457 



AZUNI, DOMENICO ALBERTO. 



BABER. 



453 



that time. Azara was fond of literature and of the arts, and was 

 intimately connected with all the distinguished men who were then 

 in the Roman capital, auch as cardinals De Bernis, Albani, and Borgia ; 

 the archaeologists Winckelmann, Fea, Marini, and Visconti ; the artists 

 Canova, Angelica Kaufmaim, Mengs, Volpato, &c. ; and the learned 

 Jesuits Arteaga, Andres, CUvigero, and Ortiz. He was especially the ] 

 friend and patron of Meng-i. After the death of that artist, he pro- 

 vided for his family ; and he wrote a life of the deceased, which he 

 prefixed to a splendid edition of his works, made at his expense by 

 the printer Bodoui. Azara made a valuable collection of antiquities, 

 and he was successful in several excavations near Rome. In 1796, 

 when Bonaparte threatened Rome, Azara repaired to his head-quarters, 

 and succeeded in preventing the advance of the French, though at the 

 price of exorbitant contributions imposed on the Roman state by the 

 conqueror. Azara's influence at the papal court declined after this 

 transaction, he being regarded as having submitted to terms beyond 

 what the necessity of the casa justified. When the French took pos- 

 session of Rome in 1793, Azara withdrew to Florence. In 1801 he 

 was appointed ambassador for Spain at Paris. He lost his situation 

 through the intrigues of Godoy, the favourite of King Charles IV., 

 and died in 1803, as he was preparing to set off for Italy to resume 

 his favourite studies. Besides the life of Mengsv he translated 

 Middlfton's ' Life of Cicero,' and several other works into Spanish. 



A/U'NI, DOME^I'CO ALBERTO, was born at Sassari, in the 

 island of Sardinia, on August 3, 1749. He applied early to the study 

 of the 1 iw, and paid particular attention to the maritime regulations, ! 

 which have often been matter of dispute between nations. Azuui 

 becoming known as a distinguished jurist, was made a senator and 

 judge of the tribunal of commerce of Nizza, in the continental states 

 of the King of Sardinia. In 1795, after the French had taken pos- 

 session of Nizza, Azuui published his ' Sistema universale dei Principii 

 del Diretto Marittimo dell' Europa,' in which he endeavoured to 



reduce the maritime laws to fixed principles. He afterwards recast 

 his work, and published it in French at Paris, with the title of ' Droit 

 Maritime de 1'Europe," 2 vols. 8vo, 1805. This work on account of its 

 atta k on what is called the assumption of superiority by the British 

 navy over the flags of other countries, its disregard of equal rights 

 on the seas, and especially of the rights of neutrals, as well as of its 

 d- fence of privateering, recommended Azuni to Napoleon's ministry, 

 who appointed him one of the commissioners for the compilation of 

 the new commercial code, and intrusted him with the part relative to 

 maritime affairs. In 1807 Azuni was appointed president of the 

 Court of Appeal at Genoa, which city and territory had been annexed 

 to France. He was afterwards elected member for the same to the legis- 

 lative corps sitting at Paris. He there published an ' Essai sur 1'Histoire 

 Gdographique, Politique, et Morale de la Sardaigue,' 2 vols. Svo, accom- 

 panied by a map of that island, the draught of which was taken from 

 the archives of Turin. The second volume is entirely occupied by 

 the natural history of Sardinia. In 1809 Azuni wrote a pamphlet, in 

 which he ascribed to the French the invention of the mariner's com- 

 pass. This engaged him in a warm dispute with those who maintained 

 the prior right of the Italians to the discovery, and especially with the 

 orientalist Hager, professor in the University of Pavia, who refuted 

 Azuni's book. Azuni next published a ' Dictionary of Mercantile 

 Jurisprudence,' of which a new edition was published at Leghorn in 

 1822. He continued his functions in the tribunal of Genoa until the 

 fall of Napoleon, when he withdrew first to Niuza, and afterwards to 

 his native island of Sardinia, where the late King Charles Felix 

 appointed him judge of the consulate of Cagliari, and librarian to the 

 University of the same city. He died at Cagliari in Jauuary 1827. 

 Besides the works named above, Azuui wrote * Memoires pour servir 

 a 1'Histoire Maritime des Mai-ins Navigateurs de Marseille,' and some 

 others. (Bioyrafia degli Italiani Viventi.) 



B 



*r>ABBAGE, CHARLES, entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 - L * where he took his degrees, that of B.A. in 1814. In the follow- 

 ing year he communicated a paper' An Essay towards the Calculus 

 of Function-,' to the Philosophical Transactions, and in 1S16 was 

 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and afterwards, in 1822 and 

 1826, was chosen on the council. 



In 1822 Mr. Babbage published a letter addressed to Sir H. Davy 

 on the ' Application of Machinery to Calculating and Printing Mathe- 

 matical Tables ;' an important question in mechanical scienc*. The 

 government, on the recommendation of the council of the Royal 

 Society in 1823, sanctioned grants for the construction of the calculat- 

 ing machine, as proposed by the inventor, whose name has so long 

 been associated with the remarkable mechanism. A description of it 

 will be found under the head of CALCULATING MACHINES in the 

 division of ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



Mr. Babbage was one of the founders of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society nnd of the British Association, and the originator of the 

 Statistical Society. In 1823 he was appointed Lucasian Professor in 

 the University of Cambridge, which post he resignedin 183!). Besides 

 the societies above-mentioned, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh, of the Royal Irish Academy, the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society, and the chief scientific societies of Europe and America. 



Mr. Babbage' s writings exhibit a wide range of learning and research. 

 Numerous valuable papers on mathematical subjects, on magnetic and 

 electrical phenomena, ' On a Method of Expressing by Signs the 

 Action of Machinery,' appear in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' from 

 1815 to 1826. The ' Journal ' of the Royal Institution, the ' Transac- 

 tions ' of the Astronomical Society, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 and of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, also contain papers from 

 his pen. He wrote the articles ' Diving Bell,' and ' Essay on the 

 General Principles which Regulate the Application of Machinery,' for 

 the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.' His ' Reflections on the Decline 

 of Science in England,' appeared in 1830 ; the ' Economy of Manu- 

 factures and Machinery' in 1832. This work is now in its fourth 

 edition; it was translated by order of the governments of Spain and 

 Prussia ; two translations of it have appeared in French, and others 

 in Italian and Russian, as well as numerous reprints in the United 

 States. 'The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise' was published in 1837, it 

 has gone through two editions; and was followed in 1851 by 'The 

 Exposition of 1851; or, Views of the Industry, the Science, and the 

 Government of England,' which has also passed through two editions. 

 Mr. Babbage has moreover written on geological subjects. His ' Obser- 

 vations on the Temple of Serapis, at Pozzuoli, near Naples ; with an 

 attempt to explain the causes of the frequent elevation and depres- 

 sion >( large portions of the earth's surface in remote periods, and to 

 prove that those causes continue in action at the present time,' 

 appeared in the ' Proceedings of the Geological Society' in 1846; and 

 ' On some Impressions in Sandstone,' in 1847. 



li \liEK, or BAIiUU, with his complete name ZAHIR-EDDIN- 

 MOIIAMMED-CABER, the celebrated founder of the Tatar, or, as it is 



often improperly called, the Mogul empire in Hindustan, wa* born on 

 the sixth of Moharrem, A.H. 888 (14th February 1483). His father, 

 Sultan Omar-Sheikh-Mirza, a great-great-grandson of the celebrated 

 Timur, or Tamerlane, was sovereign of Ferghana, a considerable pro- 

 vince situated on both sides of the river Sirr, the Jaxartes of the 

 ancients. Though only in his twelfth year when his father died, he 

 secured the possession of the greater part of his father's dominions in 

 spite of the opposition of his uncles, the sultans of Samarcaud and 

 Bokhara ; and of other hostile neighbours. The history of Baber's 

 reign till the twenty-third year of his aje is a continuous, succession 

 of vicissitudes, in which we find him alternately conquering and losing 

 Samarcand, Andijan, Khojend, and other places in or uear his paternal 

 dominions. In the year 1503, Sheibani-Khan, a descendant of Gengiz- 

 Khau, by his elilest son, Tushi, or Jujikhan, the sovereign of Kipchak, 

 conquered not only Samarcand and Bokhara, but also the countries of 

 Ferghana and Uratippa ; and Baber, after wandering for nearly a year 

 as a fugitive among the mountains that separate Ferghana from Hissar 

 and Karatigiu, quitted his native country and resolved to try his 

 fortune in Khorasan (1504), which was at that time held by Su'ian 

 Hus.saiu Mirza, a powerful and distinguished prince of the family of 

 Timur. With less than 300 followers, and only two tents, Baber 

 crossed the river Amu, or Oxus, a little above Termez. He did not 

 receive from Sultan Hussaiu-Mirza the support which he had antici- 

 pated ; but a number of Moguls in the service of Khosru-Shah, who 

 occupied Badakhshan, quitted the service of that chief, and, by 

 declaring for Baber, forced Khosru-Shah himself to submit to him. 

 Thus strengthened, Baber marched towards Cabul, which was sur- 

 rendered to him after a short siege (October, 1504). He allowed the 

 Afghan governor and the garrison to depart in safety, and divided the 

 country of Cabul among those chiefs who had lately entered his 

 service. 



In the ensuing year (1505) Baber made an irruption into Hindustan, 

 advancing along the western bank of the Indus, as far as the tomb of 

 Pir-Kanu (probably near Dera-Ghazi-Khan, in 29" 50' N. lat.), return- 

 ing by Ghuznee to Cabul. In 1506 Sultan Hussaiu-Mirza died, and 

 Baber repaired to Khorasan, where he found occupation in repelling 

 an incursion of the Uzbeks. He also drove them out of Cabul, and 

 subsequently captured Candahar from the hands of two Afghan 

 noblemen. In September, 1507, Baber again set out to invade Hin- 

 dustan, but was stopped by the opposition of a predatory Afghan 

 tribe. We know little of Baber's movements till 1519, except that on 

 the death of Sheibaui-Kban, in 1510, he succeeded in recovering part 

 of his former territory, which was however retaken from him by the 

 Uzbeks, under Timur Sultan, the sou of Sheibani-Khan. 



In 1519 Baber undertook another expedition with a view to conquer 

 Hindustan. He now for the first time crossed the Indus, probably a 

 little above Attok (February 17, 1519), but soon re-crossed it, having 

 taken a few places, and appointed governors in them. The next 

 invasion, in 1524, in which he conquered and burnt Lahore, brought 

 him beyond the Sutlcj, as far as Sirhiud, and gave him a permanent 



