ALE 



ALE 



RiTSR. He tlien coal^eJ the eaft fhorc of tlie peninfula of 

 Alaska, and touched at the i(l;iiid of Oonalaschka, 

 which is fcparateJ'from tlic fouth-wcil point ot" the peninfula 

 only by tiic iflund of Ooneemak ; thcfc two iflandi are tiie 

 nearclt to the continent, and the moil caileni of that Archi- 

 pelago, or long chain of itlaiids of various ii/.es, which ex- 

 tends from ealt to well, on a lir.e bending towards the fouth, 

 to within 350 leagues of the main land, if we confidcr Beh- 

 ring's ifl.ind as the extremity of the chain. (Japt. Cook ex- 

 tended Ills courfe into the north of Behiing's bafiu, and made 

 alternately the coalts of America and Alia ; in the former 

 lie perceived the outline of a large bay, which he called 

 Bristol bav ; and (landing toward the middle of the ba- 

 fin, he faw the Matweia ilTand of the Rufiians, which he 

 named Gore's island, and further to the northward he dif- 

 tinguifhed the iflands called Clf.rke's islands. To tlie 

 f all-iiorth-eaft of thefe, on the continent of America, he dil'- 

 covered Norton found ; he then pad'ed Behring's ilrait, 

 a:id advanced into the Arftic Frozen Ocean, as far as the pa- 

 rallel of 70° 44'. A plain of ice obllrudlcd his progrefs 

 nearer towards the pole. Here he might lay with the poet 

 Regnard, when he reached the northern rocks ot Lapland : 



" Hie tandem ftetimus nobis iibi dcfuit orbis." 



Prom comparing Cook's progrefs northwards with that of 

 Captain Phipps it appears, that the ocean is navigable much 

 further towards the north, between luirope and America, 

 than between America and Alia ; for Captain Phipps, in his 

 " Voyage to the North Pole," reached very near the 8 ill 

 parallel, whereas Captain Cook could not penetrate beyond 

 the latitude of 71° 10'. See Marchand's Voyage round the 

 World in 1790, 1791 and 1792, by Tleuricii. Vol i. Intro- 

 duftion partim. A Ruffi.ui expedition for making difcove- 

 rics in the north-eaft fea was propofed by Catherine II. in 

 1784, and the conduiS of it entrulled with Capt. Billings, an 

 Englifhman, Capt. Behring, the grandfon of the Behring 

 already mentioned, and fome others. After wintering at 

 Kamtfchatka, thefe navigators explored, in the fummer of 

 1790, the whole chain of the Aleutian iilands, which feem 

 to be of volcanic origin ; and they proceeded to explore the 

 large eallerii iflands explored by Capt. Cook, Oonalafchka 

 and Kadjak, the bay of Cape St. Elias, &c. and returned to 

 winter at Kamtfchatka. In the fummer of 1 791 they re- 

 newed their fearch for a northern paffage through the Fro- 

 zen Ocean, and purfued their route from Gore's and Clerke's 

 iflands to the continent of America. From the account of 

 their expedition, publiflted at Gottingen by Blumenbach, 

 we learn, that a principal ornament of the ladles of the Aleu- 

 tian iilands confills of a pair of the long tulks of a wild boar, 

 cut down to a fmallcr fize, which are ftuck into two holes, 

 one on each fide of the under lip, from which they projedt, 

 and give the wearer an appearance fimilar to that of the Wal- 

 rus ; and this is confidered as abeanty almoll irrefillibk-. In 

 thefe iflands, when they were firft difcovcred, more than 60 

 families were found, vvhofe language had no relation either to 

 that of Kamtfchatka, or to any of the oriental languages of 

 Afia ; it is a dialeft of the language fpokcn in the other 

 iflands adjacent to America, which ftems to indicate that 

 they have been peopled by the Americans, and not by the 

 Afiatics. They have no wood in thefe iflands bcfidcs that 

 which is floated to them by the fea, and this wood feems to 

 come from the fouth ; for the camphor-tree of Japan has 

 been found on the coafts of thefe iflands. The inhabitants 

 of thefe iflands are, in proportion to their dimenfions, tolera- 

 bly numerous, and they are at prefent tributary to the Ruf- 

 jian empire. See Yox-rJIanJi. 



ALEXANDER the Great, in Biogiaj/Iiy zni jinc'uiti 



Hifiory, was the fon of Philip, king of Macedon, by Olyin- 

 pi.is, daughter of Neoptokmus, who was fon of Alcetas, 

 king of Lpirus. He was born at Pc lla,the capital of Ma- 

 cedonia, in the firfl year of the io6th Olympiad, B. C. 356. 

 Hii natural difpofition, which is faid to have been excellent, 

 wTis betimes corrupted by the mercenary adulation of his lirik 

 preceptoi", Lylimachus, the Acarnanian ; and neither the 

 counlel and example of Leonidas, h.is mother's relation, nor 

 the inlhudUons of Arillotle, were fufiicient to counterat\ its 

 pernicious eftects. It was, howevci, a Angular advantage to 

 Alexander that he was placed \mder the tuition of this great 

 phiiofopher. Soon after his birth Philip wrote to Arillotle, 

 informing him, that he deligned to place this fon that was 

 jull born under his inilrutlion. " I return thanks to the 

 Gods," fays he, " not fo much for having given iiim to me, 

 as for his having been given during the life of Arillotle ; 

 and I may jullly promile inyielf, that you will make him a 

 hicceiior worthy of us both, and a king of Macedonia." Ac- 

 cordingly, at the proper feafoii, he invited his attention It 

 him by the ofler of a confiderable llipend, and he afterwards 

 recompenfed it by rebuilding Statnra, the native place of 

 Arillotle, wliich he had dellio) ed; reinilating tlie inhabitant* 

 who had fled from it, or who had been made llaves; and aflign- 

 ingthcma lincpark in itsvicinity fortheirlludiesand alTemblies. 

 The pupil lecms to have conceived an early and affuilioiiatte 

 attachment to his mailer, whom he thought hiinfclf bound to 

 love as much as if he had been his father ; and to this pur- 

 pofe he declared, " TJrat he was indebted to the one for 

 living, and to the other for living well." His progrefs ii 

 every kind of fcience correfponded to the natural talents 

 which he polfelfed, and to the dlllirigullhed attention and abi- 

 lities of his tutor. He devoted himl'elf with Angular affi- 

 duity to the lUidy of metuphyfies, mathematics, and morals ; 

 he was no lefs folicltous to be a mailer of rhetoric, both in 

 the theoi-y and praftice of it ; and to his fulicitude in this 

 refpeft we owe Ariflotle's treatife on rhetoric, which, with 

 a jealoufy altogether unbecoming a griat charai^er, he rc- 

 quelled the author not to communicate to any but himfelf. 

 His t;ule for clafllcal literature is hkev/lfe manifeft in the 

 very ardent elleem which he profelfed for Homer, whofe 

 poems he denominated, as Pliny (H. N. lib. vii. c. 29. torn. i. 

 p. 391.) informs us, " the moil precious prodiiftion of the 

 human mind." He particularly admired the Iliad, whicU 

 might probably contribute to give his mind a decided direc- 

 tion to military glory. The paflage, we are told, which 

 pleafedhlm mofl:, was that (II. iii. v. 172.) which repreferits 

 Agamemnon as " a good king and a brave warrior." He had 

 alfo a tade tor the arts in general ; he knew their import- 

 ance and utility ; and muhc, painting, fculpture, and archi- 

 tecture flourilhed in his reign, becaule thev found in him u 

 competent judge, and, as fome fay, a munificent piotcclor. 

 In hisexercifes he dillinguiftied the uleful from the fancifal ; 

 in his diverlions he declined whatever was \in:nanlv ; aiul in 

 his fludies he defpiled whatever was trivial or pedantic. In 

 early hfe he manifelled a genius and difpolition formed for 

 great and fplendid aflions. Emulation and ambition were 

 the predominant pallions both of his youthful and riper 

 years. When he converfcd with the Perfian ambaffadors at 

 his father's court, at the age of no more than fcven years, 

 the fubjecis of his enquiry were, not the palaces and retinue 

 of their king, but the charaAer and manners of their fove- 

 reign, the number and difclpline of his aiTny, the rohd that 

 led into Upper Afia, and " the number of days' march from 

 Macedonia to Sufa." When he was requelled to enter his 

 name among the Olympic competitors, he replied, " So I 

 would, if I were to have king', for antagonllls." On occa- 

 fion oJ his taming th« famous horfc Bucephalus, which none 



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