330 



ATTIUET AT WOOD. 



found Ildico veiled, sitting by the fold corps*- of her 

 husband. During tin- night he hmi l-n n siirt'oeatrd 

 liy liis own blood (453). The news of his death 

 hprcad sorrow and terror in the nnny. His body was 

 enclosed in three coffins the first was of gold, the 

 second of silver, and the thin! of iron. The captives, 

 who liad mnde the grave, were strangled. The de- 

 scription tliat Jomandes 1ms left us ot this barbarian 

 king reminds us of his Calinuc-Tariar origin. He 

 had a large head, a flat nose, broad shoulders, and a 

 short anu ill-formed body. His walk was proud, his 

 voice strong and well-toned. 



ATTIRET, John Denis, a French Jesuit and painter, 

 \v.is born at Dole, Franche-Comte, in 1702, and died 

 1788, at Pekin, whither he liad accompanied a mis- 

 sion. The emperor Kien Long was so much pleased 

 with his battle-pieces, that he offered him the dignity 

 i >f mandarin, and gave him the income thereto be- 

 longing, when A. refused the Chinese title. A. wrote 

 a very interesting account of the emperor's gardens, 

 of which a translation by Spence, under the name of 

 Sir Harry Beaumont, appeared in 17oj>. 



ATTITUDE (French), as a term of art, signifies the 

 position and situation of figures. Attitudes require a 

 regular study, a part of which is a knowledge of 

 anatomy. The art of exhibiting attitudes, at least in 

 modern times, is of recent invention. At the end of 

 the last century, the celebrated lady Hamilton began 

 the practice, and, as every art begins with imitation, 

 she imitated, with great talent, the attitudes of an- 

 tique statues in many large towns of Europe, and Sir 

 William Hamilton could say that he possessed, in his 

 wife, a whole collection of antiques. Her dress was 

 a simple tunic, fastened with a ribbon tight under the 

 breast, and a shawl. With these she imitated all the 

 different draperies. Mr Rehberg drew her attitudes, 

 and published them in London. On the continent of 

 Europe, this art lias been carried to much perfection 

 by Mrs Hendel Schutz, who exhibited the most 

 beautiful attitudes, copied from the Greek, Egyptian, 

 Italian, and German styles of art. But she was not 

 satisfied with imitations : she invented many attitudes, 

 which were declared by all the critics of the day 

 (amongst whom was Goethe), some of the finest pro- 

 ductions of art. Her altitudes have been drawn and 

 published by Peroux and Hitter (Frankf. on the 

 Maine, 1809). There has been also a male artist of 

 tlie same kind, Mr von Seckendorf (called Patrick 

 Peale), who accompanied his exhibitions with lectures. 

 He died in America. Ducrow, the celebrated eques- 

 trian, has likewise signalized himself in the display 

 of attitudes. 



ATTORNEY (attornatus, in Latin) ; a person appoint- 

 ed to do something for and in the stead and name of 

 another. An attorney is either public or special. 

 The former is an officer of a court, who is authorized 

 by tlie laws and the rules of the court to represent 

 suitors, without any special written authority for the 

 purpose. The rules and qualifications, whereby one 

 is authorized to practice as an attorney in any court, 

 are very different in different countries and in differ- 

 ent courts of tlie same country. Almost every court 

 lias certain rules, a compliance with which is neces- 

 siry, in order to authorize any one to appear in court 

 for, and represent any party in a suit, without a spe- 

 cial authority under seal. The principle upon which 

 these rules are founded, is tlie exclusion of persons 

 not qualified by honesty, good moral character, 

 Irarning and skill, from taking upon them this office. 

 And any attorney may, by malpractice, forfeit this 

 privilege ; and the court, in such case, strikes his 

 name from the roll of attorneys. Still this does not 

 prevent his being a special attorney, with a specific 

 l)\ver from any person who wishes to constitute him 

 tiis representative : for every man who is capable of 



contracting, lias the power to confer upon another 

 the riglil of representing him, and acting in his stead. 

 An attorney of a court has authority, for and in the 

 name of his principal, to do any acts necessary for 

 conducting a suit, and his employer is hound by his 

 acts. A special attorney is appointed by a deed 

 called a pon-er or letter of attorney, and the deed 

 by which he is appointed specifies tlie acts which he 

 is authorized to do. It is a commission, to the ex- 

 tent of which only he can bind his principal. As far 

 as tlie acts of the attorney, in the name of the prin- 

 cipal, are authorized by his power, liis acts are those 

 of his principal. But if he goes beyond his authori- 

 ty, his acts will bind himself only ; and he must in- 

 demnify any one to whom, without authority, he 

 represents himself as an attorney of another, and 

 who contracts with him, or otherwise puts confidence 

 in 1 1 ini, as being such attorney. 



ATTRACTION ; the tendency, as well of the parts of 

 matter in general, as of various particular bodies, to 

 approach each other, to unite, and to remain united ; 

 sometimes, also, the power inherent in manner, ex- 

 erting itself at tlie moment of approach. Experience 

 teaches that this property is common to all matter. 

 Even liquids cohere in their parts, and oppose any 

 endeavour to separate them. The minute particles 

 unite into drops ; drops, if they are brought in con- 

 tact, into large masses. Fluids attach themselves to 

 solid bodies, particularly to such as have very smooth 

 surfaces, as to glass : they rise up of themselves in 

 fine tubes (see Capillary Tube), &c. Every body 

 tends to the earth, and, if raised from its surface, 

 falls back to it again. The plumb-line, which n 

 usually vertical, takes an oblique direction in the ri- 

 cinity of high mountains ; the sea tends to the moon ; 

 the moon itself is constantly drawn towards the earth ; 

 the earth and the other planets, towards tlie sun. The 

 heavenly bodies are continually subject to the simple 

 law of mutual attraction. The Grecian naturalists speak 

 of attraction ; Copernicus and Tycho likewise admit 

 it ; Kepler's bold and comprehensive mind first 

 hazarded the assertion that it must be universal and 

 mutual in all bodies ; Descartes sought to banish it 

 entirely from natural philosophy, as one of those 

 occult powers which he did not acknowledge ; but 

 Newton adopted it, and determined its laws, after 

 many years of accurate observation. Fruitless at- 

 tempts have been made to explain it. When bodies 

 tend to come together from sensible distances, that 

 tendency is denominated either the attraction of gra- 

 vitation, magnetism, or electricity, according to cir- 

 cumstances ; when the surfaces of bodies in contact 

 tend together, it is by adhesion, when the particles 

 of the same body tend together, it is by cohesion, and 

 when the particles of different bodies in contact tend 

 together, it is by affinity. These three latter spe 

 cies of attraction act at insensible distances. We 

 cannot enumerate all the particular subdivisions of 

 attraction, but the most important are those of chemi- 

 cal affinities (q . v.) , of magnetic and electric attractions, 

 &c. (Respecting these, see the particular articles.) 

 The best work on the attraction of the heavenly bodies, 

 is Newton's Principia, and Laplace's Mecaniyue Ce- 

 leste. On the attraction which mountains exert on 

 the plumb-line, see von Zach's L 1 Attraction des Man- 

 tagnes et ses Effets stir les Fils a Plomb (Avignon, 

 1814, 2 vols.) See the article Mechanics. 



ATTRIBUTE. 1. Every quality which is ascribed to 

 any one as characteristic. 2. The sign which indi- 

 cates tliat quality. In this latter sense, it is synony- 

 mous with symbol, (q. v.) 



ATWOOD, George, F. R. S. ; an eminent mathema- 

 tician, who was educated at the university of Cam- 

 bridge. In 1784, he published, in one volume, 8vo., 

 a Treatise on the Rectilinear Motion and Rotation of 



