76 



AJACCIO AKENSIDE. 



> \ others, together \vitli (heir appendages. (See 

 .W.o//, lli.-t. tt'-s Truitt-s, &c. 1. ;i;u.) Tin- second 

 peace of A. Oct. 18, 1748, terminated the Austrian 

 war of succession (see .-it/stria), in which tin- parties 

 were at first Louis XV. of France and the empress 

 Maria Theresa, and, in the sequel, Spain on one 

 side, ami Great Britain, Maria Theresa, and Charles 

 II. laniiel. king of Saniinia, mi (lie other. In this 

 war, the united Netherlands were engaged as 

 allies of (treat Britain and Austria, Modena and 

 Genoa as allies of Spain. Maria Theresa MUTCH- 

 ill-red to Philip, infant of Spain, Parma, Piacenza, 

 and (iuastallu. Thus the fourth sovereign line of 

 the house of Bourbon, that of Purma (since 1817 

 established in Lucca), took its origin. On the whole, 

 the state of possession before the war was restored, 

 the pragmatic sanction and the succession of the 

 house of" Hanover in Great Britain guaranteed, and 

 Silesia and Glatz secured to the king of Prussia. A 

 Russian auxiliary army of 37,000 men, under prince 

 Repnin, in the pay of the naval powers, approach- 

 ing, in the spring of 1748, from Bohemia to the 

 Uiiine, accelerated the conclusion of the peace. The 

 plenipotentiaries of France, Great Britain, and the 

 States General, in a secret session, April 30, 1748, 

 signed the preliminaries, four copies of which were 

 presented to the other powers engaged in the war, 

 and signed by them separately. Charles Stuart, the 

 eldest son of the pretender, protested, at Paris, July 

 16, against the exclusion of his father, who called 

 himself James HI. from the British throne. The 

 above-named three powers first signed, in like 

 manner, the definitive peace, whereupon Spain, 

 Genoa, and Modena, July 20, and Austria, July 23, 

 (by her plenipotentiary, count, afterwards prince 

 Kaunitz), did the same. (See Sc/ioli, i. 411, et seq.) 



AJACCIO, or AJAZZO, the capital of Corsica, con- 

 tains 6570 inhabitants. It lias a harbour, protected 

 by a citadel, lying to the north of the gulf of the 

 same name, on the western coast of the island, at 

 the confluence of the rivers Terignano and Kestoni- 

 co. The entrance into the harbour is rendered 

 unsafe by projecting rocks. A. is the birth-place of 

 Napoleon, his brothers, and sisters. It is the hand- 

 somest city of Corsica, and -the seat of a bishop. In 

 the commercial world, it is famous for its coral and 

 anchovy fisheries ; less so, in the learned world, for 

 its academy. Lon. 8 44' E.; lat 41 59' N. 



AJALON ; a town rendered memorable by Joshua's 

 victory over the five Canaanitish kings, and still 

 more so by the extraordinary circumstance of the 

 miraculously lengthened day. 



AJAN ; a coast and country of Africa, which has 

 the river Quilmanci on the south, the mountains 

 from which that river springs on the west, Abyssinia 

 and t he straits of Babelmanael on the north, and the 

 Indian ocean on the east. The coast abounds with 

 all the necessaries of life, and lias plenty of very good 

 horses. 



AJASSALUCK ; the Turkish name for a village on 

 or near the site of the ancient Ephesus. The whole 

 place seems to have been built from the ruins of 

 Ephesian grandeur. Tamerlane encamped here, after 

 having subdued Smyrna, in 1402. 



AJAX (Greek, Aia s ). Among the Grecian chiefs 

 who fought against Troy were Ajax Oileus and 

 Ajax Tefamonius. The former, the son of Oileus 

 and Etiopis, a Locrian, was called the less. He 

 accompanied the expedition to Troy, because he had 

 been one of the suitors of Helen. In the combat, 

 his courage sometimes degenerated into inconsiderate 

 fury. Examples of this are given by the poets who 

 succeeded Homer. When the Greeks, they say, 

 had ent*ed Troy, Cassandra fled to the temple of 

 Pallas, from whence she was forced, and draersred 



7 DO 



along, bound as R captive. Some accounts add, 

 that iha caught hold of the statue of the goddess, 

 and that A. dragged her away by the hair; others, 

 that he \ iolatcd the prophetess in the temple of the 

 goddess. I'lysses accused him of this crime, when 

 he exculpated himself with an oath. But the anger 

 of the goddess at last overtook him, and he perished 

 in the waves of the sea. The other A. wu- ihr son 

 of Telamon, from Salamis, ami a grandson of ./Kacus. 

 He, also, was a suitor of Helen, and sailed with 

 12 ships to Troy, where he is represented by Homer 

 as the boldest and handsomest of the Greeks, after 

 Achilles. He understood not how to speak, but 

 how to act. He was frank, and full of noble pride. 

 After the death of Achilles, when his arms, which 

 Ajax claimed on account of his courage and relation- 

 ship, were awarded to Ulysses ; he was filled with 

 rage, and, driven by despair, threw himself on his 

 sword. 



AKII.MI ; a celebrated Saracen conqueror in the 

 first century of the Hegira, who overran Africa from 

 Cairo to the Atlantic ocean. A general revolt 

 among the Greeks and Africans recalled him from 

 the west, and occasioned his destruction. He founded 

 Cairoan, in the interior of Africa, to check the bar- 

 barians and secure a place of refuge to the families 

 of the Saracens. 



AKBAR, or AKBER, Mohammed, sovereign of 

 India ; the greatest Asiatic prince of modem times. 

 He was born at Amerket, in the year of the Hegira 

 919 (1542 of the Christian era), and, after the death 

 of his father, ascended the throne, at the age of thir- 

 teen, and governed India under the guardianship of 

 his minister, Beyram. His great talents were early 

 developed. He fought with distinguished valour 

 against his foreign foes and rebellious subjects, 

 among whom was Beyram himself. His govern- 

 ment was remarkable for its mildness and the great- 

 est tolerance towards all sects. Though compelled 

 by continued commotions, to visit the different pro- 

 vinces of his empire at the head of his army, he 

 loved the sciences, especially history, and was inde- 

 fatigable in his attention to the internal administra- 

 tion of his empire. He instituted inquiries into the 

 population, the nature and productions of each pro- 

 vince. The result of his statistical labours were 

 collected by his minister, Abul Fazl, in a work, en- 

 titled Ayeen Akberi, printed in English, at Calcutta, 

 1783 86, 3 vols, and reprinted in London. A. died 

 after a reign of 49 years, in 1017 (1604, A. D.) Hi> 

 splendid sepulchral monument still exists near Agra, 

 with the simple inscription, Akbar the Admirable. 

 He was succeeded by his son Selim, under the name 

 Djihangir. 



AKENSIDE, Mark, a poet and physician, was born 

 in 1721, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His father, a 

 butcher, of the presbyterian sect, intended him for a 

 clergyman, and placed him, at the age of 18, in the 

 university of Edinburgh, to qualify him for that 

 office. The taste of A. was not inclined to that 

 profession, and he abandoned the study of theology 

 for that of physic. Having received some assistance 

 from the funds employed by the Dissenters in the 

 education of young men intended for the ministry, he 

 very honourably refunded the amount when he re- 

 linquished his theological studies. After three years' 

 residence at Edinburgh, he went to Leyden, and in 

 1 744 became doctor of physic. In a thesis, which he 

 published on receiving his degree, De Ortu et In 

 cremento Foetus Humani, he proposed a new theory, 

 which has been since confirmed and received. 

 In the same year, he published the Pleasures of 

 Imagination, which, however, he is said to have 

 written during his residence at Edinburgh. In the 

 following year, he published a collection of odes, 



