118 



AI.LEYN ALLIGATOR. 



treatises, written in l-atin. His skill in science made 

 him, in his own day, to !>< generally reputed a dealer 

 in tin- Mack art 



ALI.K.N, Kdward ; a cell hr.itcd actor in the reigns 

 of Kliuilx'th and James I., better known as ilic 

 founder of DiuVicli college. Me was horn loiiii, in 

 London, in the parish of St Botolph, Itishopsgate. 

 According to die testimony of Hen .lonvon nndthe 

 nt her dramatists of the age, he was the first actor of 

 I lie day, and of course played leading characters in 

 die plays of Shak-pcare and Jonson ; although, in 

 consequence of the names not being set against the 

 parts in the old editions of those authors, his parti- 

 cular share in them is not ascertained. He was 

 keeper of the royal licar-giirden. Having become 

 wealthy, lie founded Pnlwieh college, for the main- 

 tenance of one master, one warden, and four unmar- 

 ried fellows of the name of Allen, three whereof were 

 to In- clergymen, and the fourth a skilful organist; 

 also six poor men and as many women ; and twelve 

 l>oor boys, to be educated until of the age of fourteen 

 or sixteen, and then put out to some trade or calling. 

 Aubrey tells a ridiculous story of the origin of this 

 donation, in a fright endured by A., who saw a real 

 devil on the stage, while himself performing a ficti- 

 tious one in a drama by Shakspeare. After the col- 

 lege was built, he met with some difficulty in ob- 

 taining a charter, owing to the opposition of the lord 

 chancellor Bacon. The very rational letter of this 

 great man to the marquis of Buckingham on this 

 subject, is extant. A. was the first master of his own 

 college, and, dying in l(>v;(i, was buried in the new 

 chapel Ix-longing to it. Within these few years, it 

 lias Ix-cn brought into great additional notice by the 

 admirable collection of pictures of the best masters, 

 bequeathed by Sir Francis Bourgeois. 



ALLGEMEINK ZKITUNG, i. e. General Gazette; a 

 German political daily paper, published at Augsburg 

 in Bavaria, for which reason it is sometimes called 

 by foreigners die Augsburg Gazette. The A. Z. is 

 by far the best German newspaper, and particularly 

 rich in information respecting the affairs of the East 

 and of Italy. The summary of new publications 

 which it contains semi-annually after the book-fair 

 in Leipsic is excellent. Baron Cotta, the owner of 

 i he A. Z. has regular correspondents in Constanti- 

 nople, in almost all the capitals of Europe, and in 

 the I'nited States of America. He has recently 

 established another daily paper, Das ^island, at 

 Munich, which contains accounts of foreign countries 

 only. The A. Z. has existed now forty years or 

 longer. It is, like all the German newspapers, small 

 in comparison with the British or American, and is 

 afforded at a very low price. For a general view of 

 newspapers, see Newspapers. 



ALLIANCE ; a league between two or more powers. 

 Alliances are divided into offensive and defensive. 

 The former are for the purpose of attacking a com- 

 mon enemy, and the latter for mutual defence. An 

 Alliance often unites both of these conditions. Offen- 

 sive alliances, of course, are usually directed against 

 some particular enemy ; defensive alliances against 

 any one from whom an attack may come. As re- 

 gards the obligations and rights of the contracting 

 parties, alliances are divided into three chief classes : 

 1. Those in which the allied parties agree to pro- 

 secute die war with their whole force (societe de 

 guerre ; alliance pour faire la guerre en commun). 

 In this case, all the parties are principals. 2. Auxi- 

 liary alliances, if the allies pledge themselves mutu- 

 ally to furnish assistance to a fixed amount, in which 

 only one of the contracting powers appears as 

 principal. 3. Mere treaties, by which one power 

 promises, in consideration of certain subsidies, tofur- 

 Hish troops, or to place its troops in the pay of ano- 



ther power, without directly taking part in the war; 

 or to make only advances of money. Triple alliance 

 is an alliance between three, quadruple alliance, 

 quintuple alliance, lictwccn four and five powers. 

 See Coalition, (^uadrnplc Alliance, and Holy Alii 



Holy. See llnly Alliance. 



ALLIOATIOX is, in arithmetic, of two kinds, alter- 

 nate and medial. Alligation ultertiHlf is the method 

 of finding the quantities of ingredients of different 

 values, necessary to form a compound of a gi\en 

 value, and it is the converse of alligation wt-iiial, 

 which teaches how to find the mean rate of a mix 

 ture, when the (.articular quantities composing the 

 mixture, and their respective mean rates are gi\i n. 



ALLICATOK ; the name of a large reptile, of the 

 saurian or lizard oilier, derived, according lo< uvicr, 

 from a corruption of the Portuguese word /it^arto, 

 equivalent to the Latin lacerfa. The alligators or 

 caimans form the second sub-genus of ( uvier's cro- 

 codile family, and belong to the southern parts of the 

 American continent. Two species, very numerous 

 in these regions, are well known ; the, spectacled 

 caiman, crocodilus sclerons, most common in (iuiaiui 

 and Brazil ; and the pike-nosed A. (/'. Im-inx}.. fre- 

 quenting the southern rivers and lagoons of the 

 United States. In the water, the full grown A. is 

 a terrible animal, on account of its great. si7,c and 

 strength. It grows to the length of fifteen or tvrenty 

 feet, is coverea by a dense hardness of horny M 

 impenetrable to a musket ball, except about the head 

 and shoulders, and has a huge mouth, armed with a 

 fearful row of strong, unequal, conical teeth, some 

 of which shut into cavities of the upper jaw-bone. 

 They 'swim or dart along through the water with 

 wonderful celerity, impelled by their long, laterally 

 compressed, and powerful tails, which serve as very 

 efficient oars. On land, their motions are propor- 

 tionally slow ami emljarrassed, because of the length 

 and unwieldiness of their bodies, the shortness of 

 their limbs, and the sort of small, false ribs which 

 reach from joint to joint of their necks, and render 

 lateral motion very difficult. In addition to the 

 usual number of ribs and false ribs, they are furnish- 

 ed with others, for the protection of the belly, which 

 do not rise up to the spine. The lower jaw extends 

 farther back than the skull, so that the neck must 

 l>e somewhat bent when it is opened ; the appearance 

 thus produced has led to the very universal error of 

 believing that the A. moves its upper jaw, which is 

 incapable of motion, except with the rest of the body. 

 Under the throat of this animal are two openings or 

 pores, the excretory ducts from glands, which pour 

 out a strong, musky fluid, that gives the A. its pecu- 

 liarly unpleasant smell. In the spring of the year, 

 when the males are under the excitement of the 

 sexual propensity, they frequently utter a roar which 

 is a very alarming sound, from its harshness and 

 reverberation, resembling distant thunder, especially 

 where numbers are at the same time engaged. At 

 this period, frequent and terrible battles lake place 

 between the males, which terminate in die discom- 

 fiture and retreat of one of the parties. At this sea- 

 son, also, an old champion is seen to dart forth on 

 the surface of the waters, in a straight line, at first 

 as swiftly as lightning, gradually moving slower as 

 he reaches the centre ofa lake ; there he stops, in- 

 flates himself by inhaling air and water, which makes 

 a loud rattling in his throat for a moment, until he 

 ejects it with vast force from his mouth and nostrils, 

 making a loud noise, and vibrating his tail vigor- 

 ously in the air. Sometimes after thus inflating 

 himself, with head and tail raised above the water, 

 he whirls round until the waves are worked to foam, 

 and at length retires, leaving to others an oppor- 



