ZEALOTS ZELLE. 



167 





ZEALOTS, among the Jews; those who were 

 zealous for the honour of God and his temple, and 

 not unfrequently went so far that they stoned, or 

 otherwise destroyed, supposed blasphemers, or Sab- 

 bath-breakers. 



ZEBRA. See Horse. 



ZECCHIN (in Italian, zechino, from zecca, the 

 mint where the money is coined) ; the gold coin of 

 the former republic of Venice. Certain gold coins 

 of other countries, such as the papal dominions, 

 some other Italian states, and Turkey, are also 

 called zecchins. The Florentine zecchins are called 

 gigliati, from the lilies of the grand-ducal arms im- 

 pressed on them ; and the Austrian zecchins, or 

 ducats, particularly those of Cremnitz (q. v.), are 

 called, in Italy, ungheri. The Venetian zecchins 

 were equal to the Hungarian ducats in actual value, 

 but stood from four to five per cent, higher in 

 Venice. The Italian ducat, a silver coin, is to be 

 distinguished from the zecckin. Gold ducats are 

 rarely coined in Italy. 



ZECHARIAH, OK ZACHARIAH; one of the 

 twelve minor prophets, of whose history little is 

 known. We are ignorant both of the time and the 

 place of his birth. He is called the son of Bara- 

 chiah, and was commissioned by God to exhort the 

 Jews to undertake the restoration of the temple. 

 Like the other prophets, he also preaches moral re- 

 formation. His obscurity has much embarrassed 

 his numerous commentators. 



ZEGEDIN, OR SZEGEDIN; a royal free town 

 of Hungary, in Csongrad, near the conflux of the 

 rivers Maros and Theisse ; 60 miles north-west of 

 Temesvar, 68 north of Belgrade ; Ion. 9 56' E. ; 

 lat. 46 15' N. ; population, 32,000; houses, 3800. 

 It is surrounded by a mound and moat, has a brick 

 fort, is one of the most considerable towns in Hun- 

 gary, and contains a college of the monks called 

 Piarists, a Catholic gymnasium, a small philosophi- 

 cal seminary, a monastery of Minorites, and several 

 Catholic and Greek churches. It has some manu- 

 factures of woollens, leather and toys. Its com- 

 mercial intercourse is considerable, its position, at 

 the junction of two navigable rivers giving it the 

 command of an extensive water carriage. The ex- 

 ports consist chiefly of corn, cattle, wool, tobacco 

 and timber. 



ZEISBERGER, DAVID, a missionary among the 

 Indians, distinguished by his zeal in religious 

 labours, and by the services which he has rendered to 

 general philology, was born in Moravia, a province 

 of Austria, whence he emigrated, when young, with 

 his parents, to Herrnhut, in Upper Lusatia, for the 

 sake of obtaining religious liberty. In 1738, he 

 went to America, and landed in Georgia, where, at 

 that time, some of the United Brethren had begun 

 a settlement for the purpose of preaching the gospel 

 to the Creek nation. Thence he removed to 

 Pennsylvania, and assisted at the commencement of 

 the settlements of Bethlehem and Nazareth. From 

 1746 to his death, which took place Nov. 17, 1808 

 (when he was eighty-seven years and seven months 

 old), a period of sixty-two years, he was, with very 

 few and short intervals, a missionary among the 

 Indians, and made himself master of several of their 

 languages. Those Indians among whom he lived 

 loved him, and often referred decisions, even 

 respecting disputes among different tribes, to him. 

 He received no salary, wanting nothing but food 

 and clothing, and liberty to preach the gospel. He 

 was one of the oldest white settlers in the state of 

 Ohio, and there, and in Upper Canada, dwelt witli the 



Indians, who had given him the name of Anaussera- 

 cheri (signifying On-the-pumpkin), with whom he 

 endured the greatest hardships. He was chiefly 

 acquainted with two Indian languages, the Onon- 

 dago (one of the idioms of the Six Nations) and 

 the Delaware, but understood other languages con- 

 nected with them. In the Onondago he completed, 

 about the year 1768, two grammars, one written in 

 English and the other in German, and a copious 

 dictionary (German and Indian), containing upwards 

 of one thousand seven hundred pages. In the 

 language of the Lenape (or Delaware), he published, 

 in the year 1776, his first edition of a spelling- 

 book, and, in 1806, his second edition, enlarged. 

 Two other books were published by him in this 

 language, the one sermons to children, and the other 

 a hymn-book, containing about three hundred and 

 sixty pages, and upwards of five hundred hymns, 

 translated partly from the English, partly from the 

 German. He left, in manuscript, a grammar of the 

 Delaware language, written in German, which has 

 been translated into English for the American 

 Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, by Mr Du- 

 ponceau, and which the distinguished and learned 

 translator pronounces to be the most complete 

 I grammar that we have ever had of any one of those 

 languages which are called barbarous (see Indian 

 Languages'), and also a translation into Delaware of 

 the Harmony of the Four Gospels. Mr Zeisberger's 

 works are so important to the students of the 

 particular dialects which he had learned, and afford 

 so valuable materials to the general philologist, that 

 we think it proper to add the titles of them, as 

 they are enumerated in the Catalogue annexed to 

 Mr Duponceau's Report to the American Philoso- 

 phical Society, in whose library they are deposited: 

 Deutsch und Onondagoisches Worterbuch; a Dic- 

 tionary of the German and Oriondagb Languages (7 

 vols., 4to., MS.); a Grammar of the Lenni Lenape 

 or Delaware Language (translated from the Ger- 

 man MS. of the author by P. S. Duponceau, since 

 published in the Transactions of the Philosophical 

 Society at Philadelphia); Essay of an Onondago 

 Grammar, or a short Introduction to learn the On- 

 ondago, alias Maqua, Tongue (4to., 67 pp., MS.) ; 

 Onondagoisches Grammatik (4to., 87 pp., MS.) ; 

 another Onondago Grammar (in the German lan- 

 guage, 4to., 176 pp., MS.) See a Narrative of the 

 Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware 

 and Mohegan Indians, fromits Commencement in 1740, 

 to 1808, by John Heckewelder (Philadelphia, 1820). 

 ZEIST. See Zeyst. 



ZEITZ; formerly a Saxon city, but which since 

 1815, has belonged to Prussia. It is about twenty- 

 three miles distant from Leipsic, on the right bank 

 of the White Elster, on a high mountain, contains 

 7000 inhabitants, manufactories of cloth, leather, 

 &c. The town is very old, has four churches, and 

 a gymnasium, a house of correction, an institution 

 for the reformation of juvenile offenders, a good 

 library with 12,000 volumes and many manuscripts. 

 The former bishopric of Zeitz was founded by the 

 emperor Otho I., in 968, in order to promote the 

 conversion of the Wends to Christianity. In 1029, 

 the bishops transferred their see to Naumburg. 



ZELLE, OR CELLE; a city of Hanover, in 

 Luneburg, 128 miles west of Berlin ; Ion. 10 14' 

 E. ; lat. 53 42' N. ; population, including the 

 suburbs, 9729. It contains five churches, two 

 hospitals, a gymnasium, an orphan-house, a lunatic 

 hospital, a school of surgery, a society of agriculture, 

 &c. It is fortified, and tolerably built situated on 



