208 



ILTHORP AMPHITHEATRE. 



Greeks, in a general sense ; aree and allure by the 

 Romans. 



The use of altars must have been as ancient and 

 general as the use of sacrifices and offerings ; and 

 were erected in temples, porticoes, peristyles, in the 

 open air, and on the summits of mountains. The 

 larger temples had generally three altars : the first 

 placed in the sanctuary, or adytum, at the foot of 

 the divinity ; the second at the door of the tem- 

 ple; the third was portable, and called anclabris, 

 on which were placed offerings and the sacred 



In early times they appear to have been formed 

 of any material admitting of a convenient or rapid 

 execution a mound of turf, a heap of stones. The 

 altar consecrated by Jacob at Bethel, was merely 

 the stone on which he rested, and that of Gideon 

 WM of a similar kind. The first altar erected by 

 Moses was made of earth only. The altar which 

 Moses commanded Joshua to build was of unhewn 

 stone ; Solomon's was of brass, but filled with un- 

 hewn stones ; that built by Zerubabel and the Mac- 

 cabees, of rough stones. 



Among the seven wonders of the world, was an 

 altar at Delos, which was made of the horns of ani- 

 mals ; tradition reported that it was constructed by 

 Apollo, with the horns of deer, killed in hunting 

 by his sister Diana. Plutarch says he saw it, and 

 that he admired the wonderful interlacing of the 

 horns of which it was made, and that no bond or 

 cement was used to hold it together. In the mag- 

 nificent temple of Jupiter, at Babylon, there was 

 an altar of massive gold. The altars used by the 

 Greeks and Romans were of bronze, but the greater 

 number of stone or marble, bricks, &c. Pausanias 

 mentions one of wood, made so artfully as to ap- 

 pear to have been built of stone. 



Some altars were solid, and some hollow, from 

 the top downward, pretty low, to receive either the 

 libation or the blood of the victims ; others again 

 were made of iron bars only, like that on the column 

 of Antoninus. 



A grand altar for the burning of the sacrifice is to 

 be seen at the Pamphili palace, at Rome ; where is 

 remarked the fire-place, on which charcoal was put 

 to consume the victim, and other passages, for the 

 escape of the blood. 



Altars vary almost to infinity in their forms and 

 size, as well as in their decorations. Their shapes 

 were innumerable : cubes, parallelograms, frustra 

 of cones, of pyramids, and polygonal pyramids, and 

 portions of cylinders, &c. 



ALTHORP, OK OLDTHORP, formerly a ham- 

 let in the county of Northampton, from which Earl 

 Spencer derives the title of Viscount. " The do- 

 main of Althorp," says Dibdin," has been possessed 

 by the Spencer family upwards of three centu- 

 ries ; but the exact period of the erection of the 

 house seems to be unknown. There is, however, 

 no question of its having received its principal im- 

 provements during the time of the first earl of 

 Sunderland, (16361643,) who was the son of the 

 second Baron Spencer. The lady of this Earl 

 (daughter of Robert Sidney, second Earl of Lei- 

 cester, and better known as the Sacharissa of 

 Waller the poet) erected and covered in the great 

 staircase, which had been formerly an interior court- 

 yard, in the fashion of the times. From that period 

 to the present, both the house and park have con- 

 tinued to receive improvements. The family of the 

 Spencers Became possessed of the park at Althorp, 

 about thf year 1512 This originated in a license 



frmn the king to John Spencer, afterwards Sir John 

 Spencer. At that time the park is described as 

 containing 300 acres of land, 100 acres of wood, 

 and 40 acres of water in ' Oldthorpe,' but this 

 seems to have been only an extension of some pro- 

 perty previously acquired there, for it is certain that 

 Althorp, so called, was purchased by this Sir John 

 Spencer as early as the year 1508." The great at- 

 traction of Althorp House is its noble library, of 

 which Dibdin says it is "the finest collection of 

 books perhaps in Europe. It occupies a suite of 

 rooms, four in number, and measuring in the whole 

 about 170 feet in length. These are garnished from 

 top to toe with the choicest copies of the choicest 

 editions of the choicest authors in the choicest 

 bindings." Population of the hamlet in 1841, 55. 



AMBERGRIS, (a); a solid substance, lighter 

 than water, softening and mouldering itself by the 

 aid of heat; of a greyish colour, tinged with yel- 

 low and black ; of a remarkable odoi;r; persistant 

 and susceptible of great expansion ; almost insipid. 

 This substance is found in irregular round masses, 

 formed in layers intermixed with nebs of the cuttle- 

 fish and excrement of fishes. These masses usually 

 weigh about a pound, but some say ten or t\\ 

 pounds, and some others a hundred or two hundred 

 pounds. These are found floating on the sea, on 

 the coast of Madagascar, Coromandel, and in the 

 Molucca and Japan islands. A great many hypo- 

 theses have been offered on the origin of ambergris, 

 but one opinion only deserves to be reported, 

 and that Dr Swediaur's. This learned physician, 

 remarking that ambergris contained the remains of 

 fishes, and especially the bones and nebs of the cut- 

 tle-fish, which is the chief food of the cachalot ; 

 and besides, as it has been sometimes found, in 

 pretty considerable masses, in the intestines of the 

 cetaceae, he thinks that ambergris is formed in their 

 bodies, and is to be looked on as a hardened excre- 

 ment, or as bezoar of the cachalot. M M. Pelle- 

 tier and Caventon compare it to human biliary 

 calculi, as there exists in both an unctuous pearly 

 matter (ombreine) not saponified by alkalies, and 

 acidified by nitric acid. There is also an abundant 

 resinous matter, similar to that of the calculi. 

 Besides, the bile of animals, when deprived of this 

 matter, acquires in time an odour similar to that of 

 musk or amber. Ambergris is soluble in alcohol 

 and ether, leaving an inconsiderable black residue. 

 The concentrated alcoholic tincture forms even in t\ 

 close vessel, and, in a short time, a crystallisation 

 of ambreine, in the form of a cauliflower. The 

 medicinal tincture is composed of twenty-four parts 

 of alcohol and one of ambergris. Ambergris in 

 much employed by apothecaries aud perfumers ; it 

 is said to possess great aphrodisiac properties. 



AMPHITHEATRE. An edifice formed of two 

 semicircles united, in which all the spectators, 

 ranged on seats in its periphery, saw equally well 

 what was exhibiting in the area left in the centre ; 

 thus the Romans also named them " visoria." In 

 general, amphitheatres usually consisted of a wall, 

 pierced in its circumference by two or more ranges 

 of arcades, having in the inside vaulted passages 

 radiating from the exterior arcades toward the arena, 

 and transverse vaulted corridors, opening, a com- 

 munication to every part of the edifice. The cor- 

 ridors and ranges of seats forming elliptical figures 

 parallel to the outer or exterior wall. 



The origin of the games which were exhibited 

 in these buildings have been traced to the Etrus- 

 cans, as well as the invention of the buildings in 



