308 



ASSUMPTION -ASTHMA. 



car nutlo pncto non orttitr actio: but this wu\* ml her 

 in have referred to agreements, \\ithout certaii 

 formalities. (Sec Fonhlanqnc. (hi Ki/niti/^ i. p. :tt(\.\ 

 What our law requires, in order to sustiiin a promise, 

 is ti-rnuHl a eonsidrrtitiiiH ; and it must be eitlier a 

 hem -fit to the iirty promising, or to some third per- 

 son, in whom he takes an interest ; or detriment 

 sustained by the party to whom the promise is made, 

 / tltc request of the party making it. The degree ol 

 benefit or detriment, or its relative proportion to Uu 

 tiling promised, is immaterial. A promise in re- 

 muneration of an act which the party is l>ound to 

 perform, as a promise to a sailor of extra pay for 

 extraordinary exertion in extreme peril of the ship, 

 is void. The law regards such exertion as the 

 sailor's previous duty ; the cmisidcration, therefore, 

 tor the. promise, fails. Assumpsits are of two kinds, 

 f.rpress and implied ; the former are where the con- 

 tracts are actually made, in word or writing ; the 

 latter are such as the law implies from the justice 

 of the case ; as; for instance, if I employ an artificer 

 to do any work for me, the obvious justice of my 

 paying him a reasonable sum for that work, when 

 done, raises an implication in the understanding of 

 the law, of a promise on my part to pay him. 



ASSUMPTION ; a city in Paraguay. See Asuncion. 



ASSUMPTION is the festival by which the Roman 

 and Greek Catholic churches celebrate the miracu- 

 lous ascent of the Virgin, on the 15th of August. 

 One of Raphael's earlier pictures represents the 

 empty coffin in which, according to the Catholic tra- 

 dition, flowers were found after Mary had ascended 

 to heaven. The picture is now in the Vatican. 



ASSURANCE. See Insurance. 



ASSURANCK, in theology, is the firm persuasion of 

 possessing a personal or actual interest in the divine 

 favour. Some theologians maintain that assurance 

 is included in the very essence of faith, so that a man 

 cannot have faith without assurance ; and this doc- 

 trine lias occasioned, especially of late years, con- 

 siderable disunion in the church of Scotland. The 

 reader will find the subject treated in Saurin's ser- 

 mons, vol. iii. sermon 10th, English edition ; Case's 

 sermons, sermon 1 3th ; Lambert's sermon on Jolm 

 ix. 35 ; Harvey's Theron and Aspasio, dialogue 17 ; 

 Howe's Works, vol. i. pp. 342-48 ; Brooks, Burgess, 

 Roberts, Baxter, PolhUl, and Davy on Assurance ; 

 Wardlaw's Essays on Assurance and Pardon ; Modern 

 Fanaticism Unveiled, &c. 



ASSYRIA ; a kingdom of Asia, formerly of great ce- 

 lebrity. Its limits were different at different times. 

 A., originally, was bounded on the N. by mount Ni- 

 jihates and Armenia the Greater; on the W. by Me- 

 sopotamia ; on the S. by Susiana ; and on the E. by 

 Media. Ashur is said to have founded it. Its most 

 famous monurchs are Ninus (q. v.) and his widow and 

 successor, Semiramis. Ninus sulxlued the Babylo- 

 nian, the Median, and several other kingdoms, and 

 united them to his own. In the time of Sardana- 

 palus (about 900 years before the Christian era, or, 

 according to Volney, 717), Arbaces, governor of 

 Media, made himself master of the kingdom of A. 

 Herodotus, whose correctness has been proved by 

 Mplney, fixes the duration of the Assyrian empire in 

 "per Asia at 520 years. It was then divided into 

 three kingdoms the Median, Assyrian, and Babylo- 

 nian, the principal part of which was before in- 

 cluded in the Assyrian. Soon after, A. rose again 

 to a resemblance of its former splendour, while Me- 

 dia and Babylon again yielded to its superiority. 

 Salmanassar was then the sovereign of the empire, 

 and Niueveh the capital. About 700 B. C.. Media 

 again revolted. Cyaxares, the king of Media, after- 

 wards forming an alliance with Nabopolassar, gover- 

 nor of Babylon, they marched against Nineveh, and 



destroyed il ; II. (. (iOfi. A. now l)ecame a province 

 of Media; and Kabylon, l>y the victories of Nebu- 

 chadnezzar, was made a powerful kingdom, B. C. 

 GOO. About 550 years before the Christian era, the 

 three kingdoms were united by the victorious Cyrus 

 (q. v.) of Persia. 



ASTARTE ; a Syrian goddess, probably correspon- 

 iliiiH to (he Semcle of the Greeks and the Astarnth 

 nt'llie Hebrews. According to Lucian, slie had a 

 very ancient temple in Plurnieia. Some also believe 

 her to be the same with Here (the Juno of the Ro- 

 mans), and others with Aphrwliti'. 



ABTKIX, Mary, an Knglish authoress, was born at 

 Newcastle-npon-Tyne in Iliiis. At the age of 20 

 she removed to London, when- she spent the remain- 

 der of her life, and died in I7.'*l. Her first work 

 was entitled, "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, 1 ' 

 1697, 12mo, the object of which was to recom- 

 mend the erection of a seminary for female educa- 

 tion. She afterwards published several controversial 

 pieces. Her most finished performance was entitled 

 " The Christian Religion," 1705, 8vo. She was a 

 strenuous advocate of high church principles, to 

 which circumstance, more than to her talents, she 

 owed the celebrity she at one time enjoyed. 



ASTERIA ; a gem, sometimes called the cafs eye, or 

 oculns felis. It is a beautiful stone, and somewhat 

 approaches to the nature of the opal. It is very 

 small, and has only two colours, a pale-brown or 

 white. It is hard, and will take a fine polish. The 

 stone is found in the East and West Indies and in 

 Europe. In Bohemia, they are often found imbed- 

 ded in the same masses of jasper with opal. 



ASTERISK (a small star) ; a sign to refer to notes. 

 The ancient critics made use of this sign, or of a 

 cross (obelus), to point out an incorrect passage in the 

 text of an author. Others used the same mark as a 

 sign of the correctness of a passage. 



ASTHMA (asthma, Latin ; trom arfaaga, to breathe 

 with difficulty) ; difficulty of respiration, returning at 

 intervals, with a sense of stricture across the breast 

 and in the lungs, a wheezing, hard cough, at first, but 

 more free towards the close of each paroxyism, with 

 a discharge of mucus, followed by a remission. Asth- 

 ma rarely appears before the age of puberty, and 

 seems to attack men more frequently than women, 

 particularly those of a full habit, in whom it never 

 foils, by frequent repetition, to occasion some degree 

 of emaciation. In some instances, it arises from a 

 hereditary predisposition ; and in many others, it 

 seems to depend upon a particular constitution of the 

 lungs. Dyspepsia always prevails, and appears to be 

 a very prominent feature in the predisposition. On 

 the evening preceding an attack of asthma, the spirits 

 are often much affected, and the person experiences 

 a sense of fullness about the stomach, with lassitude, 

 drowsiness, and a pain in the head. On the approach 

 of the succeeding evening, he perceives a sense of 

 tightness and stricture across the breast, and a sense 

 ot straightness in the lungs, impeding respiration. 

 The difficulty of breathing continuing to increase for 

 ;ome length of time, both inspiration and expiration 

 are performed slowly, and with a wheezing noise ; 

 the speech becomes difficult and uneasy ; a propensity 

 to coughing succeeds, and the patient can no longer 

 remain in a horizontal position, being, as it were, 

 threatened with immediate suffocation. These symp- 

 toms usually continue till towards the approach of 

 morning, and then a remission commonly takes place ; 

 the breathing becomes less laborious and more full, 

 ind the person speaks and coughs with greater ease. 

 If the cough is attended with an expectoration ol 

 mucus, he experiences much relief, and soon falls 

 asleep. When he awakes in the morning, he still 

 'eels some degree of tightness across his breast, al- 



