divine grace.
Appala′chians, a mountainous system of N. America that stretches NE. from the tablelands of Alabama to the St. Lawrence, and includes the Alleghanies and the Blue Mountains; their utmost height, under 7000 feet; do not reach the snow-line; abound in coal and iron.
Appenzell′ (67), a canton in the NE. of Switzerland, enclosed by St. Gall, divided into Outer Rhoden, which is manufacturing and Protestant, and Inner Rhoden, which is agricultural and Catholic; also the name of the capital.
Ap′pian, an Alexandrian Greek, wrote in 2nd century a history of Rome in 24 books, of which 11 remain.
Ap′pian Way, a magnificent highway begun by Appius Claudius, 312 B.C., and finished by Augustus, from Rome to Brundusium.
Apple of Discord, a golden apple inscribed with the words, “To the most Beautiful,” thrown in among the gods of Olympus on a particular occasion, contended for by Hera, Athena, and Aphrodité, and awarded by Paris of Troy, as referee, to Aphrodité, on promise that he would have the most beautiful woman of the world for wife.
Appleby, the county town of Westmorland, on the Eden; is a health resort.
Applegath, Augustus, inventor of the vertical printing-press (1788-1871).
Appleton (11), a city of Wisconsin, U.S., on the Fox River.
Appleton, Ch. Edward, founder and editor of the Academy (1841-1879).
Appomattox Courthouse, a village in Virginia, U.S., where Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant in 1865.
Apraxen, Count, a celebrated naval commander under Peter the Great and his right-hand man in many enterprises (1671-1728).
April, the fourth month of the year, the month of “opening of the light in the days, and of the life of the leaves, and of the voices of the birds, and of the hearts of men.”
Ap′teryx, a curious New Zealand bird with rudimentary wings, plumage like hair, and no tail.
Apule′ius, a student of Plato, of N. African birth, lived in the 2nd century; having captivated a rich widow, was charged at one time with sorcery; his most celebrated work was the “Golden Ass,” which contains, among other stories, the exquisite apologue or romance of Psyche and Cupid (q. v.).
Apu′lia (1,797), an ancient province in SE. of Italy, which extends as far N. as Monte Gargano, and the scene of the last stages in the second Punic war.
Apu′re, a river in Venezuela, chief tributary of the Orinoco, into which it falls by six branches.
Aqua Tofa′na, Tofana's poison, some solution of arsenic with which a Sicilian woman called Tofana, in 17th century, poisoned, it is alleged, 600 people.
Aqua′rius, the Water-bearer, 11th sign of the Zodiac, which the sun enters Jan. 21.
Aquaviva, a general of the Jesuits of high authority (1543-1615).
A′quila (20), capital of the province of Abruzzo Ulteriora, on the Alterno, founded by Barbarossa; a busy place.
A′quila, a Judaised Greek of Sinope, in Pontus, executed a literal translation of the Old Testament into Greek in the interest of Judaism versus Christianity in the first half of the 2nd century A.D.
A′quila, Gaspar, a friend of Luther who aided him in the translation of the Bible.
Aquileia, an Italian village, 22 m. W. of Trieste, once a place of great importance, where several councils of the Church were held.
Aqui′nas, Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, or Doctor of the Schools, an Italian of noble birth, studied at Naples, became a Dominican monk despite the opposition of his parents, sat at the feet of Albertus Magnus, and went with him to Paris, was known among his pupils as the “Dumb Ox,” from his stubborn silence at study, prelected at his Alma Mater and elsewhere with distinguished success, and being invited to assist the Council at Lyons, fell sick and died. His “Summa Theologiæ,” the greatest of his many works, is a masterly production, and to this day of standard authority in the Romish Church. His writings, which fill 17 folio vols., along with those of Duns Scotus, his rival, constitute the high-water mark of scholastic philosophy and the watershed of its divergence into the philosophico-speculative thought on the one hand, and the ethico-practical or realism of modern times on the other, q. v. (1226-1274).
Aquitaine′, a division of ancient Gaul between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, was from the time of Henry II. till 1453 an appanage of the English crown.
Arabella Stuart, a cousin of King James I., the victim all her days of jealousy and state policy, suspected of aspiring to the crown on the death of Queen Elizabeth, was shut up in the Tower of London, where she died bereft of reason in 1615 at the age of 38.
Arabesque, an ornamentation introduced by the Moors, consisting of imaginary, often fantastic, mathematical or vegetable forms, but exclusive of the forms of men and animals.
Ara′bi, Ahmed Pasha, leader of an insurrectionary movement in Egypt in 1882; he claimed descent from the Prophet; banished to Ceylon; b. 1839.
Arabia (12,000), the most westerly peninsula of Asia and the largest in the world, being one-third the size of the whole of Europe, consisting of (a) a central plateau with pastures for cattle, and fertile valleys; (b) a ring of deserts, the Nefud in the N., stony, the Great Arabian, a perfect Sahara, in the S., sandy, said sometimes to be 600 ft. deep, and the Dahna between; and (c) stretches of coast land, generally fertile on the W. and S.; is divided into eight territories; has no lakes or rivers, only wadies, oftenest dry; the climate being hot and arid, has no forests, and therefore few wild animals; a trading country with no roads or railways, only caravan routes, yet the birthland of a race that threatened at one time to sweep the globe, and of a religion that has been a life-guidance to wide-scattered millions of human beings for over twelve centuries of time.
Arabia Felix, the W. coast of Arabia, contains Yemen and El Hejaz (q. v.), and is subject to Turkey.
Arabian Desert. See Arabia.
Arabian Nights, or the Thousand and One Nights, a collection of tales of various origin and date, traceable in their present form to the middle of the 15th century, and first translated into French by Galland in 1704. The thread on which they are strung is this: A Persian monarch having made a vow that he would marry a fresh bride every night and sacrifice her in the morning, the vizier's daughter obtained permission to be the first bride, and began a story which broke off at an interesting part evening after evening for a thousand and one nights, at the end of which term the king, it is said, released her and spared her life.
Arabs, The, “a noble-gifted people, swift-handed, deep-hearted, something most agile, active, yet most meditative, enthusiastic in their character; a people of wild, strong feelings, and iron restraint over these. In words too, as in action, not a loquacious people, taciturn rather, but eloquent, gifted when they do speak, an earnest, truthful kind of men, of Jewish kindred indeed, but with that deadly terrible earnestness of the Jews they seem to combine something graceful, brilliant, which is not Jewish.” Such is Carlyle's opinion of the race from whom Mahomet sprang, as given in his “Heroes.”
Aracan. See Arakan.
Arach′ne, a Lydian maiden, who excelled in weaving, and whom Athena changed into a spider because she had proudly challenged her ability to weave as artistic a work; she had failed in the competition, and previously hanged herself in her despair.
Arad (42), a fortified town in Hungary, seat of a bishop, on the right bank of the Maros; manufactures tobacco, trades in cattle and corn.
Araf, the Mohammedan sheol or borderland between heaven and hell for those who are from incapacity either not morally bad or morally good.
Arafat′, a granite hill E. of Mecca, a place of pilgrimage as the spot where Adam received his wife after 200 years separation from her on account of their disobedience to the Lord in deference to the suggestion of Satan.
Ar′ago, François, an eminent physicist and astronomer, born in the S. of France, entered the Polytechnic School of Paris when seventeen, elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at the early age of twenty-three, nominated Director of the Observatory in 1830, was member of the Provisional Government in 1848, refused to take the oath to Louis Napoleon after the coup d'état, would rather resign his post at the Observatory, but was retained, and at his death received a public funeral (1786-1853).
Arago, Jacques, a brother of the preceding, a littérateur and a traveller, author of a “Voyage Round the World” (1790-1855).
Ar′agon (925), a territory in the NE. of Spain, traversed by the Ebro, and divided as you proceed southward into the provinces of Huesca, Saragossa, and Teruel, mountainous in the N.; with beautiful fertile valleys, rather barren, in the S; was a kingdom till 1469.
Araguay, an affluent of the Tocantins, in Brazil, which it joins after a course of 1000 m., augmented by subsidiary streams.
Arakan (671), a strip of land in British Burmah, on the E. of the Bay of Bengal, 400 m. long and from 90 to 15 m. broad, a low, marshy country; produces and exports large quantities of rice, as well as sugar and hemp. The natives belong to the Burman stock, and are of the Buddhist faith, though there is a sprinkling of Mohammedans among them.
Aral, The Sea of, a lake in Turkestan, 265 m. long and 145 broad, larger than the Irish Sea, 150 m. E. of the Caspian; has no outlet, shallow, and is said to be drying up.
Aram, Eugene, an English school-usher of scholarly attainments, convicted of murder years after the act and executed 1759, to whose fate a novel of Bulwer Lytton's and a poem of Hood's have lent a romantic and somewhat fictitious interest.
Aramæa, the territories lying to NE. of Palestine, the inhabitants of which spoke a Semitic dialect called Aramaic, and improperly Chaldee.
Arama′ic, the language of Palestine in the days of Christ, a Semitic dialect that has now almost entirely died out.
Aramæ′ans, a generic name given to the Semitic tribes that dwelt in the NE. of Palestine, also to those that dwelt at the mouths of the Euphrates and the Tigris.
Aran, Val d', a Pyrenean valley, source of the Garonne, and one of the highest of the Pyrenees.
Aran Islands, three islands with antique relics across the mouth of Galway Bay, to which they form a breakwater.
Aranda, Count of, an eminent Spanish statesman, banished the Jesuits, suppressed brigandage, and curtailed the power of the Inquisition, was Prime Minister of Charles IV., and was succeeded by Godoy (1719-1798).
Aranju′ez (8), a town 28 m. SE. of Madrid, long the spring resort of the Spanish Court.
Ar′any, Janos, a popular Hungarian poet of peasant origin, attained to eminence as a man of letters (1819-1882).
Ar′arat, a mountain in Armenia on which Noah's ark is said to have rested, 17,000 ft. high, is within Russian territory, and borders on both Turkey and Persia.
Ara′tus, native of Sicyon, in Greece, promoter of the Achæan League, in which he was thwarted by Philip of Macedon, was poisoned, it is said, by his order (271-213 B.C.); also a Greek poet, author of two didactic poems, born in Cilicia, quoted by St Paul in Acts xvii. 28.
Arauca′nia (88), the country of the Araucos, in Chile, S. of Concepcion and N. of Valdivia, the Araucos being an Indian race long resistant but now subject to Chilian authority, and interesting as the only one that has proved itself able to govern itself and hold its own in the presence of the white man.
Arauca′ria, tall conifer trees, natives of and confined to the southern hemisphere.
Arbe′la, a town near Mosul, where Alexander the Great finally defeated Darius, 331 B.C.
Arbroath (22), a thriving seaport and manufacturing town on the Forfarshire coast, 17 m. N. of Dundee, with the picturesque ruins of an extensive old abbey, of which Cardinal Beaton was the last abbot. It is the “Fairport” of the “Antiquary.”
Arbuthnot, John, a physician and eminent literary man of the age of Queen Anne and her two successors, born in Kincardineshire, the friend of Swift and Pope and other lights of the time, much esteemed by them for his wit and kind-heartedness, joint-author with Swift, it is thought, of the “Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus” and the “History of John Bull” (1667-1735).
Ar′cachon (7), a popular watering-place, with a fine beach and a mild climate, favourable for invalids suffering from pulmonary complaints, 34 m. SW. of Bordeaux.
Arca′dia, a mountain-girt pastoral tableland in the heart of the Morea, 50 m. long by 40 broad, conceived by the poets as a land of shepherds and shepherdesses, and rustic simplicity and bliss, and was the seat of the worship of Artemis and Pan.
Arca′dius, the first emperor of the East, born in Spain, a weak, luxurious prince, leaving the government in other hands (377-405).
Arcesila′us, a Greek philosopher, a member of the Platonic School and founder of the New Academy, who held in opposition to the Stoics that perception was not knowledge, denied that we had any accurate criterion of truth, and denounced all dogmatism in opinion.
Archæology, the study or the science of the monuments of antiquity, as distinct from palæontology, which has to do with extinct organisms or fossil remains.
Archangel (19), the oldest seaport of Russia, on the Dvina, near its mouth, on the White Sea, is accessible to navigation from July to October, is connected with the interior by river and canal, and has a large trade in flax, timber, tallow, and tar.
Archangels, of these, according to the Korân, there are four: Gabriel, the angel who reveals; Michael, the angel who fights; Azrael, the angel of death; Azrafil, the angel of the resurrection.
Archela′us, king of Macedonia, and patron of art and literature, with whom Euripides found refuge in his exile, d. 400 B.C.; a general of Mithridates, conquered by Sulla twice over; also the Ethnarch of Judea, son of Herod, deposed by Augustus, died at Vienne.
Archer, James, portrait-painter, born in Edinburgh, 1824.
Archer, Wm., dramatic critic, born in Perth, 1856.
Ar′ches, Court of, an ecclesiastical court of appeal connected with the archbishopric of Canterbury, the judge of which is called the dean.
Ar′chil, a purple dye obtained from lichens.
Archil′ochus, a celebrated lyric poet of Greece; of a satiric and often bitter vein, the inventor of iambic verse (714-676 B.C.).
Archima′go, a sorcerer in Spenser's “Faërie Queene,” who in the disguise of a reverend hermit, and by the help of Duessa or Deceit, seduces the Red-Cross Knight from Una or Truth.
Archime′des of Syracuse, the greatest mathematician of antiquity, a man of superlative inventive power, well skilled in all the mechanical arts and sciences of the day. When Syracuse was taken by the Romans, he was unconscious of the fact, and slain, while busy on some problem, by a Roman soldier, notwithstanding the order of the Roman general that his life should be spared. He is credited with the boast: “Give me a fulcrum, and I will move the world.” He discovered how to determine the specific weight of bodies while he was taking a bath, and was so excited over the discovery that, it is said, he darted off stark naked on the instant through the streets, shouting “Eureka! Eureka! I have found it! I have found it!” (287-212 B.C.).
Archimed′es screw, in its original form a hollow spiral placed slantingly to raise water by revolving it.
Archipel′ago, originally the Ægean Sea, now the name of any similar sea interspersed with islands, or the group of islands included in it.
Architrave, the lowest part of an entablature, resting immediately on the capital.
Ar′chon, a chief magistrate of Athens, of which there were nine at a time, each over a separate department; the tenure of office was first for life, then for ten years, and finally for one.
Archy′tas of Tarentum, famous as a statesman, a soldier, a geometrician, a philosopher, and a man; a Pythagorean in philosophy, and influential in that capacity over the minds of Plato, his contemporary, and Aristotle; was drowned in the Adriatic Sea, 4th century B.C.; his body lay unburied on the shore till a sailor humanely cast a handful of sand on it, otherwise he would have had to wander on this side the Styx for a hundred years, such the virtue of a little dust, munera pulveris, as Horace calls it.
Arcis′-sur-Aube (3), a town 17 m. N. of Troyes, in France, birthplace of Danton; scene of a defeat of Napoleon, March 1814.
Ar′cot, the name of two districts, N. and S., in the Presidency of Madras; also chief town (11) in the district, 65 m. SW. of Madras; captured by Clive in 1787; once the capital of the Carnatic.
Arctic Ocean, a circular ocean round the N. Pole, its diameter 40°, with low, flat shores, covered with ice-fields, including numerous islands; the Gulf Stream penetrates it, and a current flows out of it into the Atlantic.
Arctu′rus, star of the first magnitude and the chief in the N. constellation Boötes.
Ardèche, an affluent of the Rhône, source in the Cévennes; gives name to a department traversed by the Cévennes Mountains.
Arden, a large forest at one time in England, E. of the Severn.
Arden, Enoch, hero of a poem by Tennyson, who finds, on his return from the sea, after long absence, his wife, who believed him dead, married happily to another; does not disclose himself, and dies broken-hearted.
Ardennes, a forest, a tract of rugged woodland on the confines of France and Belgium; also department of France (325), on the borders of Belgium.
Ar′doch, a place in Perthshire, 7 m. from Crieff, with the remains of a Roman camp, the most complete in Britain.
Arends, Leopold, a Russian of literary ability, inventor of a system of stenography extensively used on the Continent (1817-1882).
Areopagitica, a prose work of Milton's, described by Prof. Saintsbury as “a magnificent search for the Dead Truth.”
Areop′agus, the hill of Ares in Athens, which gave name to the celebrated council held there, a tribunal of 31 members, charged with judgment in criminal offences, and whose sentences were uniformly the awards of strictest justice.
Arequi′pa (35), a city in Peru, founded by Pizarro in 1536, in a fruitful valley of the Andes, 8000 ft. above the sea, 30 m. inland; is much subject to earthquakes, and was almost destroyed by one in 1868.
A′rés, the Greek god of war in its sanguinary aspects; was the son of Zeus and Hera; identified by the Romans with Mars, was fond of war for its own sake, and had for sister Eris, the goddess of strife, who used to pander to his passion.
Aretæ′us, a Greek physician of 1st century; wrote a treatise on diseases, their causes, symptoms, and cures, still extant.
Arethu′sa, a celebrated fountain in the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse, transformed from a Nereid pursued thither from Elis, in Greece, by the river-god Alphæus, so that the waters of the river henceforth mingled with those of the fountain.
Areti′no, Pietro, called the “Scourge of Princes,” a licentious satirical writer, born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, alternately attached to people and repelled from them by his wit, moved from one centre of attraction to another; settled in Venice, where he died after an uncontrollable fit of laughter which seized him at the story of the adventure of a sister (1492-1557).
Arezzo (44), an ancient Tuscan city, 38 m. SE. of Florence, and eventually subject to it; the birthplace of Mæcenas, Michael Angelo, Petrarch, Guido, and Vasari.
Ar′gali, a sheep of Siberia, as large as a moderately-sized ox, with enormous grooved curving horns, strong-limbed, sure-footed, and swift.
Argan′, the hypochondriac rich patient in Molière's “Le Malade Imaginaire.”
Argand, a Swiss physician and chemist, born at Geneva; inventor of the argand lamp, which, as invented by him, introduced a circular wick (1755-1803).
Argelan′der, a distinguished astronomer, born at Memel, professor at Bonn; he fixed the position of 22,000 stars, and recorded observations to prove that the solar system was moving through space (1799-1874).
Ar′gens, Marquis d', a French soldier who turned to letters, author of sceptical writings, of which the best known is entitled “Lettres Juives” (1704-1771).
Argenson, René-Louis, Marquis d', French statesman, who left “Memoirs” of value as affecting the early and middle part of Louis XV.'s reign (1694-1757).
Argentine Republic, or Argentina (4,000), a confederation like that of the United States of 14 states and 9 territories, occupying the eastern slopes of the Andes and the vast level plain extending from them to the Atlantic, bounded on the N. by Bolivia and Paraguay; its area ten times that of Great Britain and Ireland; while the population includes 600,000 foreigners, Italians, French, Spaniards, English, and Germans.
Ar′go, the fifty-oared ship of the Argonauts (q. v.).
Ar′golis, the north-eastern peninsula of the Morea of Greece, and one of the 13 provinces of Greece, is 12 m. long by 5 m. broad.
Ar′gon, a new element lately discovered to exist in a gaseous form in the nitrogen of the air.
Argonautica, the title of a poem on the Argonautic expedition by Apollonius of Rhodes.
Ar′gonauts, the Greek heroes, sailors in the Argo, who, under the command of Jason, sailed for Colchis in quest of the golden fleece, which was guarded by a dragon that never slept, a perilous venture, but it proved successful with the assistance of Medea, the daughter of the king, whom, with the fleece, Jason in the end brought away with him to be his wife.
Argonne′, Forest of, “a long strip of rocky mountain and wild wood” in the NE. of France, within the borders of which the Duke of Brunswick was outwitted by Dumouriez in 1792.
Ar′gos (9), the capital of Argolis, played for long a prominent part in the history of Greece, but paled before the power of Sparta.
Ar′gus, surnamed the “All-seeing,” a fabulous creature with a hundred eyes, of which one half was always awake, appointed by Hera to watch over Io, but Hermes killed him after lulling him to sleep by the sound of his flute, whereupon Hera transferred his eyes to the tail of the peacock, her favourite bird. Also the dog of Ulysses, immortalised by Homer; he was the only creature that recognised Ulysses under his rags on his return to Ithaca after twenty years' absence, under such excitement, however, that immediately after he dropped down dead.
Argus, a pheasant, a beautiful Oriental game-bird, so called from the eye-like markings on its plumage.
Argyll (74), a large county in the W. of Scotland, consisting of deeply indented mainland and islands, and abounding in mountains, moorlands, and lochs, with scenery often picturesque as well as wild and savage.
Argyll, a noble family or clan of the name of Campbell, the members of which have held successively the title of Earl, Marquis, and Duke, their first patent of nobility dating from 1445, and their earldom from 1453.
Argyll, Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquis of, sided with the Covenanters, fought against Montrose, disgusted with the execution of Charles I., crowned Charles II. at Scone, after the Restoration committed to the Tower, was tried and condemned, met death nobly (1598-1661).
Argyll, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of, son of the preceding, fought for Charles II., was taken prisoner, released at the Restoration and restored to his estates, proved rebellious at last, and was condemned to death; escaped to Holland, made a descent on Scotland, was captured and executed in 1685.
Argyll, George John Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of, as Marquis of Lorne took a great interest in the movement which led to the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, a Whig in politics, was a member of the Cabinets of Aberdeen, Palmerston, and Gladstone; of late has shown more Conservative tendencies; takes a deep interest in the scientific theories and questions of the time; wrote, among other works, a book in 1866 entitled “The Reign of Law,” in vindication of Theism, and another in the same interest in 1884 entitled “The Unity of Nature”; b. 1824.
Argyll, John Campbell, 2nd Duke of, favoured the Union, was created an English peer, fought under Marlborough, opposed the return of the Stuarts, defeated Mar at Sheriffmuir, ruled Scotland under Walpole (1678-1743).
Ariad′ne, daughter of Minos, king of Crete, gave to Theseus a clue by which to escape out of the labyrinth after he had slain the Minotaur, for which Theseus promised to marry her; took her with him to Naxos and left her there, where, according to one tradition, Artemis killed her, and according to another, Dionysos found her and married her, placing her at her death among the gods, and hanging her wedding wreath as a constellation in the sky.
Arianism, the heresy of Arius (q. v.).
Aria′no (12), a city with a fine cathedral, 1500 ft. above the sea-level, NE. of Naples; has a trade in wine and butter.
Ari′ca, a seaport connected with Tacna, S. of Peru, the chief outlet for the produce of Bolivia; suffers again and again from earthquakes, and was almost destroyed in 1832.
Ariège, a department of France, at the foot of the northern slopes of the Pyrenees; has extensive forests and is rich in minerals.
A′riel, in Shakespeare's “Tempest,” a spirit of the air whom Prospero finds imprisoned by Sycorax in the cleft of a pine-tree, and liberates on condition of her serving him for a season, which she willingly engages to do, and does.
Ariel, an idol of the Moabites, an outcast angel.
Aries, the Ram. the first of the signs of the Zodiac, which the sun enters on March 21, though the constellation itself, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, is no longer within the limits of the sign.
Ari′on, a lyrist of Lesbos, lived chiefly at the court of Periander, Corinth; returning in a ship from a musical contest in Sicily laden with prizes, the sailors plotted to kill him, when he begged permission to play one strain on his lute, which being conceded, dolphins crowded round the ship, whereupon he leapt over the bulwarks, was received on the back of one of them, and carried to Corinth, arriving there before the sailors, who, on their landing, were apprehended and punished.
Arios′to, Ludovico, an illustrious Italian poet, born at Reggio, in Lombardy; spent his life chiefly in Ferrara, mostly in poverty; his great work “Orlando Furioso” (q. v.), published the first edition, in 40 cantos, in 1516, and the third in 46 cantos, in 1532; the work is so called from the chief subject of it, the madness of Roland induced by the loss of his lady-love through her marriage to another (1474-1532).
Ariovistus, a German chief, invaded Gaul, and threatened to overrun it, but was forced back over the Rhine by Cæsar.
Aristæ′us, a son of Apollo, the guardian divinity of the vine and olive, of hunters and herdsmen; first taught the management of bees, some of which stung Eurydice to death, whereupon the nymphs, companions of Orpheus, her husband, set upon his bees and destroyed them. In this extremity Aristæus applied to Proteus, who advised him to sacrifice four bullocks to appease the manes of Eurydice; this done, there issued from the carcasses of the victims a swarm of bees, which reconciled him to the loss of the first ones.
Aristar′chus of Samos, a Greek astronomer, who first conceived the idea of the rotundity of the earth and its revolution both on its own axis and round the sun, in promulgating which idea he was accused of impiously disturbing the serenity of the gods (280 B.C.).
Aristarchus of Samothrace, a celebrated Greek grammarian and critic, who devoted his life to the elucidation and correct transmission of the text of the Greek poets, and especially Homer (158-88 B.C.).
Ariste′as, a sort of Wandering Jew of Greek fable, who turns up here and there in Greek tradition, and was thought to be endowed with a soul that could at will leave and enter the body.
Aristi′des, an Athenian general and statesman, surnamed The Just; covered himself with glory at the battle of Marathon; was made archon next year, in the discharge of the duties of which office he received his surname; was banished by ostracism at the instance of his rival, Themistocles; recalled three years after the invasion of Xerxes, was reconciled to Themistocles, fought bravely at Salamis, and distinguished himself at Platæa; managed the finances of the State with such probity that he died poor, was buried at the public charges, and left the State to provide for his children.
Aristion, a philosopher, tyrant of Athens, put to death by order of Sylla, 86 B.C.
Aristip′pus of Cyrene, founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, a disciple of Socrates; in his teaching laid too much emphasis on one principle of Socrates, apart from the rest, in insisting too exclusively upon pleasure as the supreme good and ultimate aim of life.
Aristobu′lus I., son of John Hyrcanus, first of the Asmonæan dynasty in Judea to assume the name of king, which he did from 104-102 B.C., a pronounced Helleniser; A. II., twice carried captive to Rome, assassinated 50 B.C.; A. III., last of Asmonæan dynasty, drowned by Herod in the Jordan, 34 B.C.
Aristode′mus, king of Messenia, carried on for 20 years a war with Sparta, till at length finding resistance hopeless he put an end to his life on the tomb of his daughter, whom he had sacrificed to ensure the fulfilment of an oracle to the advantage of his house; d. 724 B.C. Also a Greek sculptor, 4th century B.C.
Aristom′enes, a mythical king of Messenia, celebrated for his struggle with the Spartans, and his resistance to them on Mount Ira for 11 years, which at length fell to the enemy, while he escaped and was snatched up by the gods; died at Rhodes.
Aristophanes, the great comic dramatist of Athens, lived in the 5th century B.C.; directed the shafts of his wit, which were very keen, against all of whatever rank who sought in any way to alter, and, as it was presumed, amend, the religious, philosophical, social, political, or literary creed and practice of the country, and held up to ridicule such men as Socrates and Euripides, as well as Cleon the tanner; wrote 54 plays, of which 11 have come down to us; of these the “Clouds” aim at Socrates, the “Acharnians” and the “Frogs” at Euripides, and the “Knights” at Cleon; d. 384 B.C.
Ar′istotle, a native of Stagira, in Thrace, and hence named the Stagirite; deprived of his parents while yet a youth; came in his 17th year to Athens, remained in Plato's society there for 20 years; after the death of Plato, at the request of Philip, king of Macedon, who held him in high honour, became the preceptor of Alexander the Great, then only 13 years old; on Alexander's expedition into Asia, returned to Athens and began to teach in the Lyceum, where it was his habit to walk up and down as he taught, from which circumstance his school got the name of Peripatetic; after 13 years he left the city and went to Chalcis, in Euboea, where he died. He was the oracle of the scholastic philosophers and theologians in the Middle Ages; is the author of a great number of writings which covered a vast field of speculation, of which the progress of modern science goes to establish the value; is often referred to as the incarnation of the philosophic spirit (385-322 B.C.).
Aristox′enus of Tarentum, a Greek philosopher, author of the “Elements of Harmony,” the only one of his many works extant, and one of the oldest writers on music; contemporary of Aristotle.
A′rius, a presbyter of Alexandria in the 4th century, and founder of Arianism, which denied the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father in the so-called Trinity, a doctrine which hovered for a time between acceptance and rejection throughout the Catholic Church; was condemned first by a local synod which met at Alexandria in 321, and then by a General Council at Nice in 325, which the Emperor Constantine attended in person; the author was banished to Illyricum, his writings burned, and the possession of them voted to be a crime; after three years he was recalled by Constantine, who ordered him to be restored; was about to be readmitted into the Church when he died suddenly, by poison, alleged his friends—by the judgment of God, said his enemies (280-336).
Arizo′na (59), a territory of the United States N. of Mexico and W. of New Mexico, nearly four times as large as Scotland, rich in mines of gold, silver, and copper, fertile in the lowlands; much of the surface a barren plateau 11,000 ft. high, through which the cañon of the Colorado passes. See Cañon.
Ark of the Covenant, a chest of acacia wood overlaid with gold, 2½ cubits long and 1½ in breadth; contained the two tables of stone inscribed with the Ten Commandments, the gold pot with the manna, and Aaron's rod; the lid supported the mercy-seat, with a cherub at each end, and the shekinah radiance between.
Arkans′as (1,128), one of the Southern States of America, N. of Louisiana and W. of the Mississippi, a little larger than England; rich in metals, grows cotton and corn.
Arkwright, Sir Richard, born at Preston, Lancashire; bred to the trade of a barber; took interest in the machinery of cotton-spinning; with the help of a clockmaker, invented the spinning frame; was mobbed for threatening thereby to shorten labour and curtail wages, and had to flee; fell in with Mr. Strutt of Derby, who entered into partnership with him; prospered in business and died worth half a million. “French Revolutions were a-brewing; to resist the same in any way, Imperial Cæsars were impotent without the cotton and cloth of England; and it was this man,” says Carlyle, “that had to give to England the power of cotton” (1732-1792).
Arlberg, a mountain mass between the Austrian provinces of Vorarlberg and Tyrol, pierced by a tunnel, one of the three that penetrate the Alps, and nearly four miles in length.
Arles (14), a city, one of the oldest in France, on the Rhône, 46 m. N. of Marseilles, where Constantine built a palace, with ruins of an amphitheatre and other Roman works; the seat of several Church Councils.
Ar′lincourt, Viscount d', a French romancer, born near Versailles (1789-1856).
Ar′lington, Henry Bennet, Earl of, served under Charles I., and accompanied Charles II. in his exile; a prominent member of the famous Cabal; being impeached when in office, lost favour and retired into private life (1618-1685).
Ar′lon (8), a prosperous town in Belgium, capital of Luxemburg.
Arma′da, named the Invincible, an armament fitted out in 1588 by Philip II. of Spain against England, consisting of 130 war-vessels, mounted with 2430 cannon, and manned by 20,000 soldiers; was defeated in the Channel on July 20 by Admiral Howard, seconded by Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher; completely dispersed and shattered by a storm in retreat on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, the English losing only one ship; of the whole fleet only 53 ships found their way back to Spain, and these nearly all hors de combat.
Armageddon, a name given in Apocalypse to the final battlefield between the powers of good and evil, or Christ and Antichrist.
Armagh (143), a county in Ulster, Ireland, 32 m. long by 20 m. broad; and a town (18) in it, 33 m. SW. of Belfast, from the 5th to the 9th century the capital of Ireland, as it is the ecclesiastical still; the chief manufacture linen-weaving.
Armagnac, a district, part of Gascony, in France, now in dep. of Gers, celebrated for its wine and brandy.
Armagnacs, a faction in France in time of Charles VI. at mortal feud with the Bourguignons.
Armato′les, warlike marauding tribes in the mountainous districts of Northern Greece, played a prominent part in the War of Independence in 1820.
Armed soldier of Democracy, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Arme′nia, a country in Western Asia, W. of the Caspian Sea and N. of Kurdistan Mts., anciently independent, now divided between Turkey, Russia, and Persia, occupying a plateau interspersed with fertile valleys, which culminates in Mt. Ararat, in which the Euphrates and Tigris have their sources.
Armenians, a people of the Aryan race occupying Armenia, early converted to Christianity of the Eutychian type; from early times have emigrated into adjoining, and even remote, countries, and are, like the Jews, mainly engaged in commercial pursuits, the wealthier of them especially in banking.
Armentières (27), a manufacturing and trading town in France, 12 m. N. of Lille.
Armi′da, a beautiful enchantress in Tasso's “Jerusalem Delivered,” who bewitched Rinaldo, one of the Crusaders, by her charms, as Circe did Ulysses, and who in turn, when the spell was broken, overpowered her by his love and persuaded her to become a Christian. The Almida Palace, in which she enchanted Rinaldo, has become a synonym for any merely visionary but enchanting palace of pleasure.
Arminianism. See Arminius.
Armin′ius, or Hermann, the Deliverer of Germany from the Romans by the defeat of Varus, the Roman general, in 9 A.D., near Detmold (where a colossal statue has been erected to his memory); killed in some family quarrel in his 37th year.
Arminius, Jacobus, a learned Dutch theologian and founder of Arminianism, an assertion of the free-will of man in the matter of salvation against the necessitarianism of Calvin (1560-1609).
Armor′ica, a district of Gaul from the Loire to the Seine.
Armstrong, John, a Scotch doctor and poet, born in Roxburghshire, practised medicine in London; friend of poet Thomson, as well as of Wilkes and Smollett, and author of “The Art of Preserving Health” (1709-1779).
Armstrong, William George, Lord, born at Newcastle, produced the hydraulic accumulator and the hydraulic crane, established the Elswick engine works in the suburbs of his native city, devoted his attention to the improvement of heavy ordnance, invented the Armstrong gun, which he got the Government to adopt, knighted in 1858, and in 1887 raised to the peerage; b. 1810.
Ar′naud, Henri, a pastor of the Vaudois, turned soldier to rescue, and did rescue, his co-religionists from their dispersion under the persecution of the Count of Savoy; but when the Vaudois were exiled a second time, he accompanied them in their exile to Schomberg, and acted pastor to them till his death (1641-1721).
Arnauld, Antoine, the “great Arnauld,” a French theologian, doctor of the Sorbonne, an inveterate enemy of the Jesuits, defended Jansenism against the Bull of the Pope, became religious director of the nuns of Port Royal des Champs, associated here with a circle of kindred spirits, among others Pascal; expelled from the Sorbonne and banished the country, died at Brussels (1612-1694).
Arnauld, Marie Ange′lique, La Mère Angelique as she was called, sister of the preceding and abbess of the Port Royal, a victim of the persecutions of the Jesuits to very death (1624-1684).
Arndt, Ernst Moritz, a German poet and patriot, whose memory is much revered by the whole German people, one of the first to rouse his countrymen to shake off the tyranny of Napoleon; his songs and eloquent appeals went straight to the heart of the nation and contributed powerfully to its liberation; his “Geist der Zeit” made him flee the country after the battle of Jena, and his “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?” strikes a chord in the breast of every German all the world over (1710-1860).
Arndt, John, a Lutheran theologian, the author of “True Christianity,” a work which, in Germany and elsewhere, has contributed to infuse a new spirit of life into the profession of the Christian religion, which seemed withering away under the influence of a lifeless dogmatism (1553-1621).
Arne, Thomas Augustine, a musical composer of versatile genius, produced, during over 40 years, a succession of pieces in every style from songs to sonatas and oratorios, among others the world-famous chorus “Rule Britannia”; Mrs. Cibber was his sister (1719-1778).
Arn′heim (51), the capital of Guelderland, is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, and has a large transit trade.
Arnim, Bettine von, sister of Clemens Brentano, wife of Ludwig Arnim, a native of Frankfort; at 22 conceived a passionate love for Goethe, then in his 60th year, visited him at Weimar, and corresponded with him afterwards, part of which correspondence appeared subsequently under the title of “Goethe's Correspondence with a Child” (1785-1859).
Arnim, Count, ambassador of Germany, first at Rome and then at Paris; accused in the latter capacity of purloining State documents, and sentenced to imprisonment; died in exile at Nice (1824-1881).
Arnim, Ludwig Achim von, a German poet and novelist (1781-1831).
Arno, a river of Italy, rises in the Apennines, flows westward past Florence and Pisa into the Mediterranean, subject to destructive inundations.
Arnobius, an African rhetorician who, in the beginning of the 4th century, embraced Christianity, and wrote a book in its defence, still extant, and of great value, entitled “Disputations against the Heathen.”
Arnold, Benedict, an American military general, entered the ranks of the colonists under Washington during the War of Independence, distinguished himself in several engagements, promoted to the rank of general, negotiated with the English general Clinton to surrender an important post entrusted to him, escaped to the English ranks on the discovery of the plot, and served in them against his country; d. in England in 1801.
Arnold, Matthew, poet and critic, eldest son of Thomas Arnold of Rugby; professor of Poetry in Oxford from 1857 to 1867; inspector of schools for 35 years from 1851; commissioned twice over to visit France, Germany, and Holland, to inquire into educational matters there; wrote two separate reports thereon of great value; author of “Poems,” of a highly finished order and showing a rich poetic gift, “Essays on Criticism,” “Culture and Anarchy,” “St. Paul and Protestantism,” “Literature and Dogma,” &c.; a man of culture, and especially literary culture, of which he is reckoned the apostle; died suddenly at Liverpool. He was more eminent as a poet than a critic, influential as he was in that regard. “It is,” says Swinburne, “by his verse and not his prose he must be judged,” and is being now judged (1822-1888).
Arnold, Sir Edwin, poet and journalist, familiar with Indian literature; author of the “Light of Asia,” “Light of the World,” and other works in prose and verse; b. 1832, at Gravesend.
Arnold, Thomas, head-master of Rugby, and professor of Modern History at Oxford; by his moral character and governing faculty effected immense reforms in Rugby School; was liberal in his principles and of a philanthropic spirit; he wrote a “History of Rome” based on Niebuhr, and edited Thucydides; his “Life and Correspondence” was edited by Dean Stanley (1795-1842).
Arnold of Brescia, an Italian monk, and disciple of Abelard; declaimed against the temporal power of the Pope, the corruptions of the Church, and the avarice of the clergy; headed an insurrection against the Pope in Rome, which collapsed under the Pope's interdict; at last was burned alive in 1156, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber.
Arnold of Winkelried, the Decius of Switzerland, a peasant of the canton of Unterwald, who, by the voluntary sacrifice of his life, broke the lines of the Austrians at Sempach in 1386 and decided the fate of the battle.
Arnott, Dr. Neil, a native of Arbroath, author of the “Elements of Physics” and of several hygienic inventions (1788-1874).
Arou′et, the family name of Voltaire; his name formed by an ingenious transposition he made of the letters of his name, Arouet l. j. (jeune).
Ar′pad, the national hero of Hungary; established for the Magyars a firm footing in the country; was founder of the Arpad dynasty, which became extinct in 1301; d. 907.
Arpi′no (Arpinium), an ancient town in Latium, S. of Rome, birthplace of Cicero and Marius.
Arqua, a village 12 m. SW. of Padua, where Petrarch died and was buried.
Arrack, a spirituous liquor, especially that distilled from the juice of the cocoa-nut tree and from fermented rice.
Ar′rah, a town in Bengal, 36 m. from Patna; famous for its defence by a handful of English and Sikhs against thousands during the Mutiny.
Arran (4), largest island in the Firth of Clyde, in Buteshire; a mountainous island, highest summit Goatfell, 2866 ft, with a margin of lowland round the coast; nearly all the property of the Duke of Hamilton, whose seat is Brodick Castle.
Arras (20), a French town in the dep. of Pas-de-Calais, long celebrated for its tapestry; the birthplace of Damiens and Robespierre.
Ar′ria, a Roman matron, who, to encourage her husband in meeting death, to which he had been sentenced, thrust a poniard into her own breast, and then handed it to him, saying, “It is not painful,” whereupon he followed her example.
Ar′rian, Flavius, a Bithynian, a friend of Epictetus the Stoic, edited his “Enchiridion”; wrote a “History of Alexander the Great,” and “Periplus,” an account of voyages round the Euxine and round the Red Sea; b. 100, and died at an advanced age.
Arrow-headed characters, the same as the Cuneiform (q. v.).
Arru Islands (15), a group of 80 coralline islands, belonging to Holland, W. of New Guinea; export mother-of-pearl, pearls, tortoise-shell, &c.
Ar′saces I., the founder of the dynasty of the Arsacidæ, by a revolt which proved successful against the Seleucidæ, 250 B.C.
Arsacidæ, a dynasty of 31 Parthian kings, who wrested the throne from Antiochus II., the last of the Seleucidæ, 250 B.C.
Arsin′oë, the name of several Egyptian princesses of antiquity; also a prude in Molière's “Misanthrope.”
Arta, Gulf of, gulf forming the NW. frontier of Greece.
Arts, The. There are three classes of these, the Liberal, the Fine, and the Mechanical: the Liberal, implying scholarship, graduation in which is granted by universities, entitling the holder to append M.A. to his name; the Mechanical, implying skill; and the Fine, implying the possession of a soul, discriminated from the mechanical by the word spiritual, as holding of the entire, undivided man, heart as well as brain.
Artaxer′xes, the name of several Persian monarchs: A. I., called the “Long-handed,” from his right hand being longer than his left; son of Xerxes I.; concluded a peace with Greece after a war of 52 years; entertained Themistocles at his court; king from 465 to 424 B.C. A. II., Mnemon, vanquished and killed his brother Cyrus at Cunaxa in 401, who had revolted against him; imposed in 387 on the Spartans the shameful treaty of Antalcidas (q. v.); king from 405 to 359 B.C. A. III., Ochus, son of the preceding, slew all his kindred on ascending the throne; in Egypt slew the sacred bull Apis and gave the flesh to his soldiers, for which his eunuch Bagsas poisoned him; king from 359 to 338 B.C. A. IV., grandson of Sassan, founder of the dynasty Sassanidæ; restored the old religion of the Magi, amended the laws, and promoted education; king from A.D. 223 to 232.
Arte′di, a Swedish naturalist, assisted Linnæus in his “Systema Naturæ”; his own great work, “Ichthyologia,” published by Linnæus after his death (1703-1735).
Ar′tegal, the impersonation and champion of Justice in Spenser's “Faërie Queene.”
Ar′temis, in the Greek mythology the daughter of Zeus and Leto, twin sister of Apollo, born in the Isle of Delos, and one of the great divinities of the Greeks; a virgin goddess, represented as a huntress armed with bow and arrows; presided over the birth of animals, was guardian of flocks, the moon the type of her and the laurel her sacred tree, was the Diana of the Romans, and got mixed up with deities in other mythologies.
Artemi′sia, queen of Halicarnassus, joined Xerxes in his invasion of Greece, and fought with valour at Salamis, 440 B.C. A. II., also queen, raised a tomb over the grave of her husband Mausolus, regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world, 355 B.C.
Artemi′sium, a promontory N. of Euboea, near which Xerxes lost part of his fleet, 480 B.C.
Artemus Ward. See C. F. Browne.
Artesian wells, wells made by boring for water where it is lower than its source, so as to obtain a constant supply of it.
Ar′tevelde, Jacob van, a wealthy brewer of Ghent, chosen chief in a revolt against Count Louis of Flanders, expelled him, made a treaty with Edward III. as lord-superior of Flanders, was massacred in a popular tumult (1300-1345).
Artevelde, Philip van, son of the preceding, defeated Louis II. and became king; but with the help of France Louis retaliated and defeated the Flemings, and slew him in 1382.
Artful Dodger, a young thief, an expert in the profession in Dickens' “Oliver Twist.”
Ar′thur, a British prince of wide-spread fame, who is supposed to have lived at the time of the Saxon invasion in the 6th century, whose exploits and those of his court have given birth to the tradition of the Round Table, to the rendering of which Tennyson devoted so much of his genius.
Arthur, Chester Alan, twenty-first president of the United States, a lawyer by profession, and a prominent member of the Republican party (1830-1886).
Arthur, Prince, Duke of Brittany, heir to the throne of England by the death of his uncle Richard I.; supplanted by King John.
Arthur Seat, a lion-shaped hill 822 ft., close to Edinburgh on the E., from the top of which the prospect is unrivalled; “the blue, majestic, everlasting ocean, with the Fife hills swelling gradually into the Grampians behind it on the N.; rough crags and rude precipices at our feet ('where not a hillock rears its head unsung'), with Edinburgh at their base, clustering proudly over her rugged foundations, and covering with a vapoury mantle the jagged, black, venerable masses of stone-work, that stretch far and wide, and show like a city of fairyland”—such the view Carlyle had in a clear atmosphere of 1826, whatever it may be now.
Articles, The Thirty-Nine, originally Forty-Two, a creed framed in 1562, which every clergyman of the Church of England is bound by law to subscribe to at his ordination, as the accepted faith of the Church.
Artist, according to a definition of Ruskin, which he prints in small caps., “a person who has submitted to a law which it was painful to obey, that he may bestow a delight which it is gracious to bestow.”
Artists, Prince of, Albert Dürer, so called by his countrymen.
Ar′tois, an ancient province of France, comprising the dep. of Pas-de-Calais, and parts of the Somme and the Nord; united to the crown in 1659.
Artois, Monseigneur d', famed, as described in Carlyle's “French Revolution,” for “breeches of a new kind in this world”; brother of Louis XVI., and afterwards Charles X. (q. v.).
Ar′undel (2), a municipal town in Sussex, on the Arun, 9 m. E. of Chichester, with a castle of great magnificence, the seat of the Earls of Arundel.
Arundel, Thomas, successively bishop of Ely, Lord Chancellor, archbishop of York, and archbishop of Canterbury; a persecutor of the Wickliffites, but a munificent benefactor of the Church (1353-1414).
Arundel marbles, ancient Grecian marbles collected at Smyrna and elsewhere by the Earl of Arundel in 1624, now in the possession of the University of Oxford, the most important of which is one from Paros inscribed with a chronology of events in Grecian history from 1582 to 264 B.C.; the date of the marbles themselves is 263 B.C.
Aruns, son of Tarquinus Superbus, who fell in single combat with Brutus.
Aruwi′mi, an affluent of the Congo on the right bank below the Stanley Falls.
Arva′tes, Fratres, a college of twelve priests in ancient Rome whose duty it was to make annual offerings to the Lares for the increase of the fruits of the field.
Arve, a river that flows through the valley of Chamouni and falls into the Rhône below Geneva.
Arveyron, an affluent of the Arve from the Mer de Glace.
Ar′yans, or Indo-Europeans, a race that is presumed to have had its primitive seat in Central Asia, E. of the Caspian Sea and N. of the Hindu-Kush, and to have branched off at different periods north-westward and westward into Europe, and southward into Persia and the valley of the Ganges, from which sprung the Greeks, Latins, Celts, Teutons, Slavs, on the one hand, and the Persians and Hindus on the other, a community of origin that is attested by the comparative study of their respective languages.
Ar′zew, a seaport in Algeria, 22 m. from Oran, with Roman remains; exports grain and salt.
Asafoe′tida, a fetid inspissated sap from an Indian umbelliferous tree, used in medicine.
Asaph, a musician of the temple at Jerusalem.
Asaph, St., a town in Flintshire, 20 m. from Chester; seat of a bishopric.
Asbes′tos, an incombustible mineral of a flax-like fibrous texture, which has been manufactured into cloth, paper, lamp-wick, steam-pipes, gas-stoves, &c.
Asbjörn′sen, a Dane, distinguished as a naturalist, and particularly as a collector of folk-lore, as well as an author of children's stories (1812-1885).
As′bury, Francis, a zealous, assiduous Methodist preacher and missionary, sent to America, was consecrated the first bishop of the newly organised Methodist Church there (1745-1816).
As′calon, one of the five cities of the Philistines, much contested for during the Crusades.
Asca′nius, the son of Æneas, who trotted non passibus æquis (“with unequal steps”) by the side of his father as he escaped from burning Troy; was founder of Alba Longa.
As′capart, a giant conquered by Bevis of Southampton, though so huge as to carry Bevis, his wife, and horse under his arm.
Ascension, a bare volcanic island in the Atlantic, rising to nearly 3000 ft., belonging to Britain, 500 m. NW. of St. Helena, and 900 m. from the coast of Africa; a coaling and victualling station for the navy.
Aschaf′fenburg (14), an ancient town of Bavaria, on the Main, 20 m. from Frankfort, with an old castle and cathedral.
Ascham, Roger, a Yorkshireman, Fellow of Cambridge, a good classical, and particularly Greek, scholar; wrote a book on archery, deemed a classic, entitled “Toxophilus,” for which Henry VIII. settled a pension on him; was tutor and Latin secretary to Queen Elizabeth, and much esteemed by her; his chief work, the “Schoolmaster,” an admirable treatise on education, held in high regard by Dr. Johnson, the sum of which is docendo discas, “learn by teaching” (1515-1560).
Aschersle′ben (22), a manufacturing town in the Magdeburg district of Prussia.
Asclepi′ades, a Bithynian who practised medicine with repute at Rome in Cicero's time, and was great in hygiene.
As′cot, a racecourse in Berks, 6 m. SW. of Windsor, the races at which, instituted by Queen Anne, take place a fortnight after the Derby.
As′gard, the garden or heaven of the Asen or gods in the Norse mythology, in which each had a separate dwelling, and who held intercourse with the other spheres of existence by the bridge Bifröst, i. e. the rainbow.
Asgill, John, an eccentric Englishman, wrote a book to prove that death was due to want of faith, and to express his belief that he would be translated, and translated he was, to spend 30 years, apparently quite happily, writing pamphlets, and end his days in the debtors' prison.
Ash, John, a dissenting divine, author of an English dictionary, valuable for the number of obsolete and provincial words contained in it (1724-1779).
Ash′anti, or Ashantee, a negro inland kingdom in the Upper Soudan, N. of Gold Coast territory, wooded, well watered, and well cultivated; natives intelligent, warlike, and skilful; twice over provoked a war with Great Britain, and finally the despatch of a military expedition, which led to the submission of the king and the appointment of a British Resident.
Ashburnham, John, a member of the Long Parliament, a faithful adherent and attendant of Charles I., and assistant to him in his troubles (1603-1671).
Ashburnham, 5th Earl of, collected a number of valuable MSS. and rare books known as the Ashburnham Collection; d. 1878.
Ashburton, Alexander Baring, Lord, second son of Sir Francis Baring, a Liberal politician, turned Conservative, member of Peel's administration in 1834-35, sent special ambassador to the United States in 1842; concluded the boundary treaty of Washington, known as the Ashburton Treaty; in his retirement “a really good, solid, most cheery, sagacious, simple-hearted old man” (1774-1848).
Ashburton, William Bingham Baring, son of the preceding, “a very worthy man,” an admirer, and his wife, Lady Harriet, still more, of Thomas Carlyle (1797-1844).
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a small market-town 17 m. W. of Leicester, figures in “Ivanhoe,” with the ruins of a castle in which Queen Mary was immured.
Ashdod, a maritime Philistine city 20 m. S. of Jaffa, seat of the Dagon worship.
Ashe′ra, an image of Astarte (q. v.), and associated with the worship of that goddess.
Ash′mole, Elias, a celebrated antiquary and authority on heraldry; presented to the University of Oxford a collection of rarities bequeathed to him, which laid the foundation of the Ashmolean Collection there (1617-1692).
Ashmun, Jehudi, an American philanthropist, founder of the Negro Republic of Liberia, on the W. coast of Africa (1794-1828).
Ash′taroth. See Astarte.
Ash′ton-under-Lyne (47), a cotton-manufacturing town near Manchester.
Asia, the largest of the four quarters of the globe, and as good as in touch with the other three; contains one-third of all the land, which, from a centre of high elevations, extensive plains, and deep depressions, stretches southward into three large peninsulas separated by three immense arms of the sea, and eastward into three bulging masses and three pronounced peninsulas forming seas, protected by groups of islands; with rivers the largest in the whole world, of which four flow N., two SE., and eight S.; with a large continental basin, also the largest in the world, and with lakes which though they do not match those of America and Africa, strikingly stand at a higher level as we go E.; with every variety of climate, with a richly varied flora and fauna, with a population of 840,000,000, being the half of that of the globe, of chiefly three races, Caucasian, Mongolian, and Malay, at different stages of civilisation, and as regards religion, by far the majority professing the faith of Brahma, Buddha, Mahomet, or Christ.
Asia Minor, called also Anatole′, a peninsular extension westward of the Armenian and Kurdistan highlands in Asia, bounded on the N. by the Black Sea, on the W. by the Archipelago, and on the S. by the Levant; indented all round, mainland as well as adjoining islands, with bays and harbours, all more or less busy centres of trade; is as large as France, and consists of a plateau with slopes all round to the coasts; has a population of over 28,000,000.
Askew, Anne, a lady of good birth, a victim of persecution in the time of Henry VIII. for denying transubstantiation, tortured on the rack and burnt at the stake, 1546.
Askew, Antony, a physician and classical scholar, a collector of rare and curious books (1722-1774).
Asmode′us, a mischievous demon or goblin of the Jewish demonology, who gloats on the vices and follies of mankind, and figures in Le Sage's “Le Diable Boiteux,” or the “Devil on Two Sticks,” as lifting off the roofs of the houses of Madrid and exposing their inmost interiors and the secret doings of the inhabitants.
Asmonæ′ans, a name given to the Maccabees, from Asmon, the place of their origin.
Aso′ka, a king of Behar, in India; after his accession in 264 B.C. became an ardent disciple of Buddha; organised Buddhism, as Constantine did Christianity, into a State religion; convened the third great council of the Church of that creed at Patna; made a proclamation of this faith as far as his influence extended, evidence of which is still extant in pillars and rocks inscribed with his edicts in wide districts of Northern India; d. 223 B.C.
Asp, a poisonous Egyptian viper of uncertain species.
Aspa′sia, a woman remarkable for her wit, beauty, and culture, a native of Miletus; being attracted to Athens, came and settled in it; became the wife of Pericles, and her home the rendezvous of all the intellectual and wise people of the city, Socrates included; her character was often both justly and unjustly assailed.
As′pern, a village in Austria, on the Danube, 4 m. NE. of Vienna, where a charge of the Austrians under the Archduke Charles was defeated by Napoleon, May 21, 1809, and Marshal Lannes killed.
Asphalt, a mineral pitch of a black or brownish-black colour, consisting chiefly of carbon; also a limestone impregnated with bitumen, and more or less in every quarter of the globe.
Asphaltic Lake, the Dead Sea (q. v.), so called from the asphalt on its surface and banks.
As′phodel, a lily plant appraised by the Greeks for its almost perennial flowering, and with which they, in their imagination, covered the Elysian fields, called hence the Asphodel Meadow.
Asphyx′ia, suspended respiration in the physical life; a term frequently employed by Carlyle to denote a much more recondite, but a no less real, corresponding phenomenon in the spiritual life.
Aspinwall, a town founded by an American of the name in 1800, at the Atlantic extremity of the Panama railway; named Colon, since the Empress Eugenie presented it with a statue of Columbus.
Aspromon′te, a mountain close by Reggio, overlooking the Strait of Messina, near which Garibaldi was defeated and captured in 1862.
Asquini, Count, a rural economist who did much to promote silk culture in Italy (1726-1818).
Assab Bay, a coaling-station belonging to Italy, on the W. coast of the Red Sea.
Assam′ (5,500), a province E. of Bengal, ceded to Britain after the Burmese war in 1826; being an alluvial plain, with ranges of hills along the Brahmapootra, 450 m. long and 50 broad; the low lands extremely fertile and productive, and the hills covered with tea plantations, yielding at one time, if not still, three-fourths of the tea raised in India.
Assarotti, an Italian philanthropist, born at Genoa; the first to open a school for deaf-mutes in Italy, and devoted zealously his fortune and time to the task (1753-1821).
As′sas, Nicolas, captain of the French regiment of Auvergne, whose celebrity depends on a single act of defiance: having entered a wood to reconnoitre it the night before the battle of Kloster Kampen, was suddenly surrounded by the enemy's (the English) soldiers, and defied with bayonets at his breast to utter a cry of alarm; “Ho, Auvergne!” he exclaimed, and fell dead on the instant, pierced with bayonets, to the saving of his countrymen.
Assassins, a fanatical Moslem sect organised in the 11th century, at the time of the Crusades, under a chief called the Old Man of the Mountain, whose stronghold was a rock fortress at Alamut, in Persia, devoted to the assassination of all enemies of the Moslem faith, and so called because they braced their nerves for their deeds of blood by draughts of an intoxicating liquor distilled from hashish (the hemp-plant). A Tartar force burst upon the horde in their stronghold in 1256, and put them wholesale to the sword.
Assaye′, a small town 46 m. NE. of Aurungabad, where Sir Arthur Wellesley gained a victory over the Mahrattas in 1803.
Assegai, a spear or javelin of wood tipped with iron, used by certain S. African tribes with deadly effect in war.
Assembly, General, the chief court of the Presbyterian Church, a representative body, half clergymen and half laymen, which sits in Edinburgh for ten days in May, disposes of the general business of the Church, and determines appeals.
Assembly, National, the Commons section of the States-General of France which met on May 5, 1789, constituted itself into a legislative assembly, and gave a new constitution to the country.
Assembly, Westminster, a body composed of 140 members, of which 117 were clergymen, convened at Westminster to determine questions of doctrine, worship, and discipline in the National Church, and which held its sittings, over 1100 of them, from July 1, 1643, to Feb. 22, 1649, with the result that the members of it were unanimous in regard to doctrine, but were divided in the matter of government.
Assemani, Giuseppe, a learned Syrian Maronite, librarian of the Vatican, wrote an account of Syrian writers (1687-1768); Stephano, nephew, held the same office, wrote “Acta Sanctorum Martyrum” (1707-1782).
Asser, John, monk of St. David's, in Wales, tutor, friend, and biographer of Alfred the Great; is said to have suggested the founding of Oxford University; d. 909.
Assien′to, a treaty with Spain to supply negroes for her colonies, concluded in succession with the Flemings, the Genoese, a French company, the English, and finally the South Sea Company, who relinquished their rights in 1750 on compensation by Spain.
As′signats, bills or notes, to the number of 45 thousand million, issued as currency by the revolutionary government of France in 1790, and based on the security of Church and other lands appropriated by it, and which in course of time sunk in value, to the ruin of millions.
Assiniboi′a, a province in Canada between Saskatchewan and the United States.
Assiniboines, certain aborigines of Canada; the few of whom that remain do farming on the banks of the Saskatchewan.
Assi′si (3), a town in Central Italy, 12 m. SE. of Perugia, the birthplace and burial-place of St. Francis, and the birthplace of Metastasio; it was a celebrated place of resort of pilgrims, who sometimes came in great numbers.
Association of ideas, a connection in the mind between two ideas, such that the consciousness of one tends to recall the other, a fact employed to explain certain recondite psychological phenomena.
Assouan′, the ancient Syene, the southernmost city of Egypt, on the right bank of the Nile, near the last cataract.
Assoucy, D', a French burlesque poet ridiculed by Boileau (1604-1679).
Assumption, Feast of the, festival in honour of the translation of the Virgin Mary to heaven, celebrated on the 15th of August, the alleged day of the event.
Assur, mythical name of the founder of Assyria.
Assyr′ia, an ancient kingdom, the origin and early history of which is uncertain, between the Niphates Mountains of Armenia on the N. and Babylonia on the S., 280 m. long and 150 broad, with a fertile soil and a population at a high stage of civilisation; became a province of Media, which lay to the E., in 606 B.C., and afterwards a satrapy of the Persian empire, and has been under the Turks since 1638, in whose hands it is now a desert.
Assyriology, the study of the monuments of Assyria, chiefly in a Biblical interest.
Astar′te, or Ashtoreth, or Ist′ar, the female divinity of the Phoenicians, as Baal was the male, these two being representative respectively of the conceptive and generative powers of nature, and symbolised, the latter, like Apollo, by the sun, and the former, like Artemis or Diana, by the moon; sometimes identified with Urania and sometimes with Venus; the rites connected with her worship were of a lascivious nature.
Aster, of Amphipolis, an archer who offered his services to Philip of Macedon, boasting of his skill in bringing down birds on the wing, and to whom Philip had replied he would accept them when he made war on the birds. Aster, to be revenged, sped an arrow from the wall of a town Philip was besieging, inscribed, “To the right eye of Philip,” which took effect; whereupon Philip sped back another with the words, “When Philip takes the town, Aster will hang for it,” and he was true to his word.
As′teroids, or Planetoids, small planets in orbits between those of Mars and Jupiter, surmised in 1596, all discovered in the present century, the first on Jan. 1, 1801, and named Ceres; gradually found to number more than 200.
As′ti (33), an ancient city in Piedmont, on the Tanaro, 26 m. SE. from Turin, with a Gothic cathedral; is noted for its wine; birthplace of Alfieri.
Astley, Philip, a famous equestrian and circus manager, along with Franconi established the Cirque Olympique in Paris (1742-1814).
Astolfo, a knight-errant in mediæval legend who generous-heartedly is always to do greater feats than he can perform; in “Orlando Furioso” he brings back Orlando's lost wits in a phial from the moon, and possesses a horn that with a blast can discomfit armies.
Aston, Luise, German authoress, championed the rights of women, and went about in male attire; b. 1820.
Aston Manor (54), a suburb of Birmingham.
Astor, John Jacob, a millionaire, son of a German peasant, who made a fortune of four millions in America by trading in furs (1763-1848). His son doubled his fortune; known as the “landlord of New York” (1792-1875).
Astor, William Waldorf, son of the preceding, devoted to politics; came to London, 1891; became proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette and Budget in 1893; b. 1848.
Asto′ria, in Oregon, a fur-trading station, with numerous salmon-tinning establishments.
Astræ′a, the daughter of Zeus and Themis, the goddess of justice; dwelt among men during the Golden Age, but left the earth on its decline, and her sister Pudicitia along with her, the withdrawal explained to mean the vanishing of the ideal from the life of man on the earth; now placed among the stars under the name of Virgo.
Astræa Redux, the name given to an era which piques itself on the return of the reign of justice to the earth.
As′trakhan (43), a Russian trading town on the Volga, 40 m. from its mouth in the Caspian Sea, of which it is the chief port.
Astral body, an ethereal body believed by the theosophists to invest the animal, to correspond to it, and to be capable of Bilocation (q. v.)
Astral spirits, spirits believed to animate or to people the heavenly bodies, to whom worship was paid, and to hover unembodied through space exercising demonic influence on embodied spirits.
Astrology, a science founded on a presumed connection between the heavenly bodies and human destiny as more or less affected by them, a science at one time believed in by men of such intelligence as Tacitus and Kepler, and few great families at one time but had an astrologer attached to them to read the horoscope of any new member of the house.
Astruc, Jean, a French physician and professor of medicine in Paris, now noted as having discovered that the book of Genesis consists of Elohistic and Jehovistic portions, and who by this discovery founded the modern school called of the Higher Criticism (1681-1766).
Astu′rias (579), an ancient province in the N. of Spain, gives title to the heir to the crown, rich in minerals, and with good fisheries; now named Oviedo, from the principal town.
Asty′ages, last king of the Medes; dethroned by Cyrus, 549 B.C.
Asty′anax, the son of Hector and Andromache; was cast down by the Greeks from the ramparts after the fall of Troy, lest he should live and restore the city.
Asun′cion, or Assumption (18), the capital of Paraguay, on the left bank of the Paraguay, so called from having been founded by the Spaniards on the Feast of the Assumption in 1535.
Asuras, The, in the Hindu mythology the demons of the darkness of night, in overcoming whom the gods asserted their sovereignty in the universe.
Asymptote, a line always approaching some curve but never meeting it.
Ataca′ma, an all but rainless desert in the N. of Chile, abounding in silver and copper mines, as well as gold in considerable quantities.
Atahualpa, the last of the Incas of Peru, who fell into Pizarro's hands through perfidy, and was strangled by his orders in 1533, that is, little short of a year after the Spaniards landed in Peru.
Atalan′ta, a beautiful Grecian princess celebrated for her agility, the prize of any suitor who could outstrip her on the racecourse, failure being death; at last one suitor, Hippomenes his name, accepted the risk and started along with her, but as he neared the goal, kept dropping first one golden apple, then another, provided him by Venus, stooping to lift which lost her the race, whereupon Hippomenes claimed the prize.
At′avism, name given to the reappearance in progeny of the features, and even diseases, of ancestors dead generations before.
Atba′ra, or Black River, from the Highlands of Abyssinia, the lowest tributary of the Nile, which it joins near Berber.
Ate′, in the Greek mythology the goddess of strife and mischief, also of vengeance; was banished by her father Zeus, for the annoyance she gave him, from heaven to earth, where she has not been idle since.
Athaba′sca, a province, a river, and a lake in British N. America.
Athalia, the queen of Judah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, celebrated for her crimes and impiety, for which she was in the end massacred by her subjects, 9th century B.C.
Athanasian Creed, a statement, in the form of a confession, of the orthodox creed of the Church as against the Arians, and damnatory of every article of the heresy severally; ascribed to Athanasius at one time, but now believed to be of later date, though embracing his theology in affirmation of the absolute co-equal divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in the Trinity.
Athanasius, Christian theologian, a native of Alexandria, and a deacon of the Church; took a prominent part against Arius in the Council at Nice, and was his most uncompromising antagonist; was chosen bishop of Alexandria; driven forth again and again from his bishopric under persecution of the Arians; retired into the Thebaïd for a time; spent the last 10 years of his life as bishop at Alexandria, where he died; his works consist of treatises and orations bearing on the Arian controversy, and in vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity viewed in the most absolute sense (296-373).
Atheism, disbelief in the existence of God, which may be either theoretical, in the intellect, or practical, in the life, the latter the more common and the more fatal form of it.
Atheism, Modern, ascribed by Ruskin to “the unfortunate persistence of the clergy in teaching children what they cannot understand, and in employing young consecrate persons to assert in pulpits what they do not know.”
Athelney, Isle of, an island in a marsh near the confluence of the Tone and Parret, Somerset; Alfred's place of refuge from the Danes.
Athe′na, the Greek virgin goddess of wisdom, particularly in the arts, of war as of peace, happily called by Ruskin the “'Queen of the Air,' in the heavens, in the earth, and in the heart”; is said to have been the conception of Metis, to have issued full-armed from the brain of Zeus, and in this way the child of both wisdom and power; wears a helmet, and bears on her left arm the ægis with the Medusa's head; the olive among trees, and the owl among animals, were sacred to her.
Athenæum, a school of learning established in Rome about 133 by Hadrian.
Athenæus, a Greek writer of the 3rd century, wrote a curious miscellany of a book entitled “Deipnosophistæ, or the Suppers of the Learned,” extant only in an imperfect state.
Athenag′oras, an able Christian apologist of the 2nd century, was Athenian and a pagan by birth, but being converted to Christianity, wrote an apology in its defence, and a treatise on the resurrection of the dead.
Ath′ens, the capital of Attica, and the chief city of ancient Greece, at once the brain and the heart of it; the resort in ancient times of all the able and wise men, particularly in the domain of literature and art, from all parts of the country and lands beyond; while the monuments of temple and statue that still adorn it give evidence of a culture among the citizens such as the inhabitants of no other city of the world have had the genius to surpass, though the name Athens has been adopted by or applied to several cities, Edinburgh in particular, that have been considered to rival it in this respect, and is the name of over twenty places in the United States. The two chief monuments of the architecture of ancient Athens, both erected on the Acropolis, are the Parthenon (q. v.), dedicated to Athena, the finest building on the finest site in the world, and the Erechtheum, a temple dedicated to Poseidon close by; is the capital (100) of modern Greece, the seat of the government, and the residence of the king.
Athlone (7), a market-town on the Shannon, which divides it, and a chief military station.
Athole, a district in the N. of Perthshire, which gives name to a branch of the Murray family.
Athole-brose, oatmeal, honey, and whisky mixed.
Athole, Sir John James Hugh Stewart-Murray, 7th Duke of, honourably distinguished for having devoted years of his life to editing the records of the family and the related history; b. 1840
A′thos, Mount, or Monte Santo (6), a mountain 6780 ft. high at the southern extremity of the most northerly peninsula of Salonica, in Turkey, covered with monasteries, inhabited exclusively by monks of the Greek Church, and rich in curious manuscripts; the monks devote themselves to gardening, bee-culture, and other rural occupations, the more devout among them at one time celebrated for the edification they derived from the study of their own navels.
Atlanta (65), the largest city in Georgia, U.S.; a large manufacturing and railway centre.
Atlantes, figures of men used in architecture instead of pillars.
Atlantic, The, the most important, best known, most traversed and best provided for traffic of all the oceans on the globe, connecting, rather than separating, the Old World and the New; covers nearly one-fifth of the surface of the earth; length 9000 m., its average breadth 2700 m.; its average depth 15,000 ft., or from 3 to 5 m., with waves in consequence of greater height and volume than those of any other sea.
Atlan′tis, an island alleged by tradition to have existed in the ocean W. of the Pillars of Hercules; Plato has given a beautiful picture of this island, and an account of its fabulous history. The New, a Utopia figured as existing somewhere in the Atlantic, which Lord Bacon began to outline but never finished.
At′las, a Titan who, for his audacity in attempting to dethrone Zeus, was doomed to bear the heavens on his shoulders; although another account makes him a king of Mauritania whom Perseus, for his want of hospitality, changed into a mountain by exposing to view the head of the Medusa.
Atlas Mountains, a range in N. Africa, the highest 11,000 feet, the Greater in Morocco, the Lesser extending besides through Algeria and Tunis, and the whole system extending from Cape Nun, in Morocco, to Cape Bon, in Tunis.
Atman, The, in the Hindu philosophy, the divine spirit in man, conceived of as a small being having its seat in the heart, where it may be felt stirring, travelling whence along the arteries it peers out as a small image in the eye, the pupil; it is centred in the heart of the universe, and appears with dazzling effect in the sun, the heart and eye of the world, and is the same there as in the heart of man.
At′oll, the name, a Polynesian one, given to a coral island consisting of a ring of coral enclosing a lagoon.
Atomic theory, the theory that all compound bodies are made up of elementary in fixed proportions.
Atomic weight, the weight of an atom of any body compared with that of hydrogen, the unit.
Atra′to, a river in Colombia which flows N. into the Gulf of Darien; is navigable for 200 m., proposed, since the failure of the Panama scheme, to be converted, along with San Juan River, into a canal to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific.
A′treus, a son of Pelops and king of Mycenæ, who, to avenge a wrong done him by his brother Thyestes, killed his two sons, and served them up in a banquet to him, for which act, as tradition shows, his descendants had to pay heavy penalties.
Atri′des, descendants of Atreus, particularly Agamemnon and Menelaus, a family frequently referred to as capable of and doomed to perpetrating the most atrocious crimes.
At′ropos, one of the three Fates, the one who cut asunder the thread of life; one of her sisters, Clotho, appointed to spin the thread, and the other, Lachesis, to direct it.
At′talus, the name of three kings of Pergamos: A. I., founded the library of Pergamos and joined the Romans against Philip and the Achæans (241-197 B.C.); A. II., kept up the league with Rome (157-137); A. III., bequeathed his wealth to the Roman people (137-132).
Atterbury, Francis, an English prelate, in succession dean of Christ Church, bishop of Rochester, and dean of Westminster; a zealous Churchman and Jacobite, which last brought him into trouble on the accession of the House of Hanover and led to his banishment; died in Paris. He was a scholarly man, an eloquent preacher, and wrote an eloquent style (1662-1731).
Attic Bee, Sophocles, from the sweetness and beauty of his productions.
Attic faith, inviolable faith, opposed to Punic.
Attic Muse, Xenophon, from the simplicity and elegance of his style.
Attic salt, pointed and delicate wit.
Attic style, a pure, classical, and elegant style.
At′tica, a country in ancient Greece, on the NE. of the Peloponnesus, within an area not larger than that of Lanarkshire, which has nevertheless had a history of world-wide fame and importance.
Atticism, a pure and refined style of expression in any language, originally the purest and most refined style of the ancient literature of Greece.
Atticus, Titus P., a wealthy Roman and a great friend of Cicero's, devoted to study and the society of friends, took no part in politics, died of voluntary starvation rather than endure the torture of a painful and incurable disease (110-33 B.C.).
At′tila, or Etzel, the king of the Huns, surnamed “the Scourge of God,” from the terror he everywhere inspired; overran the Roman Empire at the time of its decline, vanquished the emperors of both East and West, extorting heavy tribute; led his forces into Germany and Gaul, was defeated in a great battle near Châlons-sur-Marne by the combined armies of the Romans under Aëtius and the Goths under Theodoric, retreated across the Alps and ravaged the N. of Italy; died of hemorrhage, it is alleged, on the day of his marriage, and was buried in a gold coffin containing immense treasures in 453, the slaves who dug the grave having, it is said, been killed, lest they should reveal the spot.
At′tock (4), a town and fortress in the Punjab, on the Indus where the Kabul joins it—a river beyond which no Hindu must pass; it was built by Akbar in 1581.
Attorney-General, the name given the first law officer and legal adviser of the Crown in England and Ireland.
Attwood, George, a mathematician, invented a machine for illustrating the law of uniformly accelerated motion, as in falling bodies (1745-1807).
Attwood, Thomas, an eminent English musician and composer, wrote a few anthems (1767-1836).
A′tys, a beautiful Phrygian youth, beloved by Cybele, who turned him into a pine, after she had, by her apparition at his marriage to forbid the banns, driven him mad.
Aube (255), a dep. in France, formed of Champagne and a small part of Burgundy, with Troyes for capital.
Au′ber, a popular French composer of operas, born at Caen; his operas included “La Muette de Portici,” “Le Domino Noir,” “Fra Diavolo,” &c. (1782-1871).
Au′bert, The Abbé, a French fabulist, born at Paris (1731-1814).
Aub′rey, John, an eminent antiquary, a friend of Anthony Wood's; inherited estates in Wilts, Hereford, and Wales, all of which he lost by lawsuits and bad management; was intimate with all the literary men of the day; left a vast number of MSS.; published one work, “Miscellanies,” being a collection of popular superstitions; preserved a good deal of the gossip of the period (1624-1697).
Aub′riot, a French statesman, born at Dijon, provost of Paris under Charles V.: built the famous Bastille; was imprisoned in it for heresy, but released by a mob; died at Dijon, 1382.
Aubry de Montdidier, French knight murdered by Robert Macaire (q. v.), the sole witness of the crime and the avenger of it being his dog.
Aubusson, a French town on the Creuse, manufactures carpets and tapestry.
Aubusson, Pierre d', grand-master of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, of French descent, who in 1480 gallantly defended Rhodes when besieged by Mahomet II., and drove the assailants back, amounting to no fewer than 100,000 men (1423-1503).
Auch (12), capital of the dep. of Gers, France, 14 m. W. of Toulouse, with a splendid cathedral perched on a hill, and accessible only by a flight of 200 steps; has a trade in wine and brandy.
Auchinleck, a village 15 m. E. of Ayr, with the mansion of the Boswell family.
Auchterar′der, a village in Perthshire, where the forcing of a presentee by a patron on an unwilling congregation awoke a large section in the Established Church to a sense of the wrong, and the assertion of the rights of the people and led to the disruption of the community, and the creation of the Free Church in 1843.
Auck′land (60), the largest town in New Zealand, in the N. island, with an excellent harbour in the Gulf of Hauraki, and the capital of a district of the name, 400 m. long, and 200 m. broad, with a fertile soil and a fine climate, rich in natural products of all kinds; was the capital of New Zealand till the seat of government was transferred to Wellington.
Auckland, Bishop (11), a town on the Wear, 10 m. SW. of Durham and in the county of Durham, with the palace of the bishop.
Auckland, George Eden, Lord, son of the following, a Whig in politics, First Lord of the Admiralty, Governor-General of India; gave name to Auckland; returned afterwards to his post in the Admiralty (1784-1849).
Auckland, William Eden, Lord, diplomatist, and an authority on criminal law (1744-1814).
Auckland Islands, a group of small islands 180 m. S. of New Zealand, with some good harbours, and rich in vegetation.
Aude (317), a maritime dep. in the S. of France, being a portion of Languedoc; yields cereals, wine, &c., and is rich in minerals.
Audebert, Jean Baptiste, a French artist and naturalist; devoted himself to the illustration in coloured plates of objects of natural history, such especially as monkeys and humming-birds, all exquisitely done (1759-1800).
Audhumbla, the cow, in the Norse mythology, that nourished Hymir, and lived herself by licking the hoar-frost off the rocks.
Audley, Sir Thomas, Lord, born in Essex, son of a yeoman; became Speaker of the House of Commons and Lord Chancellor of England; the selfish, unscrupulous tool of Henry VIII. (1488-1554).
Au′douin, Jean Victor, an eminent French entomologist; was employed by the French Government to inquire into and report on the diseases of the silkworm, and the insects that destroy the vines (1797-1841).
Audran, Gerard, an engraver, the most eminent of a family of artists, born at Lyons; engraved the works of Lebrun, Mignard, and Poussin; he did some fine illustrations of the battles of Alexander the Great (1640-1703).
Au′dubon, John James, a celebrated American ornithologist of French Huguenot origin; author of two great works, the “Birds of America” and the “Quadrupeds of America,” drawn and illustrated by himself, the former characterised by Cuvier as “the most magnificent monument that Art up to that time had raised to Nature” (1780-1851).
Au′enbrugger, an Austrian physician, discoverer of the method of investigating diseases of the chest by percussion (1722-1809).
Au′erbach, Bertholo, a German poet and novelist of Jewish birth, born in the Black Forest; his novels, which have been widely translated, are in the main of a somewhat philosophical bent, he having been early led to the study of Spinoza, and having begun his literary career as editor of his works; his “Village Tales of the Black Forest” were widely popular (1812-1882).
Au′ersperg, Count von, an Austrian lyrical and satirical poet, of liberal politics, and a pronounced enemy of the absolutist party headed by Metternich (1806-1876).
Auf′recht, Theodor, eminent Sanskrit scholar, born in Silesia; was professor of Sanskrit in Edinburgh University; returning to Germany, became professor at Bonn; b. 1822.
Aufklärung, The, or Illuminationism, a movement, conspicuously of the present time, the members of which pique themselves on ability to disperse the darkness of the world, if they could only persuade men to forego reason, and accept sense, common-sense, as the only test of truth, and who profess to settle all questions of reason, that is, of faith, by appeal to private judgment and majorities, or as Dr. Stirling defines it, “that stripping of us naked of all things in heaven and upon earth, at the hands of the modern party of unbelief, and under the guidance of so-called rationalism.”
Auge′as, a legendary king of Elis, in Greece, and one of the Argonauts; had a stable with 3000 oxen, that had not been cleaned out for 30 years, but was cleansed by Hercules turning the rivers Peneus and Alpheus through it; the act a symbol of the worthless lumber a reformer must sweep away before his work can begin, the work of reformation proper.
Auger, a French littérateur, born at Paris, renowned as a critic (1772-1829).
Au′gereau, Pierre François Charles, marshal of France and duke of Castiglione, born at Paris; distinguished in the campaigns of the Republic and Napoleon; executed the coup d'état of the 4th Sept. 1797; his services were rejected by Napoleon on his return from Elba, on account of his having supported the Bourbons during his absence. He was simply a soldier, rude and rough-mannered, and with no great brains for anything else but military discipline (1757-1816).
Au′gier, Émile, able French dramatist, produced brilliant comedies for the French stage through a period of 40 years, all distinctly on the side of virtue. His only rivals were Dumas fils and M. Sardou (1820-1889).
Augs′burg (75), a busy manufacturing and trading town on the Lech, in Bavaria, once a city of great importance, where in 1531 the Protestants presented their Confession to Charles V., and where the peace of Augsburg was signed in 1555, ensuring religious freedom.
Augsburg Confession, a document drawn up by Melanchthon in name of the Lutheran reformers, headed by the Elector of Saxony in statement of their own doctrines, and of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, against which they protested.
Augurs, a college of priests in Rome appointed to forecast the future by the behaviour or flight of birds kept for the purpose, and which were sometimes carried about in a coop to consult on emergencies.
August, originally called Sextilis, as the sixth month of the Roman year, which began in March, and named August in honour of Augustus, as being the month identified with remarkable events in his career.
Augusta (33), a prosperous town in Georgia, U.S., on the Savannah, 231 m. from its mouth; also a town (10) the capital of Maine, U.S.
Augustan Age, the time in the history of a nation when its literature is at its best.
Augusti, a German rationalist theologian of note, born near Gotha (1771-1841).
Augustin, or Austin, St., the apostle of England, sent thither with a few monks by Pope Gregory in 596 to convert the country to Christianity; began his labours in Kent; founded the see, or rather archbishopric, of Canterbury; d. 605.
Au′gustine, St., the bishop of Hippo and the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church; a native of Tagaste, in Numidia; son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, St. Monica; after a youth of dissipation, was converted to Christ by a text of St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 13, 14), which his eyes first lit upon, as on suggestion of a friend he took up the epistle to read it in answer to an appeal he had made to him to explain a voice that was ever whispering in his ears, “Take and read”; became bishop in 396, devoted himself to pastoral duties, and took an active part in the Church controversies of his age, opposing especially the Manichæans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians; his principal works are his “Confessions,” his “City of God,” and his treatises on Grace and Free-Will. It is safe to say, no Churchman has ever exercised such influence as he has done in moulding the creed as well as directing the destiny of the Christian Church. He was especially imbued with the theology of St. Paul (354-430).
Augustinians, (a) Canons, called also Black Cenobites, under a less severe discipline than monks, had 200 houses in England and Wales at the Reformation; (b) Friars, mendicant, a portion of them barefooted; (c) Nuns, nurses of the sick.
Augustus, called at first Caius Octavius, ultimately Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus, the first of the Roman Emperors or Cæsars, grand-nephew of Julius Cæsar, and his heir; joined the Republican party at Cæsar's death, became consul, formed one of a triumvirate with Antony and Lepidus; along with Antony overthrew the Republican party under Brutus and Cassius at Philippi; defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, and became master of the Roman world; was voted the title of “Augustus” by the Senate in 27 B.C.; proved a wise and beneficent ruler, and patronised the arts and letters, his reign forming a distinguished epoch in the history of the ancient literature of Rome (63 B.C.-A.D. 14).
Augustus, the name of several princes of Saxony and Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Augustus I., Elector of Saxony, a Lutheran prince, whose reign was peaceful comparatively, and he was himself both a good man and a good ruler, a monarch surnamed the “pious” and the “Justinian of Saxony” (1526-1586).
Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland; forced himself on Poland; had twice to retire, but was reinstated; is known to history as “The Strong”; “attained the maximum,” says Carlyle, “in several things,—of physical strength, could break horse-shoes, nay, half-crowns with finger and thumb; of sumptuosity, no man of his means so regardless of expense; and of bastards, three hundred and fifty-four of them (Marshal Saxe one of the lot); baked the biggest bannock on record, a cake with 5000 eggs and a tun of butter.” He was, like many a monarch of the like loose character, a patron of the fine arts, and founded the Dresden Picture Gallery (1670-1733).
Augustus III., son of the preceding; beat Stanislaus Leszcynski in the struggle for the crown of Poland; proved an incompetent king (1696-1763).
Aulic Council, supreme council in the old German Empire, from which there was no appeal, of date from 1495 to 1654; it had no constitution, dealt with judicial matters, and lived and died with the emperor.
Aulis, a port in Boeotia, where the fleet of the Greeks assembled before taking sail for Troy, and where Iphigeneia, to procure a favourable wind, was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon, an event commemorated in the “Iphigeneia in Aulis” of Euripides.
Aumale, Duc d', one of the chiefs of the League, became governor of Paris, which he held against Henry IV., leagued with the Spaniards, was convicted of treason, and having escaped, was burned in effigy; died an exile at Brussels (1556-1631).
Aumale, Duc d', fourth son of Louis Philippe, distinguished himself in Algiers, and was governor of Algeria, which he resigned when his father abdicated; lived in England for twenty years after, acknowledged the Republic, and left his estate and valuables to the French nation (1822-1897).
Aungerville, Richard, or Richard de Bury, tutor to Edward III., bishop of Durham, sent on embassies to various courts, was a lover and collector of books, and left a curious work called “Philobiblon” (1281-1345).
Aunoy, Comtesse d', a French authoress, known and appreciated for her fairy tales (1650-1705).
Aurelia′nus, Lucius Domitius, powerful in physique, and an able Roman emperor; son of a peasant of Pannonia; distinguished as a skilful and successful general; was elected emperor, 270; drove the barbarians out of Italy; vanquished Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, carrying her captive to Rome; subdued a usurper in Gaul, and while on his way to crush a rebellion in Persia was assassinated by his troops (212-275).
Aure′lius, Marcus. See Antoni′nus.
Aure′lius, Victor Sextus, a Roman consul and a Latin historian of the 4th century.
Aureola, a wreath of light represented as encircling the brows of the saints and martyrs.
Aurillac (14), capital of the dep. of Cantal, on the Jourdanne, affluent of the Dordogne, built round the famous abbey of St. Geraud, now in ruins.
Au′rochs, a German wild ox, now extinct.
Auro′ra, the Roman goddess of the dawn, charged with opening for the sun the gates of the East; had a star on her forehead, and rode in a rosy chariot drawn by four white horses. See Eos.
Aurora (19), a city in Illinois, U.S., 35 m. SW. of Chicago, said to have been the first town to light the streets with electricity.
Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, understood to be an electric discharge through the atmosphere connected with magnetic disturbance.
Aurun′gabad′ (50), a city in Hyderabad, in the Nizam's dominions; once the capital, now much decayed, with the ruins of a palace of Aurungzebe.
Au′rungzebe, Mogul emperor of Hindustan, third son of Shah Jehan; ascended the throne by the deposition of his father, the murder of two brothers and of the son of one of these; he governed with skill and courage; extended his empire by subduing Golconda, the Carnatic, and Bengal, and though fanatical and intolerant, was a patron of letters; his rule was far-shining, but the empire was rotten at the core, and when he died it crumbled to pieces in the hands of his sons, among whom he beforehand divided it (1615-1707).
Auscultation, discerning by the sound whether there is or is not disease in the interior organs of the body.
Auscultator, name in “Sartor Resartus,” the hero as a man qualified for a profession, but as yet only expectant of employment in it.
Ausonia, an ancient name of Italy.
Ausonius, Decimus Magnus, a Roman poet, a native of Gaul, born in Bordeaux; tutor to the Emperor Gratian, who, on coming to the throne, made him prefect of Latium and of Gaul, and consul of Rome. He was a good versifier and stylist, but no poet (300-394).
Austen, Jane, a gifted English novelist, daughter of a clergyman in N. Hampshire; member of a quiet family circle, occupied herself in writing without eye to publication, and only in mature womanhood thought of writing for the press. Her first novel, “Sense and Sensibility,” was published in 1811, and was followed by “Pride and Prejudice,” her masterpiece, “Persuasion,” and others, her interest being throughout in ordinary quiet cultured life, and the delineation of it, which she achieved in an inimitably charming manner. “She showed once for all,” says Professor Saintsbury, “the capabilities of the very commonest and most ordinary life, if sufficiently observed and selected, and combined with due art, to furnish forth prose fiction not merely that would pass, but that should be of the absolutely first quality as literature. She is the mother of the English 19th-century novel, as Scott is the father of it” (1775-1816).
Aus′terlitz (3), a town in Moravia, near Brünn, where Napoleon defeated the emperors of Russia and of Austria, at “the battle of the three emperors,” Dec. 2, 1805; one of Napoleon's most brilliant victories, and thought so by himself.
Austin (14), the capital of Texas, on the Colorado River, named after Stephen Austin, who was chiefly instrumental in annexing Texas to the States.
Austin, Alfred, poet-laureate in succession to Tennyson, born near Leeds, bred for the bar, but devoted to literature as journalist, writer, and poet; has written “The Golden Age, a Satire,” “Savonarola,” “English Lyrics,” and several works in prose; b. 1835.
Austin, John, a distinguished English jurist, professor of Jurisprudence in London University; mastered the science of law by the study of it in Germany, but being too profound in his philosophy, was unsuccessful as professor; his great work, “The Province of Jurisprudence Determined,” and his Lectures, were published by his widow after his death (1790-1859).
Austin, Mrs. J., (née Sarah Taylor), wife of the preceding, executed translations from the German, “Falk's Characteristics of Goethe” for one; was, like her husband, of the utilitarian school; was introduced to Carlyle when he first went up to London; he wrote to his wife of her, “If I 'swear eternal friendship' with any woman here, it will be with her” (1793-1867)
Austin Friars. See Augustinians.
Australasia (i. e. Southern Asia), a name given to Australia, New Zealand, and the islands adjoining.
Australia, a continent entirely within the Southern Hemisphere, about one-fourth smaller than Europe, its utmost length from E. to W. being 2400 m., and breadth 1971; the coast has singularly few inlets, though many and spacious harbours, only one great gulf, Carpentaria, on the N., and one bight, the Great Australian Bight, on the S.; the interior consists of a low desert plateau, depressed in the centre, bordered with ranges of various elevation, between which and the sea is a varying breadth of coast-land; the chief mountain range is in the E., and extends more or less parallel all the way with the E. coast; the rivers are few, and either in flood or dried up, for the climate is very parching, only one river, the Murray, 2345 m. long, of any consequence, while the lakes, which are numerous, are shallow and nearly all salt; the flora is peculiar, the eucalyptus and the acacia the most characteristic, grains, fruits, and edible roots being all imported; the fauna is no less peculiar, including, in the absence of many animals of other countries, the kangaroo, the dingo, and the duck-bill, the useful animals being likewise all imported; of birds, the cassowary and the emu, and smaller ones of great beauty, but songless; minerals abound, both the precious and the useful; the natives are disappearing, the colonists in 1904 numbering close upon 4,000,000; and the territory divided into Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, S. Australia, and W. Australia, which with Tasmania federated in 1900 and became the Commonwealth.
Austrasia, or the East Kingdom, a kingdom on the E. of the possessions of the Franks in Gaul, that existed from 511 to 843, capital of which was Metz; it was celebrated for its rivalry with the kingdom of Neustria, or the Western Kingdom.
Austria, or Austro-Hungary, is a country of every variety of surface and scenery; is inhabited by peoples of different races and nationalities, speaking different languages, as many as 20, and composed of 50 different states, 5 of them kingdoms; occupies the centre of Europe, yet has free communication with the seas on all sides of it; is the third country for size in it; is divided by the Leitha, a tributary of the Danube, into Cis-Leithan on the W. and Trans-Leithan on the E.; has next to no coast-line; its chief seaport, Trieste; is watered by rivers, the Danube in chief, all of which have their mouths in other countries; has three zones of climate with corresponding zones of vegetation; is rich in minerals; is largely pastoral and agricultural, manufacturing chiefly in the W.; the capital Vienna, and the population over 40,000,000.
Austrian lip, a thick under-lip characteristic of the House of Hapsburg.
Auteuil, a village in the dep. of the Seine, now included in Paris.
Authorised Version of the Bible was executed between the years 1604 and 1610 at the instance of James I., so that it is not undeservedly called King James's Bible, and was the work of 47 men selected with marked fairness and discretion, divided into three groups of two sections each, who held their sittings for three years severally at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford, the whole being thereafter revised by a committee of six, who met for nine months in Stationers' Hall, London, and received thirty pounds each, the rest being done for nothing. The result was a translation that at length superseded every other, and that has since woven itself into the affectionate regard of the whole English-speaking people. The men who executed it evidently felt something of the inspiration that breathes in the original, and they have produced a version that will remain to all time a monument of the simplicity, dignity, grace, and melody of the English language; its very style has had a nobly educative effect on the national literature, and has contributed more than anything else to prevent it from degenerating into the merely frivolous and formal.
Autochthons, Greek for aborigines.
Auto-da-fé, or Act of Faith, a ceremony held by the court of the Inquisition in Spain, preliminary to the execution of a heretic, in which the condemned, dressed in a hideously fantastic robe, called the San Benito, and a pointed cap, walked in a procession of monks, followed by carts containing coffins with malefactors' bones, to hear a sermon on the true faith, prior to being burned alive; the most famous auto-da-fé took place in Madrid in 1680.
Autol′ycus, in the Greek mythology a son of Hermes (q. v.), and maternal grandfather of Ulysses by his daughter Anticlea; famed for his cunning and robberies; synonym for thief.
Autom′edon, the charioteer of Achilles.
Autonomy (i. e. Self-law), in the Kantian metaphysics denotes the sovereign right of the pure reason to be a law to itself.
Autran′, Joseph, a French poet and dramatist, born at Marseilles; he was of the school of Lamartine, and attained distinction by the production of the tragedy “La Fille d'Eschyle” (1813-1877).
Autun′ (15), an ancient city in the dep. of Saône-et-Loire, on the Arroux, 28 m. NW. from Châlons, where Talleyrand was bishop, with a fine cathedral and rich in antiquities; manufactures serges, carpets, velvet, &c.
Auvergne′, an ancient province of France, united to the crown under Louis XIII. in 1610, embracing the deps. of Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal, and part of Haute-Loire, the highlands of which separate the basin of the Loire from that of the Garonne, and contain a hardy and industrious race of people descended from the original inhabitants of Gaul; they speak a strange dialect, and supply all the water-carriers and street-sweepers of Paris.
Auxerre′ (15), an ancient city, capital of the dep. of Yonne, 90 m. SE. of Paris; has a fine cathedral in the Flamboyant style; drives a large trade in wine.
Ava, capital of the Burmese empire from 1364 to 1740 and from 1822 to 1835; now in ruins from an earthquake in 1839.
Av′alon, in the Celtic mythology an island of faërie in the region where the sun sinks to rest at eventide, and the final home of the heroes of chivalry when their day's work was ended on earth.
Avars, a tribe of Huns who, driven from their home in the Altai Mts. by the Chinese, invaded the E. of Europe about 553, and committed ravages in it for about three centuries, till they were subdued by Charlemagne, and all but exterminated in 827.
Avatar′, or Descent, the incarnation and incarnated manifestation of a Hindu deity, a theory both characteristic of Vishnuism and marking a new epoch in the religious development of India.
Ave Maria, an invocation to the Virgin, so called as forming the first two words of the salutation of the angel in Luke i. 28.
Avebury, or Abery, a village in Wiltshire, 6 m. W. of Marlborough, in the middle of a so-called Druidical structure consisting of 100 monoliths, surmised to have been erected and arranged in memory of some great victory.
Avelli′no (26), chief town in a province of the name in Campania, 59 m. E. of Naples, famous for its trade in hazel-nuts and chestnuts; manufactures woollens, paper, macaroni, &c.; has been subject to earthquakes.
Aventine Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, the mount to which the plebs sullenly retired on their refusal to submit to the patrician oligarchy, and from which they were enticed back by Menenius Agrippa by the well-known fable of the members of the body and the stomach.
Aventi′nus, a Bavarian historian, author of the “Chronicon Bavariæ” (Annals of Bavaria), a valuable record of the early history of Germany (1477-1534).
Avenzo′ar, an Arabian physician, the teacher of Averroës (1073-1103).
Avernus, a deep lake in Italy, near Naples, 1½ m. in circumference, occupying the crater of an extinct volcano, at one time surrounded by a dark wood, and conceived, from its gloomy appearance, as well as from the mephitic vapours it exhaled, to be the entrance to the infernal world, and identified with it.
Aver′roës, an Arabian physician and philosopher, a Moor by birth and a native of Cordova; devoted himself to the study and the exposition of Aristotle, earning for himself the title of the “Commentator,” though he appears to have coupled with the philosophy of Aristotle the Oriental pantheistic doctrine of emanations (1126-1198).
Aversa (24), an Italian town 8 m. from Naples, amid vineyards and orange groves; much resorted to by the Neapolitans.
Aveyron′, a mountainous dep. in the S. of France, with excellent pastures, where the Roquefort cheese is produced.
Avicen′na, an illustrious Arabian physician, surnamed the prince of physicians, a man of immense learning and extensive practice in his art; of authority in philosophy as well as in medicine, his philosophy being of the school of Aristotle with a mixture of Neoplatonism, his “Canon of Medicine,” being the supreme in medical science for centuries (980-1037).
Avie′nus, Rufus Festus, a geographer and Latin poet, or versifier rather, of the 4th century.
Avign′on (37), capital of the dep. of Vaucluse, France; an ancient city beautifully situated on the left bank of the Rhône, near the confluence of the Durance, of various fortune from its foundation by the Phocæans in 539 B.C.; was the seat of the Papacy from 1305 to 1377, purchased by Pope Clement VI. at that period, and belonged to the Papacy from that time till 1797, when it was appropriated to France; it contains a number of interesting buildings, and carries on a large trade in wine, oil, and fruits; grows and manufactures silk in large quantities.
A′vila (10), a town in Spain, in a province of the name, in S. of Old Castile, 3000 ft. above the sea-level, with a Gothic cathedral and a Moorish castle; birthplace of St. Theresa.
Avila, Juan d', a Spanish priest, surnamed the Apostle of Andalusia, for his zeal in planting the Gospel in its mountains; d. 1569.
Avila y Zinuga, a soldier, diplomatist, and historian under Charles V.
Avlo′na (6), or Valona, a port of Albania, on an inlet of the Adriatic.
Av′ola (12), a seaport on the E. coast of Sicily, ruined by an earthquake in 1693, rebuilt since; place of export of the Hybla honey.
A′von, the name of several English rivers, such as Shakespeare's in Warwickshire, of Salisbury in Wiltshire, and of Bristol, rising in Wiltshire.
Avranches′ (7), a town in dep. of Manche, Normandy; the place, the spot marked by a stone, where Henry II. received absolution for the murder of Thomas à Becket; lace-making the staple industry, and trade in agricultural products.
Awe, Loch, in the centre of Argyllshire, overshadowed by mountains, 25 m. in length, the second in size of Scottish lakes, studded with islands, one with the ruin of a castle; the scenery gloomily picturesque; its surface is 100 ft. above the sea-level.
Axel, archbishop of Lund; born in Zealand; a Danish patriot with Norse blood; subdued tribes of Wends, and compelled them to adopt Christianity.
Axholme, Isle of, a tract of land in NW. Lincolnshire, 17 m. long and 5 m. broad; once a forest, then a marsh; drained in 1632, and now fertile, producing hemp, flax, rape, &c.
Axim, a trading settlement on the Gold Coast, Africa, belonging to Britain; belonged to Holland till 1871.
Ax′olotl, a batrachian, numerous in Mexico and the Western States, believed to be in its preliminary or tadpole state of existence.
Ax′um, capital of an Ethiopian kingdom in Abyssinia, now in ruins, where Christianity was introduced in the 4th century, and which as the outpost of Christendom fell early before the Mohammedan power.
Ayacu′cho, a thriving town in Peru, founded by Pizarro in 1539, where the Peruvians and Colombians achieved their independence of Spain in 1824, and ended the rule of Spain in the S. American continent.
Aya′la, Pedro Lopez d', a Spanish soldier, statesman, and diplomatist, born in Murcia; wrote a “History of the Kings of Castile,” which was more than a chronicle of wars, being also a review of them; and a book of poems entitled the “Rhymes of the Court” (1332-1407).
Aye-aye, a lemur found in the woods of Madagascar.
Ayesha, the daughter of Abubekr, and favourite wife of Mahomet, whom he married soon after the death of Kadijah; as much devoted to Mahomet as he was to her, for he died in her arms. “A woman who distinguished herself by all manner of qualities among the Moslems,” who is styled by them the “Mother of the Faithful” (see Kadijah). She was, it is said, the only wife of Mahomet that remained a virgin. On Mahomet's death she opposed the accession of Ali, who defeated her and took her prisoner, but released her on condition that she should not again interfere in State matters (610-677).
Ayles′bury (9), a borough and market-town in Buckinghamshire, 40 m. NW. of London, in an agricultural district; supplies the London market with ducks.
Aylmer, John, tutor to Lady Jane Grey, bishop of London, a highly arbitrary man, and a friend to neither Papist nor Puritan; he is satirised by Spenser in the “Shepherd's Calendar” (1521-1594).
Ayloffe, Sir Joseph, English antiquary, born in Sussex (1708-1781).
Ayma′ras, the chief native race of Peru and Bolivia, from which it would appear sprang the Quinchuas, the dominant people of Peru at the time of the Spanish conquest; attained a high degree of civilisation, and number to-day 500,000.
Aymon, the Count of Dordogne, the father of four sons, Renaud, Guiscard, Alard, and Richard, renowned in the legends of chivalry, and particularly as paladins of Charlemagne.
Ay′mar-Ver′nay, a peasant of Dauphiné, who in the 17th century professed to discover springs and treasures hid in the earth by means of a divining rod.
Ayr (23), the county town of Ayrshire, at the mouth of a river of the same name, a clean, ancient town, its charter, granted by William the Lion, dating from 1200; well built, with elegant villas in the suburbs, a good harbour and docks for shipping; famous in early Scottish history, and doubly so among Scottish towns as the birthplace near it of Robert Burns.
Ayr′er, Jacob, a German dramatist in the 16th century, of the style of Hans Sachs (q. v.).
Ayrshire (226), a large and wealthy county in the W. of Scotland, bordered on the W. by the Firth of Clyde, agricultural and pastoral, with a large coal-field and thriving manufactures; its divisions, Carrick, to the S. of the Doon; Kyle, between the Doon and the Irvine, and Cunningham, on the N.; concerning which there is an old rhyme: “Kyle for a man, Carrick for a coo, Cunningham for butter and cheese, Galloway for 'oo.”
Ayton, Sir Robert, a poet of considerable merit, a native of Fife, born at Kinaldie, who made his fortune by a Latin panegyric to King James I. on his accession; was on friendly terms with the eminent literary men of his time, Ben Jonson in particular; his poems are written in pure and even elegant English, some in Latin, and have only recently been collected together (1571-1638).
Aytoun, William Edmondstoune, poet and critic, a native of Edinburgh, professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in Edinburgh University, author of the “Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers”; he was also editor, along with Sir Theodore Martin, of the “Gaultier Ballads,” an admirable collection of light verse (1813-1865).
Azeglio, Marchese d', an Italian patriot and statesman, native of Turin; wounded at Vicenza in 1848, fighting for Italian independence; entered the Piedmontese Parliament, was Victor Emanuel's right-hand man, retired in favour of Cavour; he was not altogether engrossed with politics, being an amateur in art (1798-1866).
Azerbijan (2,000), prov. of Armenian Persia, S. of the river Aras, with fertile plains, cattle-breeding, and rich in minerals.
Azores, i. e. Hawk Islands (250), a group of nine volcanic islands in the Atlantic, 800 m. W. of Portugal, and forming a province of it; are in general mountainous; covered with orange groves, of which the chief are St. Michael's and Fayal; and 900 m. W. of it, in the latitude of Lisbon; the climate is mild, and good for pulmonary complaints; they were known to the Carthaginian mariners, but fell out of the map of Europe till rediscovered in 1431.
Azov, Sea of, an opening from the Black Sea, very shallow, and gradually silting up with mud from the Don.
Az′rael, the angel of death according to Rabbinical tradition.
Az′tecs, a civilised race of small stature, of reddish-brown skin, lean, and broad featured, which occupied the Mexican plateau for some centuries before the Spaniards visited it, and were overthrown by the Spaniards in 1520.
Azuni, Dominico Alberto, an Italian jurist, born in Sardinia; president of the Court of Appeal at Genoa; made a special study of maritime law; author of “Droit Maritime de l'Europe” (1729-1827).
Azymites, the name given to a party in the Church who insisted that only unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, and the controversy hinged on the question whether the Lord's Supper was instituted before the Passover season was finished, or after, as in the former case the bread must have been unleavened, and in the latter leavened.