ASH-WEDNESDAY. The primitive Christians did not cominence their Lent until the Sunday, now called the first in Lent. Pope Felix III., in A.D. 487, first added the four days preceding the old Lent Sunday, to complete the number of fasting days to forty; Gregory the Great introduced the sprinkling of ashes on the first of the four additional days, and hence the name of Dies Cinerum, or Ash-Wednesday: at the Reformation this practice was abolished, "as being a mere shadow, or vain show." ASHMOLE LIBRARY. His manuscripts, library, coins, and other rarities, were presented by Elias Ashmole, the celebrated herald and antiquary, to the university of Oxford, about 1683. Mr. Ashmole died at Lambeth, in 1692. ASIA; so called by the Greeks, from the nymph Asia, the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, and wife of Japhet. Asia was the first quarter of the world peopled; here the law of GOD was first promulgated; here many of the greatest monarchies of the earth had their rise; and from hence most of the arts and sciences have been derived.-Pardon.

ASPERNE, BATTLE OF, between the Austrian army under the archduke Charles, and the French, fought on the 21st May, 1809, and two following days. In this most sanguinary fight, the loss of the former army exceeded 20,000 men, and the loss of the French was more than 30,000 it ended in the defeat of Bonaparte, who commanded in person, and was the severest check that he had yet received. The bridge of the Danube was destroyed, and his retreat endangered; but the success of the Austrians had no beneficial effect on the subsequent prosecution of the war. ASSAM, AND ASSAM TEA. Assam came under British dominion in 1825; and the right to the principality was renounced by the king of Ava in 1826. The tea-plant was discovered by Mr. Bruce in 1823. A superintendant of the tea forests was appointed in 1836, the cultivation of the plant having been recommended by lord William Bentinck. The Assam Tea committee was formed same year; and the Assam Tea Company established in 1839. The tea was much in use in England, in 1841.-Account of Assam.

ASSASSINATION PLOT. A conspiracy so called, formed by the earl of Aylesbury and others to assassinate king William III., near Richmond, Surrey, as he came from hunting. The object of the conspiracy was to have been consummated February 15, 1695-6, but for its timely discovery by Prendergast.-Hist. England. ASSASSINS. A tribe in Syria, a famous heretical sect among the Mahometans, settled in Persia, in A.D. 1090. In Syria, they possessed a large tract of land among the mountains of Lebanon. They murdered the marquis of Montferrat in 1192; they assassinated Lewis of Bavaria in 1213; the khan of Tartary was murdered in 1254. They were conquered by the Tartars in 1257; and were extirpated in 1272. The chief of the corps assumed the title of " Ancient of the Mountain." ASSAY OF GOLD AND SILVER, originated with the bishop of Salisbury, a royal treasurer, in the reign of Henry I.-Du Cange. But certainly some species of assay was practised as early as the Roman conquest. Assay was formally established in England, 1354; regulated, 13 William III. 1700, and 4 Anne, 1705. Assay masters appointed at Sheffield and Birmingham, 1773. The alloy of gold is silver and copper, and the alloy of silver is copper. Standard gold is 2 carats of alloy to 22 of fine gold. Standard silver is 18 dwts. of copper to 11 ozs. 2 dwts. of fine silver. See Goldsmiths' Company.

ASSAYE, BATTLE OF. The British army, under general Arthur Wellesley, enters the Mahratta States on the south; takes the fort of Ahmednugger, Aug. 12; and defeats Scindia and the rajah of Berar at Assaye, Sept. 23, 1803.

ASSESSED TAXES. The date of their introduction has been as variously stated as the taxes coming under this head have been defined-all things having been assessed, from lands and houses to dogs and hair-powder. By some, the date is referred to the reign of Ethelbert, in 991; by others, to the reign of Henry VIII. 1522; and by more, to the reign of William III. 1689, when a land-tax was imposed. See Land Tax. The assessed taxes yielded, in 1815 (the last year of the war), exclusively of the land-tax, £6,524,766, their highest amount. These imposts have varied in their nature and amount, according to the exigencies of the state and the contingencies of war and peace. They were considerably advanced in 1797; and again in 1801, et seq. considerably reduced in 1816, and in subsequent years; and altogether abolished in Ireland. See them severally.

ASSIENTO. A contract between the king of Spain and other powers, for furnishing the Spanish dominions in America with negro slaves.-Burke. It began in 1689, and was vested in the South Sea Company in 1713. By the treaty of Utrecht it was transferred to the English, who were to furnish 4800 negroes annually to Spanish America. This contract was given up to Spain at the peace in 1748. See Guinea. ASSIGNATS. Paper currency, to support the credit of the republic during the revolution, ordered by the National Assembly of France, April 1790. At one period the enormous amount of eight milliards, or nearly 350 millions of pounds sterling, of this paper were in circulation in France and its dependencies.-Alison. ASSIZE OF BREAD. The first statute for it was in the third year of John, 1202, when the regulations thereof were ordered to be observed upon pain of the pillory. The chief justiciary, and a baker commissioned by the king, had the inspection of the assize.-Mathew Paris. The assize was abolished in England, and the sale of bread regulated as at present, in August 1815. The sale in Ireland was regulated by statute, 2 William IV., May 1832; Bread Act, 7 William IV. 1836; Bread Act, Ireland, placing its sale on the same footing as in England, 1 Vict. 1838. See Bread. ASSIZE COURTS. They are of very ancient institution in England, and in ancient law books are defined to be an assembly of knights and other substantial men, with the justice, to meet at a certain time and place: regulated by Magna Charta, A.D. 1215. The present justices of assize and Nisi Prius are derived from the statute of Westminster, 13 Edw. I. 1284.-Coke; Blackstone. "The king doth will that no lord, or other of the country, shall sit upon the bench with the justices to take assize in their sessions in the counties of England, upon great forfeiture to the king," 20 Richard II., 1396.-Statutes. Various regulations respecting assize courts have been made from time to time. Assizes are general or special: they are general when the judges go their circuits, and special when a commission is issued to take cognisance of one or more causes.

ASSUMPTION. A festival observed by the church of Rome in honour of the Virgin Mary, who, as the Catholics believe, was taken up to heaven in her corporeal form, body and spirit, on August 15, A.D. 45. Mary is reported to have been in her 75th year. The festival is said to have been instituted in 813.

ASSURANCE. See Insurance. The practice is of great antiquity. Suetonius ascribes the contrivance to Claudius Cæsar, A.D. 43. It is certain that assurance of ships was practised in the year 45. The first regulations concerning it are in the Lex Oleron, by which it appears to have been known in Europe very generally in 1194. The custom of Lombard-street was made a precedent for all policies at Antwerp, and in the Low Countries; but the first statute to prevent frauds from private assurers was made 43 Elizabeth, 1601.-Molineaux's Lex Mercatoria. ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. This is the earliest recorded empire-that of Bacchus wanting records. It commenced under Ninus, who was the Jupiter of the Assyrians, and the Hercules of the Chaldeans, 2059 B.C. It arose out of the union of two powerful kingdoms, Babylon and Assyria, or Nineveh, the latter founded by Ashur, and ending with Sardanapalus, 820 B.C. When this last-named prince was conquered by Arbaces, he shut himself up in his palace, with his concubines and eunuchs, and causing it to be set on fire, they all perished in the flames. On the ruins of the empire were formed the Assyrians of Babylon, Nineveh, and the Median kingdom.-Lenglet.

ASSYRIA, PROPER. After the destruction of the first Assyrian monarchy, Phul, the last king's son, was raised to the throne by the Ninevites, 777 B.C., and the kingdom continued until 621 B.C., when Sarac, or Sardanapalus II., being besieged by the Medes and Babylonians, put his wife and children to death, and burnt himself in his palace, a fate somewhat similar to that of Sardanapalus I. See preceding article. Nineveh was then razed to the ground, and the conquerors divided Assyria.-Blair. It was finally conquered by the Turks in 1637 A.D.-Priestley.

.

B.C. 777

.

770

740

ral, Rabshakeh, besieges Jerusalem, when the angel of the Lord in one night destroys 180,000 of his army.-Isaiah xxxvii.

.

B.C. 710

[Commentators suppose that this messenger of death was the fatal blast known in eastern countries by the name of Samiel.]

Esar-haddon invades Judea, and takes

Babylon.-Blair

He invades Judea.-Blair
Holofernes is slain by Judith
Saosduchinus reigns.-Usher

. 680

677

677

G67

He invades Israel, but departs without drawing a sword.-Blair; 2 Kings xv. 19, 20 Tiglath-Peleser invades Syria, takes Damascus, and makes great conquests Shalmanezer takes Samaria, transports the people, whom he replaces by a colony of Cutheans and others, and thus finishes the kingdom of Israel.-Blair. 721 He retires from before Tyre, after a siege of five years.-Blair 713 Sennacherib invades Judea, and his gene- Nineveh taken, and razed to the ground. 621 ASTROLOGY. Judicial astrology was invented by the Chaldeans, and hence was transmitted to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. It was much in vogue in France in the time of Catherine de Medicis, 1533.-Henault. The early history of astrology in England is very little known: Bede was addicted to it, 700; and so was Roger Bacon, 1260. Cecil, Lord Burleigh, calculated the nativity of Elizabeth; and she, and all the European princes, were the humble servants of Dee, the astrologer and conjurer. But the period of the Stuarts was the acme of astrology amongst us. Sir Walter Scott has made ample use of sir William Lilly, the noted astrologer, in his tales of this period; and it is certain that Lilly was consulted by Charles I. respecting his projected escape from Carisbrook castle in 1647.-Ferguson. ASTRONOMY. The earliest accounts we have of this science are those of Babylon, about 2234 B.C.-Blair. The study of astronomy was much advanced in Chaldæa under Nabonassar; it was known to the Chinese about 1100 B.c.; some say many centuries before. Lunar eclipses were observed at Babylon with exceeding accuracy, 720 B.C. Spherical form of the earth, and the true cause of lunar eclipses, taught by Thales, 640 B.C. Further discoveries by Pythagoras, who taught the doctrine of celestial motions, and believed in the plurality of habitable worlds, 500 B.C. Hipparchus began his observations at Rhodes, 167 B.C.-began his new cycle of the moon in 143, and made great advances in the science, 140 B.C. The procession of the equinoxes confirmed, and the places and distances of the planets discovered, by Ptolemy, A.D. 130. After the lapse of nearly seven centuries, during which time astronomy was neglected, it was resumed by the Arabs, about 800; and was afterwards brought into Europe by the Moors of Barbary and Spain, but not sooner than 1201, when they also introduced geography.

The distance of the fixed stars is supposed to be 400,000 times greater from us than we are from the sun, that is to say, 38 millions of millions of miles; so that a cannon-ball would take near nine millions of years to reach one of them, supposing there were nothing to hinder it from pursuing its course thither. As light takes about eight minutes and a quarter to reach us from the sun, it would be about six years in coming from one of those stars; but the calculations of later astronomers prove some stars to be so distant, that their light must take centuries before it can reach us; and that every particle of light which enters our eyes left the star it comes from three or four hundred years ago.-Objects of Science.

ASYLUMS, OR PRIVILEGED PLACES. At first they were places of refuge for those who, by accident or necessity had done things that rendered them obnoxious to the law. God commanded the Jews to build certain cities for this purpose. The posterity of Hercules is said to have built one at Athens, to protect themselves against such as their father had irritated. Cadmus built one at Thebes, and Romulus one on Mount Palatine. A while after the coming of Christianity into England, superstitious veneration ran so high, that churches, monasteries, church-yards, and bishops' houses became asylums to all that fled to them, let the crime be what it would; of which very ill use was made, both by the clergy and laity. In London persons were secure from arrest in particular localities: these were the Minories, Salisbury-court, Whitefriars, Fulwood's-rents, Mitre-court, Baldwin's-gardens, the Savoy, Clink, Deadman's-place, Montague-close, and the Mint. This security was abolished A. D. 1696; but the last was not wholly suppressed until the reign of George I.— See Privileged Places and Sanctuaries. ATHANASIAN CREED AND CONTROVERSY. The great controversy regarding the divinity of Christ, arose and extended between a. D. 333 and 351. Athanasius, who was a native of Alexandria, encountered great persecution at the hands of the Arians for his religious doctrines, and was exiled for them again and again. The creed which goes by his name is supposed by most authorities to have been written about the year 340; but it is affirmed by other writers to be the compilation of an African bishop in the fifth century.-Du Pin. ATHEISM. This absurd doctrine bas had its votaries and its martyrs. Spinosa, a foreigner, was its noted defender in the 17th century. Lucilio Vanini publicly taught atheism in France, and was condemned to be burnt at Toulouse in 1619. Mathias Knutzen, of Holstein, openly professed atheism, and had upwards of a thousand disciples in Germany about 1674; he travelled to make proselytes, and his followers were called Conscienciaries, because they held that there is no other deity than conscience. Many eminent men of various countries have been professors of atheism, and even in England we have had writers tinctured with it.— Richardson. Ashe. "Though a small draught of philosophy may lead a man into atheism, a deep draught will certainly bring him back again to the belief of a God." -Lord Bacon. "Si Dieu n'existait pas il faudrait l'inventer": If a God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent one.-Voltaire.

ATHENEA. These were great festivals celebrated at Athens in honour of Minerva. One of them was called Panathenæa, and the other Chalcea; they were first instituted by Erectheus or Orpheus, 1397 B. c.; and Theseus afterwards renewed them, and caused them to be observed by all the people of Athens, the first every fifth year, 1234 B. C.-Plutarch.

ATHENÆUM. A place at Athens, sacred to Minerva, where the poets and philosophers declaimed and recited their compositions. The most celebrated Athenæa were at Athens, Rome, and Lyons: that of Rome was of great beauty in its building, and was erected by the emperor Adrian, A.D. 125.—Tillemont's Life of Adrian. The Athenæum Club of London was formed in 1824, for the association of persons of scientific and literary attainments, artists, and noblemen and gentlemen, patrons of learning, &c. ; the club-house was erected in 1829, on the site of the late Carltonpalace; it is of Grecian architecture, and the frieze is an exact copy of the Panathenæic procession which formed the frieze of the Parthenon. The Liverpool Athenæum was opened January 1, 1799. Manchester Athenæum: a great and brilliant meeting of its friends and subscribers, at which presided Mr. B. D'Israel, who descanted in an eloquent address on the union of literature and the arts with commerce and manufactures; held October 3, 1844.

ATHENS. The once celebrated capital of ancient Attica, whose magnificent ruins yet attest its former grandeur-the seat of science and theatre of valour. The first sovereign of whom we have any knowledge is Ogyges, who reigned in Boeotia, and was master of Attica, then called Ionia. In his reign a deluge took place (by some supposed to be no other than the universal deluge, or Noah's flood) that laid waste the country, in which state it remained two hundred years, until the arrival of the Egyptian Cecrops and a colony, by whom the land was repeopled, and twelve cities founded, 1556 B.C. The first state of Athens was under seventeen kings, comprising a period of 487 years, but the history of its first twelve monarchs is mostly fabulous; in its second state it was governed by thirteen perpetual archons, a period of 316 years; in its third state by seven decennial archons, whose rule extended over 70 years; and, lastly, in its fourth state by annual archons, who ruled for 760 years. Under this democracy Athens became unrivalled, and her people signalized themselves by their valour, munificence, and culture of the fine arts; and perhaps not one other single city in the world can boast, in such a short space of time, of so great a number of illustrious citizens. The ancients, to distinguish Athens in a more peculiar manner, called it Astu, one of the eyes of Greece.-Plutarch.