of the republic of the United States, was born at Boston, about the year 1726, and was brought up to the law. He was one of the first who organized measures of resistance to the mother country, and was a member of the convention of his province, and, afterwards, of the congress. For the prominent part which he took, he was proscribed by the British government. Subsequently to the establishment of American independence, he was elected lieutenant-governor, and then governor, of Massachusetts. He died in 1808.

ADAMS, JOHN, an American statesman, and one of the founders of the republic of North America, was a native of the colony of Massachusetts, born in 1735, and educated to the bar, at which he practised with success. At an early period he espoused the cause of his country. He was elected a member of congress, and declared warmly in favour of independence. On the capture of Mr. Laurens, Adams was substituted as ambassador to Holland, and he was afterwards appointed one of the commissioners for a treaty of peace with Great Britain. At the close of the war he was sent as ambassador to this country. In 1789, he was elected vice-president of the United States, and became president after the resignation of Washington. As he was at the head of the federalist party, his administration was an object of dislike and censure to the ultra republicans. He died in 1826. Adams is the author of a History of the principal Republics.

ADANSON, MICHAEL, a celebrated botanist, was born, in 1727, at Aix, in Provence. His whole life was devoted to the improvement of botanical science. He sacrificed his patrimonial property, for the purpose of exploring Senegal, where he remained five years, and made a multitude of observations in all the departments of natural history. In 1775, he presented to the Academy of Sciences 120 MS. volumes, and 75,000 figures of plants, intended to form the basis of an immense work which he had planned. The revolution reduced him to penury, and in his latter days he was partly indebted for subsistence to the devoted attachment of a female domestic and her husband. Napoleon, however, heard of his situation, and snatched him from want. Adanson was small in stature, and at first sight his countenance was not pleasing. He was, in the highest degree, disinterested; but, towards the close of his life, his temper was somewhat soured by misfortune and age. He died in 1806. His chief published

works are his Voyage to Senegal, and his Families of Plants.

ADDISON, LANCELOT, a native of Westmoreland, born in 1632, was educated at Oxford, where he distinguished himself by his ability and application. During the period of the commonwealth, he lived retired in the neighbourhood of Petworth, but was active in disseminating church and king principles. After the restoration, he was chaplain at Dunkirk, and at Tangier, and subsequently obtained the living of Milston, in Wilts, and was made a prebend, a dean, and an archdeacon. He died in 1703. His literary talents were considerable, and he published several works, mostly theological.

ADDISON, JOSEPH, one of the ornaments of English literature, was the son of dean Addison, and was born at Milston in 1672. At his birth, it is said that he was supposed to be dead born, and was accordingly laid out. The Charter House, at which he became acquainted with Steele, and the colleges of Queen's and Magdalen at Oxford, have the honour of his education. The first written proofs which he gave of his talents were Latin poems, of very superior elegance. Some English poems, a translation of the fourth Georgic, and à Discourse on the Georgics, sustained his reputation, and his praise of King William gained him the patronage of Lord Somers. In 1699, Somers obtained for him an annual pension of £.300 to enable him to travel in Italy. In that country he remained nearly three years, when, his pension being lost by the death of King William, necessity drove him home. During his absence, he collected materials for a narrative of his tour, and wrote his Letter to Lord Halifax, his Dialogues on Medals, and four acts of Cato. On his return, he published his Travels. It was not,

however, till 1704 that fortune began to smile upon him. At the suggestion of Halifax, he was then employed to celebrate in verse the splendid victory of Blenheim; and, as soon as he had shown his patrons the simile of the angel, he was rewarded with the place of Commissioner of Appeals. In 1705, he attended Lord Halifax to Hanover; in 1706, he was appointed under secretary of state; and in 1709, he went over to Ireland as secretary to the lord lieutenant, the Marquis of Wharton, and also received the almost sinecure office of keeper of the records at Dublin, with a salary of £.300 a year. During this period, he wrote the opera of Rosamond, and contributed a prologue and some scenes to Steele's Tender Husband. The Tatler was begun by Steele while Addison was in Ireland, and without the knowledge of the latter, who, however, soon detected his friend, and came forward to his aid. In 1711, in conjunction with Steele, he began the Spectator, which alone would immortalize his name. As an essayist, he subsequently contributed to the Guardian, the Lover, the Whig Examiner, the Freeholder, and the Old Whig. In 1713, his Cato, to which Pope gave a prologue, was brought upon the stage, and the state of parties at that time, at least as much as its intrinsic merit, ensured its complete success. It did not, however, escape from the critics, among whom Dennis was conspicuous for his acuteness and bitterness. This tragedy, the comedy of the Drummer, and the opera of Rosamond, constitute the whole of Addison's dramatic efforts. He projected a tragedy on the death of So. crates, but went no further. In 1716, after a long courtship, he married the countess dowager of Warwick; a union which was productive of nothing but one daughter and infelicity. The lady was a woman vain of her rank, who had the folly to think that she had honoured a commoner of genius by giving him her hand; and the result was such as was naturally to be expected. Though Hymen frowned on him, his ambition was gratified in the following year by the post of secretary of state. But the toil, his own inaptitude for business, and his sufferings from asthma, soon compelled him to resign it, and he received a yearly pension of £. 1500. After his retirement, he completed his Treatise on the Christian Religion, and was engaged in a political contest with his old friend Steele, whom he treated with a contemptuous asperity that cannot easily be, defended. He died at Holland House, on

the 17th of June, 1719. In his last moments, he sent for Lord Warwick, whom he was anxious to reclaim from irregular habits and erroneous opinions, and, pressing his hand, faintly said, "I have sent for you that you may see in what peace a Christian can die." As a man, Addison was of blameless morals; as a statesman, he was ill calculated for office, for he had not the nerve, promptitude of action, and readiness of resource, which are more necessary in such a character than even the loftier intellectual powers; as a poet and dramatist, he cannot aspire to more than a place in the second class, and, perhaps, not a high place in that class; but as an essayist, he stands unrivalled for ethic instructiveness, skill in delineating life and manners, exquisite humour, fine imagination, and a dulcet, graceful, idiomatic flow of language, which amply justifies the eulogium of Johnson, that "whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison."

ADELARD, or ATHELARD, an English Benedictine monk, who lived under the reign of Henry I. Already possessed of superior knowledge to most of his contemporaries, he resolved to increase it by travelling, and accordingly visited not only various parts of Europe, but also Egypt and Arabia. From the Arabic, he translated into Latin, with other works, the Elements of Euclid, before any Greek copy had been discovered. Some of his MSS. on mathematics and medical subjects are still preserved at Oxford.

ADELUNG, JOHN CHRISTOPHER, an eminent German lexicographer and literary character, was born, in 1734, at Spantekow in Pomerania, became professor at the Erfurt gymnasium, removed thence to Leipsic, and was subsequently appointed librarian to the elector, at Dresden, where he died in 1806. He was never married; it was said of him, that his writing desk was his wife, and the seventy volumes which he wrote were his children. Adelung was an agreeable companion, and loved good cheer; he was so fond of procuring a va riety of foreign wines, that his cellar, which he used to call his Bibliotheca selectissima, contained forty kinds. In this country he is best known by his Grammatical and Critical Dictionary of the German Language, in five vols 4to. As an original writer, however, he is of no mean class.

ADRIAN, PUBLIUS ÆLIUS, the fifteenth Roman emperor, was of a Spanish family,

and, according to some historians, was a native of Spain, though others affirm Rome

to have been his birthplace. He was born A. D. 76, and served early in Spain and Masia. Having married the niece of the empress Plotina, he rose rapidly by the aid of her influence and his own merit, and filled the offices of questor, consul, tribune of the people, and pretor. For his conduct in the Dacian war, Trajan gave him the diamond which he himself had received from Nerva, as the sign of adop. tion. On the death of Trajan, in the year 117, Adrian succeeded to the empire. During his long reign of twenty-one years, he visited almost every part of his dominions. While in Britain, he built the famous wall between the Solway and the Tyne, to pre. vent the incursions of the Caledonians. The Jews having revolted, he defeated and almost exterminated them. Adrian had a robust constitution, went bareheaded, and usually made long marches on foot; he had an extraordinary memory, was condescending, enacted many good laws, and loved poetry and the arts and sciences. On the other hand he was suspicious, not unfrequently cruel, and disgraced himself by his unnatural passion for Antinous. He died at Baiæ, in his sixty-second year; having, for some time previously, been so tormented by disease, as to entreat his friends to terminate his existence. A few days before his death he composed the Latin lines to his soul, which have been often translated into various languages.

ÆLIAN, CLAUDIUS, an historical writer, born at Præneste about the year 160, was a teacher of rhetoric at Rome, under the emperor Antoninus. He is the author of Various History, and a History of Animals, in Greek, of which language he was a perfect master.

ÆLIANUS, MECCIUS, a Greek physician of the second century, was the master of Galen, who mentions him in terms of high

praise. He was the first who made use of the theriaca as a remedy and preservative against plague.

ÆSCHINES, a philosopher of Athens, a disciple of Socrates, by whom he was much esteemed, visited the court of Dionysius, at Syracuse, and was rewarded by him for his Socratic dialogues. He returned to Athens, and taught philosophy and oratory. Three of his dialogues on moral philosophy are extant.

ÆSCHINES, a celebrated orator, the rival of Demosthenes, was born at Athens B. C. 327, of a respectable family. Being worsted in his struggle with Demosthenes, he retired to Rhodes, and opened a school of rhetoric. He died at Samos, aged seventyfive. Of his orations only three are extant; twelve epistles are also attributed to him.

ÆSCHYLUS, one of the three great tragic writers of Greece, and the improver of the scenic art, was born at Athens about 400 years B.C. With his brothers Cynegirus and Aminius, he distinguished himself at Marathon, Platæa, and Salamis. But neither his valour nor his transcendent genius could, at a later period, shield him from a charge of impiety, and a consequent sentence of death, which would have been executed, had not his brother Aminius saved him, by throwing off his own cloak, and showing to the judges his arm, reft of a hand at the battle of Salamis. Eschylus was pardoned; but, disgusted with the manner in which he had been treated, and perhaps also by the triumph of his rival Sophocles, he withdrew to Sicily. There, in his sixty-ninth year, he was killed by an eagle letting fall a tortoise on his bald head, which the bird mistook for a stone. Unfortunately, of ninety tragedies which he wrote, only seven have reached us. Sublimity is the characteristic of Eschylus.

ÆSOP, the prince of fabulists, and of whom so many fables have been written, was a native of Phrygia, who flourished

about 600 years before Christ. The account which is given of his repulsive deformity seems to be entitled to no credit. It appears that he was a slave at Athens, procured his freedom by his virtue and talents, and was patronised by Croesus, who sent him on a mission to Delphi, the inhabitants of which city, in revenge for his having censured and ridiculed them, brought against him a calumnious charge of sacrilege, and precipitated him from a rock.

ÆSOP, CLODIUS, a Roman actor, the contemporary and rival of Roscius, was, like him, the friend of Cicero, to whom he gave lessons in oratorical action. He was luxurious and extravagant, yet he died worth a hundred and sixty thousand pounds. At one of his feasts there was served up a pie made of singing birds, which cost nearly nine hundred pounds. He left a son, who surpassed him in profuseness.

AETIUS, a physician, who lived towards the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, was a native of Amida in Mesopotamia. He is the author of a work in Greek, intituled Tetrabiblos, which is a sort of compendium of all the medical knowledge of that period. Aetius excelled in treating disorders of the eyes. He has sometimes been confounded with Aetius, a heretic of the fourth century, who originally practised medicine.

AETIUS, a Roman general, was a native of Moesia, but of Scythian descent. He learned the art of war under Alaric, to whom he had been given as a hostage. When the usurper John attempted to seize the throne, Aetius raised for him an army of Huns, but he subsequently submitted to Valentinian, who took him into favour, and conferred on him the title of count. A rivalship for power ensued between him and Count Boniface, which terminated in the death of the latter, who was slain in battle. The character of Aetius was stained, in this struggle, by the unworthy means to which he had recourse. He soon, however, covered himself with glory by his conduct in Gaul. After having thrice vanquished the Burgundians and Franks, he marched against the terrible Attila, who had invaded Gaul with innumerable hordes of Huns. A decisive battle was fought, in 1451, on the plains of Chalons, in which Attila was entirely defeated; more than three hundred thousand men fell on both sides. The fame which the victor thus acquired excited the jealousy and fears of the dastardly Valentinian, who, in 454, invited him to the imperial palace, and suddenly assassinated him with his own hand.

AFRANIUS, LUCIUS, a Latin comic poet, lived about a century B. C. Cicero and Quintillian mention him with praise; Horace speaks of him as an imitator of Menander. He did not, however, confine himself to subjects borrowed from the Greek theatre, but described the manners and satirized the follies of his country. Obscenity was the fault of his writings, all of which are now lost.

AGASIAS, an Ephesian sculptor, of whom nothing is known but that we are indebted to his chisel for the fine statue which bears, though no doubt erroneously, the name of the dying gladiator. He has been said to be the disciple, or the son, of Dasitheus.

AGATHIAS, an historian and poet of the sixth century, was a native of Myrine in Asia, and practised as a barrister at Constantinople. He wrote, in five books, a continuation of Procopius's history, and collected the works of the Greek epigrammatists who lived posterior to the reign of Augustus. Many of his own epigrams are preserved in the third volume of Brunk's Analects.

AGATHOCLES, tyrant of Sicily, was the son of a potter. From the rank of a private soldier he raised himself not only to that of general, but also to be master of Syracuse and of the whole of Sicily. Being defeated in Sicily, and his capital besieged by the Carthaginians, he conceived the daring project of attacking Carthage itself; and this scheme he carried into effect with such spirit and military genius, that he brought Carthage to the brink of ruin. After his return home, he underwent many vicissitudes, and was at length poisoned, in his seventy-second year, B. C. 289, by his son Arcagathus. He was a sanguinary and faithless being, but of transcendent talents and popular manners.

AGELADAS, or AGELAS, a celebrated Grecian sculptor, a native of Argos, flourished in the fifth century B. C. An infant Jupiter and a beardless Hercules were among the most admired of his works. Myron and Polycletes were his pupils. He is said to be the first who correctly imitated the veins, muscles, and hair.

AGESANDER, a Rhodian sculptor, flourished in the fifth century B. C.; and, in conjunction with his son Athenodorus and Polydorus, produced that admirable group of Laocoon and his Children, which is a masterpiece of art.

AGESILAUS II., king of Sparta, the son of Archidamus, was lame, deformed, and of diminutive stature, but he nobly