ASCHAFFENBURG ASH. 



293 



ASCHAFFENBURG (the ancient Asciburgum, laid out 

 by the Romans) ; a town in the Bavarian district of 

 the Lower Maine, with 750 houses and 6,200 inha- 

 bitants, on the Maine and Aschaff. It formerly be- 

 longed, with its territory, to the electorate of Mentz. 

 The scenery is so beautiful, and the castle so fine, 

 that Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, when he took 

 possession of it, in his expedition to the Rhine, wished 

 to transfer it, with its view, to lake Maler, in Swe- 

 den. After the dissolution of the electorate of Mentz, 

 in 1811. A became the summer residence of the 

 prince primate, afterwards grand duke of Frankfort. 



ASCHAM, Roger ; a learned Englishman of the 16th 

 century, was born, in 1515, of a respectable family 

 -sn Yorkshire. He was entered at Cambridge, 1530, 

 and was chosen fellow in 1534, and tutor in 1537. 

 In this period of religious and literary revolution, A. 

 ioined himself with those who were extending the 

 bounds of knowledge. He became a Protestant, and 

 applied himself to the study of Greek, which began, 

 about that time, to be taught in England. There 

 was yet no established lecturer of Greek : the uni- 

 versity, therefore, appointed him to read in the open 

 schools. He was not less eminent as a writer of 

 Latin than as a teacher of Greek. He wrote all the 

 public letters of the university, was afterwards Latin 

 secretary to king Edward, and also to Mary. Car- 

 dinal Pole, who was particularly eminent for his skill 

 in Latin, employed him to translate, for the pope, his 

 speech in the English parliament. In 1544, he 

 wrote his " Toxophilus, or Schole of Shooting," in 

 praise of his favourite amusement and exercise 

 archery. This book he presented to the king, who 

 rewarded him with a pension of 10 pounds. In 1548, 

 the princess Elizabeth invited him to direct her stu- 

 dies ; but, after instructing her two years, he left 

 ner without her consent, and, soon after, went to 

 Germany as secretary to Sir R. Morisine. In this 

 journey, he wrote his Report of the Afiairs in Ger- 

 many. Upon the death of Edward, he was recalled, 

 but preserved the office of Latin secretary to Mary, 

 although a Protestant, through the interest of Gar- 

 diner. Upon the accession of his pupil, he was con- 

 tinued in his former employment, and was daily 

 admitted to the presence of the queen, to assist her 

 studies, or partake of her diversions, but received no 

 very substantial marks of her bounty. In 1563, he 

 was invited by Sir E. Sackville to write the School- 

 master, a treatise on education, which, though com- 

 pleted, he did not publish. To this work, conceived 

 with vigour and executed with accuracy, he princi- 

 pally owes his modem reputation. His style was, in 

 his own age, mellifluous and eloquent, and is now 

 valuable as a specimen of genuine English. He was 

 never robust, and his death, which happened in 15G8, 

 was occasioned by his too close application to the 

 composition of a poem, which he intended to present 

 to the queen on the anniversary of her accession. 

 His works were collected and published by Bennet, 

 in one vol. 4to, 1769, enriched with a life by Dr 

 Johnson. 



ASCLEPIADEAN VERSE, consists of two or three 

 choriambuses, and is accordingly distinguished into 

 greater and less. It always begins with a spondee, 

 and ends with an iambus : 



Greater. 



I ^ *^ _ II ^ *~, _ I ,_ ___ I _- 



I 1 1 ~~~ I ~" WT ~~ I 



Their character is lyric, uniting grace with vigour. 

 In Honre, there are five different metres formed of j 

 Asclepiadean verses. He uses either the greater or j 

 t lie less alone, or alternately with the Glyconic verse : I 

 or employs three less Asclepiadean verses, followed 



by a Glyconic, or two less Asclepiadean, by a Phere- 

 cratian and a Glyconic verse. 



ASCLEPIADES, the descendants of the god of medi- 

 cine, .iEsculapius, by his sons Podalirius and Maclia- 

 on, spread, together with the worship of the god, 

 through Greece and Asia Minor. They formed an 

 order of priests, which preserved the results of the 

 medical experience acquired in the temples as a 

 hereditary secret, and were thus, at the same time, 

 physicians, prophets, and priests. They lived in the 

 temple of the god, and, by exciting the imaginations 

 of the sick, prepared them to receive healing dreams 

 and divine apparitions ; observed carefully the course 

 of the disease ; applied, as it is believed, besides the 

 conjurations and charms usual in antiquity, real mag- 

 netic remedies, and noted down the results of their 

 practice. They were, accordingly, not only the first 

 physicians known to us, but, in fact, the founders of 

 scientific medicine, which proceeded from their so- 

 ciety. The constitution of this medical family order 

 was, without doubt, derived from Egypt, whence also 

 the coluber JEsculapit, Linn., which was used as a 

 healing and prophetic serpent, was brought by the 

 Phoenicians to Epidaurus, the chief seat of the god. 

 Round this serpent-god an order of priests was 

 gathered, and thence spread his worship. (In later 

 times, 292 B. C., such a healing serpent was sent to 

 the island of Tiber, near Rome.) No one could be 

 initiated into the secrets of their knowledge without 

 a solemn oath. At first, this order of priests was con- 

 fined to the family of the Asclepiades, who kept their 

 family register with great care. Aristides celebrated 

 them by his eulogiums at Smyrna. Hippocrates of 

 Cos, the founder of scientific physic, derived his 

 origin from it, and the oath administered to the 

 disciples of the order (jusjurandum Hippocratis) is 

 preserved in his writings. An Asclepiades from 

 Prusa, in Bithynia, 20 years B. C., is mentioned as 

 the first practical physician at Rome, and as the 

 founder of the methodical school. In the course of 

 time, strangers, also, as Galen reports, were initiated 

 into these mysteries and this order. We find the 

 name of A. also in the literature of the Greeks. See 

 Dissertations on the Fragments of Asclepiades of 

 Tragilus, in the Actis Philologorum Monacensium, 

 edited by Thiersch, 1st vol., 4th No., p. 490. 



ASELLI, or ASELLIUS, Caspar ; an Italian anatomist 

 of the 17th century. He was born at Cremona, 

 studied medicine, and became professor of anatomy 

 in the university of Pavia, where he highly distin- 

 guished himself by discovering the lacteals, a system 

 of vessels, the office of which is to absorb the chyle 

 formed in the intestines, and thus contribute to the 

 support of animal life. A. first observed these vessels 

 in dissecting a living dog. His investigations were 

 published after his death at Milan, 1627. 



ASEN. See Mythology, northern. 



ASGILL, John, an English barrister, and singular 

 writer, was torn about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century. In 1698, he published a work entitled, 

 " Several Assertions proved, in order to create another 

 species of money than Silver and Gold," and " An 

 Essay on a Registry for Titles of Land." These pro- 

 ductions were followed in 1700 by a fanciful and en- 

 thusiastic work, entitled " An Argument proving 

 that, according to the Covenant of Eternal Life, 

 Man may be translated from hence without passing 

 through Death, although the Human Nature of Christ 

 himself could not be thus translated until he had 

 passed Death." For this work, which was declared 

 blasphemous, he was expelled the House of Com- 

 mons, of which he was a member. He died in 1738, 

 at a very advanced age. 



ASH. The common ash (fraxinus excelsior) is a 

 well-known tree. It is a native of Europe and Uie 



