AVI 



AUL 



studying under a master the first princi- 

 ples of logic, and the first five or six pro- 

 positions of Euclid's elements, he became 

 disgusted with the slow manner of the 

 schools, applied himself alo'ne, and soon 

 accomplished all the rest by the help of 

 the commentators only. 



Possessed with an extreme avidity to 

 be acquainted with all the sciences, he 

 studied medicine also. Persuaded that 

 this art consists as much in practice as in 

 theory, he sought all opportunities of see- 

 ing the sick ; and afterwards confessed, 

 that he had learned more from such ex- 

 perience than from all the books he had 

 read. Being now in his sixteenth year, 

 and already celebrated for being the light 

 of his age, he determined to resume his 

 studies of philosophy, which medicine, 

 &c. had made him for some time neglect : 

 and he spent a year and a half in this 

 painful labour, without ever sleeping all 

 this time a whole night together. At the 

 age of 21, he conceived the bold design 

 of incorporating in one work all the ob- 

 jects of human knowledge ; and he car- 

 ried it into execution in an Encyclopedia 

 of 20 volumes, to which he gave the title 

 of the Utility of Utilities." 



Many wonderful stories are related of 

 his skill in medicine, and the cures which 

 he performed. Several princes had been 

 taken dangerously ill, and Avicena was 

 the only one that could know their ail- 

 ments, and cure them. His reputation in- 

 creased daily, and all the princes of the 

 East desired to retain him in their families, 

 and in fact he passed through several of 

 them. But the irregularities of his con- 

 duct sometimes lost him their favour, and 

 threw him into great distresses. His ex- 

 cesses in pleasures, and his infirmities, 

 made a poet say, who wrote his epitaph, 

 that the profound study of philosophy had 

 riot taught him good morals, nor that of 

 medicine the art of preserving his own 

 health. 



After his death, however, he enjoyed 

 so great a reputation, that, till the 12th 

 century, he was preferred for the study 

 of philosophy and medicine to all his 

 .predecessors. Even in Europe, his works, 

 which were very numerous, were the 

 only writings in vogue in the schools. 



AVICENNIA, in botany, so named in 

 honour of a celebrated oriental physician, 

 who flourished in the eleventh century at 

 Ispahan, a genus of the Didynamia Angi- 

 ospermia class and order. Essential cha- 

 racter : calyx five-parted; corolla two- 

 lipped, the upper lip square ; capsule co- 

 riaceous, rhomboid, one-seeded. There 

 are three species, natives of the East and 



West Indies. A. tomentosa, a tree, agree* 

 mostly with the mangrove, rising about 

 15 feet ; its trunk is not so large, having 

 a smooth, whitish green bark, and from 

 the stem are twigs propagating the tree 

 like that : the branches at top are jointed 

 towards their ends, where the leaves 

 come out opposite, on very small petioles, 

 two inches and a half long, and about 

 an inch broad : the flowers are many, at 

 the top of the branches, white and tetra- 

 petalous. It is found on the north and 

 south sides of Jamaica, growing in low 

 moist ground. A. nitida grows forty feet 

 high, a native of Martinico : the creeping 

 roots throw up abundance of suckers. A 

 resinifera produces a green coloured 

 gum, so much esteemed by the natives of 

 New Zealand, and which is very hot in the 

 mouth. 



AVIGNON berry, taken from the rham- 

 nus infectorius, and used in France by 

 dyers for making a yellow colour. They 

 are gathered unripe, bruised, and boiled 

 in water, mixed with the ashes of vine 

 stalks, to give a body, and then strained 

 through linen. The colour is chiefly used 

 for silk, but it will not well bear the heat 

 of the sun. The plant grows, as its name 

 imports, in the neighbourhood of Avig- 

 non. 



AULA regis t was a court established by 

 William the Conqueror in his own hall. 

 It w;is composed of the king's great offi- 

 cers of state resident in his palace, who 

 usually attended on his person, and fol- 

 lowed him in all his progresses and expe- 

 ditions ; which being found inconvenient 

 and burthensome, it was enacted, by the 

 great charter, c. 11, that common pleas 

 shall no longer follow the king's court, 

 but shall be holden in some certain place, 

 which certain place was established in. 

 Westminster Hall, where the aula regis 

 originally sat when the king resided in 

 that city, and there it has ever since con- 

 tinued. 3 Black. 37. 



AULIC, an epithet given to certain offi- 

 cers of the empire, who composed a court, 

 which decides, without appeal, in all pro- 

 cesses entered in it. Thus we say aulic 

 council, aulic chamber, aulic counsellor. 

 The aulic council is composed of a pre- 

 sident, who is a Catholic ; of a vice-chan- 

 cellor, presented by the archbishop of 

 Mentz; and of eighteen counsellors, nine 

 of whom are Protestants, and nine Catho- 

 lics. They are divided into u bench of 

 lawyers, and always follow the emperor's 

 court, for which reason they are called 

 jitstitinm imperatoris, the emperor's justice, 

 and aulic council. The aulic court cease 

 at the death of the emperor, whereas the 



