ALBUQUERQUE ALCA VALA. 



87 



poisonous effects of corrosive sublimate on the human 

 stomach. See Egg. 



ALBUQUERQUE, Alfonso de, viceroy of India, sur- 

 named the Great, and the Portuguese Mars, was 

 born at Lisbon, 1452, of a family that derived its 

 origin from kings. An heroic and enterprising spirit 

 at that time distinguished his nation. They had be- 

 come acquainted with, and had subjected to their 

 power, a large part of the western coast of Africa, 

 and began to extend their sway over the seas and 

 nations- of India. A. was appointed viceroy of their 

 acquisitions in this quarter, and arrived, Sept. 26, 

 1503, with a fleet and some troops, on the ooast of 

 Malabar ; took possession of Goa, which he made 

 the centre of the Portuguese power and commerce 

 in Asia; subdued the whole of Malabar, Ceylon, 

 -the Sunda islands, and the peninsula of Malacca. 

 In 1507, he made himself master of the island of 

 Ormus, at the entrance of the Persian gulf. When 

 the king of Persia demanded the tribute which the 

 princes of this island had formerly mid him, A. laid 

 before the ambassadors a bullet and a sword, saying, 

 " This is the coin in which Portugal pays her tri- 

 bute." He made the Portuguese name highly 

 respected by all the nations and princes of India, 

 and several, as the kings of Siam and Pegu, courted 

 his friendship and protection. All his enterprises 

 were extraordinary. His discipline was strict; he 

 was active, cautious, wise, humane, and just ; re- 

 spected and feared by his neighbours, beloved by his 

 inferiors. His virtues made such an impression on 

 tiie Indians, tliat they, for a long time after his 

 death, made pilgrimages to his tomb, and besought 

 him to protect them against the tyranny of his suc- 

 cessors. Notwithstanding his great merits, he did 

 not escape the envy of tiie courtiers, and the suspi- 

 cions of king Emanuel, who sent Lopez Soarez, the 

 personal enemy of A., to fill his place. The ingra- 

 titude of his sovereign severely afflicted him, and he 

 died, a few days after receiving the intelligence, at 

 Goa, in 1515, having recommended his only son to 

 the king's favour, in a letter written a short time be- 

 fore his death. Emanuel honoured his memory by a 

 long repentance, and raised his son to- the highest 

 dignities of the kingdom. 



ALBURNUM ; the soft, white substance which, in 

 trees, is found between the liber, or inner bark, and 

 the wood, and, in progress of time acquiring solidity, 

 becomes itself the wood. A new layer of wood, or 

 rather of A., is added annually to the tree in every 

 part, just under the bark. 



ALC.EUS, one of the greatest Grecian lyric poets, 

 was born at Mitylene, in Lesbos, and flourished 

 there at the close of the 7th and beginning of 

 the 6th centuries B. C. Somewhat older than 

 Sappho, he paid homage to the charms of his re- 

 nowned countrywoman, but, as it seems, unsuccess- 

 fully. Being of a fiery temperament, he sought at 

 the same time the laurel of war and of the muses. 

 His misfortune in losing his shield, in a war be- 

 tween Mitylene and Athens, has been falsely attri- 

 buted to cowardice. He engaged in the civil war 

 Which convulsed his country at the time of the ex- 

 pulsion of the tyrants, and used both the lyre and 

 the sword in the cause of liberty. In the beginning, 

 he took part with Pittacus; subsequently against 

 him, when he took the reins of government into his 

 own hands, after the overthrow of the petty tyrants, 

 in order to vmite and quiet the divided people. A., 

 expelled from Mitylene by the change of circum- 

 stances, wandered about for a long time, and at last 

 fell into the hands of Pittacus, in an attempt to force 

 his way into his native city, at the head or a body of 

 exiles. The latter magnanimously restored him to 

 liberty. His songs breathe the same spirit with his 



life. A strong, manly enthusiasm for freedom and 

 justice pervades even those in which he sings the 

 pleasures of love and wine. But the sublimity of 

 his nature shines brightest when he praises valour, 

 chastises tyrants, describes the blessings of liberty 

 and the misery of exile. His lyric muse was versed 

 in all the forms and subjects of poetry, and antiquity 

 attributes to him hymns, odes, and songs. A few 

 fragments only are left of all of them, and a distant 

 echo of his poetry reaches us hi some odes of Horace. 

 He wrote in the ^Eolic dialect, and was the inven- 

 tor of the metre that bears his name, one of the most 

 beautiful and melodious of all the Lyric metres. 

 Horace has employed it in many of his odes. Ger- 

 man poets, too, have imitated it, as Klopstock. Jani 

 has collected the fragments of his works. Some of 

 them are in the Analecta of Bninck, and in the An- 

 thologia of Jacobs. There were two other poets of 

 the same name, but of less reputation. 



ALCALA DE HENAREZ ; a beautiful and extensive 

 city of Spain, in New Castile, seated upon the river 

 Henarez, eleven miles S. W. of Guadalaxara, and 

 fifteen E. N. E. of Madrid. The ancient name was 

 Complutum, when it was a Roman colony, and here 

 was printed the celebrated Biblia Complutensia, or 

 Complutensian Polyglot, at an expense of 250,000 

 ducats to cardinal Ximenes. It was the first poly- 

 glot Bible ever printed. 600 copies were struck 

 off, three on vellum. One of these three was de- 

 posited in the royal library at Madrid, a second in 

 the royal library at Turin ; a third, supposed to have 

 belonged to the cardinal himself, after passing 

 through various hands, was purchased at the sale of 

 signer Pinelli's library in 1739, for the late count 

 M'Carthy, of Toulouse, for 483. On the sale of 

 his library at Paris, 1817, it was sold for above 676 

 sterling. 



ALCALDE (Spanish), or ALCAIDE (Portuguese) ; the 

 name of a magistrate in the Spanish and Portuguese 

 towns, to whom the administration of justice and the 

 regulation of the police is committed. His office 

 nearly corresponds to that of justice of the peace. 

 The name and the office are of Moorish origin, 



AJ.CANTARA ; an ancient town and frontier for- 

 tress in the Spanish province Estremadura, witii 

 3000 inhabitants, built by the Moors, on the Tagus, 

 over which is a splendid bridge, erected by the Ro- 

 mans. One of the three ancient Spanish orders of 

 knighthood, which derives its origin from the bre- 

 thren of St Julian del Parero (of the pear-tree), in the 

 12th century, and fought bravely against the Moors, 

 received, in 1207, from the order of Calatrava, the 

 town of Alcantara, of which it took the name, and 

 was united with the Spanish crown, after the grand 

 master, don Juan de Zuniga, had delivered up the 

 town to Ferdinand the Catholic, in 1494-. The 

 knights, since 1540, have been allowed to marry. 

 The order was very rich. The badge is a gold and 

 green cross, fieur de Its ; the coat of arms, a pear- 

 tree, with two chevrons. 



ALCAVALA is the name of a tax or excise imposed 

 in Spain and the Spanish colonies upon sales of pro- 

 perty, whether movable or immovable. The rate of 

 this tax has varied, heretofore, in Spain, from four- 

 teen to six per cent. It differs from the ordinary ex- 

 cise in this, tliat an excise is most generally intended 

 to be levied upon consumption, so tliat each one shall 

 pay in proportion to the goods he may consume ; and 

 it is, therefore, founded upon one of the legitimate 

 principles of taxation. But the alcavala, being le- 

 vied upon all sales, is, in fact, a tax upon internal 

 commerce ; it is a forfeit paid by the vender for sell- 

 ing a thing to be used or consumed by another, in- 

 stead of using or consuming it himself, which he 

 mi<rht do free of any such tax. It is, accordingly, 



