and unsa.able in English markets. Dissatisfied with the inferior commercial value of their cheese in comparison with some English varieties, the Ayrshire Agricultural Association brought a Somerset farmer and his wife in 1855 to teach the Cheddar method, and their effort has been most successful. Cheddar cheese of first rate quality is now made in Ayrshire and Galloway, and the annual cheese show at Kilmarnock is the most important in the kingdom. The cheese may be more thoroughly fine in a few Somerset dairies, but the average quality of Scotch Cheddar is higher than the English. This great change of an industrial art has brought wealth to the county. It is not too much to say that it has added £2 per cow to the annual value of dairy produce, and there are 45,000 cows in Ayrshire.

tially opened in 1840, and soon after completed. A connection was made a few years later from the Ayr line at Kilwinning to Ardrossan, and an extension from Kilmar nock to Cumnock, with a branch to Muirkirk. Extensions followed from Cumnock to Dumfries and Carlisle, and from Ayr to Dalmellington, and to Maybole and Girvan; and the Troon Railway was acquired from the duke of Portland, as a connecting link of what is now the Glasgow and South-Western Railway system. Other important branches have been made, and a trunk line is now in course of formation between Girvan and Stranraer, which will give a connection between Glasgow and Ayrshire and the north of Ireland by the shortest sea passage. Ayrshire is thus well supplied with railways.

The manufactures of Ayrshire have attained considerable The antiquities of Ayrshire are not of much note. importance. The cotton works at Catrine are extensive, There are cairns in Galston, Sorn, and other localities; and have been a long time established. The site was a road, supposed to be a work of the Romans, which chosen with the view of utilizing the water power of the extended from Ayr, through Dalrymple and Dalmellingriver Ayr, and steam is still merely an auxiliary. At Kil- ton, towards the Solway; camps, attributed to the Normarnock and Ayr there are extensive engineering estab-wegians or Danes, on the hills of Knockgeorgan and Dunlishments, and large carpet works; and other fabrics are donald; and the castles of Loch Doon, Turnberry, Dunmanufactured in those towns and at Dalry, Kilbirnie, Beith, donald, Portencross, Ardrossan, &c. There are interesting and Stewarton. Until the last three or four years, Irvine remains of the celebrated abbeys of Kilwinning and Crosswas a back-going place, but it has received an impulse from raguel; and the ruins of the little church of Alloway, amid the erection of large chemical works. The situation is very the lovely scenery near the birthplace of Burns, have besuitable for chemical manufactures, as the soil is poor and come more famous from their associations than many great sandy, and the liquid refuse of chemical works is easily works of architectural genius. carried into the sea, without causing the nuisance which is inevitable in a large town. The Eglinton Chemical Company are most extensive manufacturers of bichromate of potash-a substance which is used at dyeworks as an oxidizing agent; and another company is largely engaged in the alkali trade, and in the extraction of copper from burnt pyrites ore. On the coast, between Irvine and Ardrossan, works have been erected on the sandhills for the manufacture of dynamite, which is now well known as one of the most powerful explosive agents. It is much used for blasting under water, and large quantities of it are sent to America for blowing up the roots of trees in the reclamation of land.

ance.

The rural population of Ayrshire is decreasing, but the mining population has increased, and the towns are growing. At the last census there were 27,132 inhabited houses, and the population reached 200,745. The county valuation last year amounted to £1,178,183, 5s. 10d., being an increase of more than £50,000 from the previous year. The amount for Kyle was £446,874, 18s. 5d.; for Cunningham, £411,504, 1s. 6d.; for Carrick, £177,168, 10s. 3d.; for the burgh of Ayr, £63,273, 16s. 6d.; for Kilmarnock, £63,202, 19s.; and for Irvine, £16,159, Os. 2d.

AYR, the capital of the above county, is situated at the mouth of the river of the same name, and about 40 miles S.S.W. from Glasgow. The spot has probably been inhabited from a remote antiquity. Nothing, however, is known of its history till the close of the 13th century, when it was made a royal residence, and soon afterwards a royal burgh, by William the Lion'. The charter conferring upon it the latter privilege has been preserved, of which a fac-simile land. During the wars of Scottish independence the possession of Ayr and its castle was, according to tradition, an object of importance to both the contending parties. In Blind Harry's Life of Wallace they are frequently mentioned, and the scene is laid there of one of the patriot's greatest exploits; but the authenticity of many of the minstrel-historian's statements is more than doubtful. On better authority, the records of the burgh, it is known that early in the 16th century Ayr was a place of considerable influence and trade. The liberality of William the Lion had bestowed upon the corporation an extensive grant of lands; while in addition to the well-endowed church of St. John's, it had two monasteries, each possessed of a fair revenue. When Scotland was overrun by Oliver Cromwell, Ayr was selected as the site of one of those forts which he built to command the country. This fortification, termed the citadel, enclosed an area of ten or twelve acres, and included within its limits the church of St. John's, in which the Scottish Parliament on one occasion met, and confirmed the title of Robert Bruce to the throne. The church was converted into a storehouse, the Protector partly indemnifying the inhabitants for this seizure by liberally contributing towards the erection of a new place of worship, now known as the Old Church. Ayr proper lies on the south bank of the river, and is connected with Newton and Wallacetown on the north by two bridges, the Old and the New, the "Twa Brigs" of Burns. Of late years the town has extended greatly on the Ayr side of the stream. Nearly the whole of Cromwell's Fort is now covered with houses, and to the south, in the direction of the racecourse, numerous fine villas have been erected. Ayr possesses several good streets and a number of elegant public and other edifices. The County Buildings, which afford accommodation for the circuit and provincial courts, as well as for the various local authorities, occupy the west side of Wellington Square. Contiguous to these is the jail, The Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr Railway was par- a well-regulated establishment, partly used as a peniten

The iron trade of Ayrshire has risen to great importThe manufacture has long been carried on at Muirkirk, although the iron had to be carted long distances to Ayr and Glasgow before the introduction of railways. Immense fields of ironstone have been opened up within the last quarter of a century; and there are now 33 fur-will be found in vol. i. of the National Manuscripts of Scot naces in blast within the county, producing about 330,000 tons per annum. The works are all connected with the Glasgow and South-Western Railway. The whole manufacture of iron in Ayrshire is in the hands of three great companies, namely, William Baird & Company, the Dalmellington Iron Company, and Merry and Cunningham. Hæmatite of good quality is raised in Sorn and Muirkirk, and discoveries of it have been made in Carrick. The coal-fields are of great extent, and limestone exists in large quantities. A valuable whetstone quarry is worked at Bridge of Stair on the Ayr.

The old harbors of the county were at Ayr, Irvine, and Saltcoats. The latter is now neglected, and its place is supplied by the more important harbor of Ardrossan. The works at Ardrossan were carried through by the private enterprise of the last two earls of Eglinton. They were begun in the early part of this century, with the expectation of making Ardrossan an important shipping port for Glasgow, in connection with a canal, which, however, was never carried further than from Glasgow to Johnstone. The works were designed by Telford. The pier was finished in 1811, and the docks were completed by the late earl. The harbor of Troon was likewise the work of an enterprising nobleman. It was formed by the late duke of Portland, who connected it with Kilmarnock by a railway, which was among the earliest in the country. Troon has an extensive shipping business, as the outlet for the great coal-fields of the Kilmarnock district. Acts of parliament have been obtained, which sanction harbor improvements at Irvine and Girvan, and a large wet-dock is in course of formation at Ayr. The dock at Ayr is important, as Ayr is the natural outlet for the great coal-fields up the river, and for the ironworks at Dalmellington, Lugar, and Muirkirk, as well as the fields which are being developed on the railways, called the Ayrshire lines, between Cumnock and the river Doon.

♫ William the Lion died in 1214. For Charters see Vol. XXI. p. 506.—AM. ED.]

tiary. The Town's Buildings, near the New Bridge, is a many, was born in 1560, probably at Nuremberg,—at least handsome erection, the effect of which is somewhat im- he resided there when a mere boy. His first occupation paired by the lowness of the site. They contain assembly was keeping an iron-store, which he did with considerable rooms and a reading-room, and are surmounted by a spire success. After studying law for some time at Bamberg, 217 feet high, designed by Hamilton, of Edinburgh, and where he attained a good position as a lawyer, he returned considered by many the finest in the west of Scotland. All to Nuremberg, and continued to practise there, acquiring the Edinburgh and Glasgow banks have branches in Ayr, the freedom of the city in 1594, and ultimately becoming and some of them have built ornamental structures for an imperial notary. He died 26th March, 1605. Ayrer's their accommodation. Besides the old church already works consist of numerous small poems, and of the series mentioned, there is another parish church called the New, of dramas on which his fame rests. Like other dramas and a number of dissenting places of worship, none of them, of the time, his productions are, for the most part, spechowever, noteworthy on account of their architecture. The tacular displays, with labored dialogue, and vary in Academy, a large building in a convenient position, in-length from five to twenty-eight acts. The plots are cludes, or has superseded, the Grammar School of the plainly taken from the Latin and Italian tales which burg, the existence of which can be traced back as far as supplied material to nearly all the early European dramathe 13th century. A portion of the tower of St. John's tists. The chief interest of Ayrer's works for English Church still remains, but, to the regret of the antiquary, readers arises from their connection with Shakespeare. has been completely modernized. The "Wallace Tower' Ayrer adopted several of Shakespeare's plots, as well is a Gothic structure in High Street, erected on the site of as his method of representing the characters on the an old building of the same name taken down in 1835. stage after life, "and so produced," says his editor, "acA niche in front is filled by a statue of the Scottish hero by cording to the new English manner and art, that all can Thom, a self-taught sculptor, who executed in a much more be personally acted and placed so that it shall seem to successful manner the statues of Tam o' Shanter and Souter the spectators to be really happening." In Ayrer's time Johnnie, now in the grounds of Burns' Monument. Ayr the dramatic spirit in England was strong, and good plays Hospital is a plain but substantial erection near the Town- and players abounded. Some of the latter took circuits head railway station. There are two subscription libraries through Germany, and though performing in their native in the town, and it also supports one weekly and one bi- tongue, excited enthusiasm by their vivacity. Ayrer weekly newspaper. Its religious and charitable societies caught this enthusiasm, and adapted several of the Engare numerous. A market is held every Tuesday, and there lish dramas to the German stage. The Opus Theatricum, are five yearly fairs. The Western Meeting takes place in in one folio volume of 1262 pages, was published postSeptember of every year on Ayr racecourse, a large en- humously in 1618. It contained thirty plays and thirtyclosure in the suburbs, which has been reserved for this six carnival interludes. A second volume to contain forty purpose for more than a century. Alloway Kirk and more, though promised, did not appear. Of the comedies Burns' Monument are distant 2 miles. The principal and tragedies of Ayrer, six have been reproduced with an manufactures of Ayr are leather, carpets, woollen goods, English translation in Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany. &c.; and fisheries and shipbuilding are also carried on to a These contain respectively plots resembling The Tempest, small extent. There are several foundries and engineering Much Ado about Nothing, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, establishments. Ayr has a general trade of considerable Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. In 1601, value. Large quantities of timber are imported from Can- a comic prose work by Ayrer was published, giving an ada and from Norway; coal and iron are the chief exports. account of an Imaginary Suit of the Devil against Jesus The harbor occupies both sides of the river from the New Christ for Destroying Hell. Some of his plays were pubBridge to the sea, and has been built at a very considerable lished prior to 1585, but these are not now to be had, expense in a most substantial manner. The south pier and even the folio of 1618 is extremely rare. Further projects some distance into the sea; on the north side is a information about Ayrer may be gained from Tieck's large breakwater protecting the entrance, and on the north Deutsches Theater, vol. i.; Wolff's Encyc. der Deutschen pier are three lights, two bright and one red, from 12 to Nationalliteratur, vol. i.; Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany; 35 feet above high water. The depth of water at the Dr. Bell's Shakespeare's Puck, and his Folklore; Dr. Lathbar is about 14 feet at neap and 16 at spring tides. Ex-am's Two Dissertations on Hamlet," W. J. Thom's Three tensive docks are in the course of formation, which are ex- Notelets on Shakespeare. pected to increase largely the importance of the place as a seaport. Railways converge upon Ayr from the north, east, and south, opening up a connection with all parts of the country. The burgh unites with Irvine, Inveraray, Campbeltown, and Oban in returning a member to Parliament. Previous to 1873, its municipal boundary on the north was the river, but an Act of Parliament was obtained in that year by which this boundary was extended so as to include Newton-on-Ayr and Wallacetown, and made the same as that of the parliamentary burgh. The corporation of Ayr consists of a provost and four bailies, and twelve town councillors. In 1871 the population of the extended burgh was 17,851. Though thus conjoined with Ayr for the parliamentary franchise and municipal government, and forming with it in reality but one town, Newton and Wallacetown were formerly each quite separate. The former is a burgh or barony of very ancient erection. The original charter has been lost; but it is traditionally said to have been granted by King Robert the Bruce in favor of forty-eight of the inhabitants who had distinguished themselves at Bannockburn. Be this as it may, the common property of the burgh is held to be the exclusive property of the freemen, forty-eight in number. The extent of the lots possessed by each varies from six to ten acres, and their value is considerable. Newton has a council, consisting of two bailies, a treasurer, and six councillors, annually elected by the freemen from among their own number; but the powers of the council, though originally extensive, are now very limited. Wallacetown is quoad civilia a part of the neighboring parish of St. Quivox. About two miles east of Newton is the village of Prestwick, the headquarters of one of the most flourishing golf clubs in Scotland.

AYRER, JACOB, one of the earliest dramatists of Ger

AYTON, SIR ROBERT (1570-1638), a Scottish lyrical poet, the second son of Andrew Ayton of Kinaldie in Fifeshire, was educated at the University of St. Andrew's, and seems afterwards to have resided for several years in France, where he gained considerable reputation as a poet and scholar. On the accession of James VI. in 1603, Ayton published a very elegant Latin panegyric, which at once brought him into notice and favor at court. He was knighted by the king, and held various important offices, particularly that of private secretary to the queen. He was of an exceedingly amiable disposition, and was much beloved by his contemporaries; even Ben Jonson, who criticised all other poets so severely, seems to have made an exception in his favor, for he told Drummond that Sir Robert loved him dearly. Ayton's extant works consist of some Latin poems, and of a few pieces in the English dialect, which are distinguished by smoothness of rhythm and delicacy of fancy. His best ode, Inconstancy Reproved, beginning, "I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair," may take rank with the finest pieces of Herrick or Suckling, while a few others are but little inferior. His poems have been collected and published by Sir C. Roger (Edin. 1844).

AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE, a Scottish poet, humorist, and miscellaneous writer, was born at Edinburgh, 21st June, 1813. He was the only son of Roger Aytoun, a writer to the Signet, and the family was of the same stock as Sir Robert Ayton noticed above. From his mother, a woman of marked originality of character and considerable culture, he derived his distinctive qualities, his early tastes in literature, and his political sympathies, his love for ballad poetry, and his admiration for the Stuarts. At the age of eleven he was sent to the Edinburgh Academy, whence he passed in due time to the University, studied the classics under Professors Pillans and

Tarbes; and it was not till 1806 that he was able to settle in Paris. There, three years later, he published his treatise Des Compensations dans les Destinées Humaines, in which he sought to show that happiness and misery were fairly balanced in this world, and that consequently it was the duty of citizens to submit quietly to a fixed government. This doctrine was not displeasing to Napoleon, who made its author professor at St. Cyr. After the removal of that college, he obtained, in 1811, the post of inspector of the public library at Avignon, and from 1812 to 1815 he held a similar office at Nancy. His preference for the Bonaparte dynasty naturally operated in his disfavor at the Restoration; but after suffering considerable privation for some years, he obtained a government pension, which placed him beyond the reach of want. He employed the remaining years of his life in oral and published expositions of his system of philosophy.

Dunbar, and attended the course of Professor John Wilson | found refuge in the hospital of the Sisters of Charity at on Moral Philosophy. In 1833 he spent a few months in London for the purpose of studying the law; but in September of that year he went to study German at Aschaffenburg, where he remained till April, 1834. He then resumed his legal pursuits in his father's chambers, was admitted a writer to the Signet in 1835, and five years later was called to the Scottish bar. But, by his own confession, though he "followed the law, he never could overtake it." He disliked his profession, and allowed his literary tastes to predominate. His first publication-a volume entitled Poland, Homer, and other Poems, in which he gave expression to his eager interest in the state of Poland-appeared in 1832. While in Germany he made a translation in blank verse of the first part of Faust; but, forestalled by other translations, it was never published. In 1836 he made his earliest contributions to Blackwood's Magazine, in translations from Uhland; and from 1839 till his death he remained on the staff of Blackwood. About 1841 he became acquainted with Mr. Theodore Martin, and in association with him wrote a series of light humorous papers on the tastes and follies of the day, in which were interspersed the verses which afterwards became popular as the Bon Gualtier Ballads. The work on which his reputation as a poet chiefly rests is the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. The first of these appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in April, 1843, and the whole were published in a collected edition in 1848. They became very popular, and have passed through nineteen editions, the last of which has spirited and beautiful illustrations by Sir J. Noel Paton and W. H. Paton. Meanwhile, he obtained, in 1845, the chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at Edinburgh University, which he filled honorably and successfully till 1864. He devoted himself conscientiously to the duties of the office, and his pupils increased in number from 30 to 150. In 1849 he married the youngest daughter of Professor John Wilson (Christopher North), whose death, in 1859, was the great calamity of his life. His services in support of the Tory party, especially during the Anti-Corn-Law struggle, received official recognition in his appointment (1852) as sheriff of Orkney and Zetland. In 1854 appeared Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy, in which he attacked and parodied the writings of Bailey, Sydney Dobell, and Alexander Smith; and two years later he published his Bothwell, a Poem. Among his other literary works are a Collection of the Ballads of Scotland, a translation of the Poems and Ballads of Goethe, executed in co-operation with his friend Theodore Martin, a small volume on the Life and Times of Richard I., written for the Family Library, and a novel entitled Norman Sinclair, many of the details in which are taken from incidents in his own experience. In 1860 Aytoun was elected honorary president of the Associated Societies of Edinburgh University. The death of his mother took place in November, 1861, and his own health was failing. In December, 1863, he married Miss Kinnear, and health and happiness for a time revived; but his malady recurred, and he died at Blackhills, near Elgin, 4th August, 1865. His remains were interred at Edinburgh. A memoir of Aytoun by Theodore Martin, with an appendix containing some of his prose essays, was published in 1867. (W. L. R. C.)

AZAIS, PIERRE HYACINTHE, a brilliant French writer on philosophy, was born at Sorrèze in 1766, and died at Paris in 1845. He was educated at the college in his native town; and at the age of 17 joined a religious body with the view of afterwards entering the church. He remained only a year in this society, and then accepted an appointment as teacher in the college at Tarbes. The duties of this office proved most uncongenial to him, and he gladly entered the service of the bishop of Olèron, to whom he acted as secretary. With this, too, he quickly became dissatisfied, either on account of the bishop's reiterated desire that he should take orders, or from the many petty annoyances incident to his post. He withdrew to the little village of Villemagne, near Beziers, where he supported himself by performing the duties of organist in the church. He afterwards acted as tutor to the Count de Bosc's sons, with whom he remained till the outbreak of the Revolution. Azais, at first an ardent admirer of that great movement, was struck with dismay at the atrocities that were perpetrated, and published a vehement pamphlet on the subject. He was denounced, and had to seek safety in flight. For eighteen months he

According to Azais, the whole of existence, the universe, whose cause is God, may be regarded as the product of two factors, Matter and Force. Matter in its primitive state consists of homogeneous elements or atoms. All force is in its nature expansive, and is, therefore, subject to one supreme law, that of equilibrium, or equivalence of action and reaction; for evidently expansive force emanating from each body is repressive force acting on all other bodies. The whole of the phenomena of the universe are successive stages in the development caused by the action of this one force under its one law on the primitive atoms; and in tracing this development we must group facts into three distinct orders,-first, the physical; second, the physiological; third, the intellectual, moral, and political. In the sphere of physical phenomena, distinct development can be traced from the simplest mechanical motion_up through the more complex forces of light, heat, and electricity to the power of magnetic attraction, by means of which the second great order of facts is produced out of the first. For magnetic force acting on elastic bodies, which as reactive have potential life, creates the primitive living globule, which is shaped like a tube open at both ends. From this first vital element a gradual ascent can be traced, culminating in man, who is differentiated from the other animals by the possession of intellect, or consciousness of the ideas with which external things impress him. These ideas, however, are in themselves corporeal; what is immaterial in man, or his soul, is the expansive force inherent in him. Moral and political phenomena are the results of two primitive instincts, progress and self-conservation, corresponding to the two forces, expansion and repression. From the reciprocal relations of these instincts may be deduced the necessary conditions of social and political life. The ultimate goal of humanity is the perfect fulfilment of the law of equilibrium, the establishment of universal harmony. When that is accomplished, the destiny of man has been achieved, and he will vanish from this earth. Such a consummation may be looked for in about 7000 years. During an additional period of 5000 years the great cosmical forces will be gradually tending towards the establishment of complete equilibrium; and, when this is attained, the present system of things is at an end.

The chief works of Azais, besides the Compensations, are— Système Universel, 8 vols. 1812; Du Sort de l'homme, 3 vols. 1820; Cours de Philosophie, 8 vols. 1824; Explication Universelle, 3 vols. 1826-8; Jeunesse, Maturité, Religion, Philosophie, 1837; De la Phrenologie, du Magnetisme, et de la Folie, 1843.

AZARA, DON FELIX DE, a Spanish naturalist, was born 18th May, 1746, and died in 1811. He studied first at the university of Huesca, and afterwards at the military academy of Barcelona. In 1764 he entered the army as a cadet, and in 1767 obtained an ensigncy in the engineer corps. In 1781 he was appointed, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel of engineers and captain in the navy, on a commission to lay down the line of demarcation between the Spanish and the Portuguese territories in South America. There he spent many years, observing and collecting specimens of the various interesting objects o natural history that abound in those wide and little-known regions. In 1801 he obtained leave to return to Spain, and after a short residence at Paris, was appointed a member of the Junta de fortificaciones y defensa de Ambos Indias, a public board, in which chiefly was centred the

AZARA, DON JOSE NICHOLAS D', the elder brother of the naturalist, born in 1731, was appointed in 1765 Spanish agent and procurator-general, and in 1785, ambassador at Rome. During his long residence there he distinguished himself as a collector of Italian antiquities and as a patron of art. He was also an able and active diplomatist, took a leading share in the difficult and hazardous task of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, and was instrumental in securing the election of Pius VI. He withdrew to Florence when the French took possession of Rome in 1798. He was afterwards Spanish ambassador at Paris; was three times deprived of, and restored to his office; and was finally preparing to return to his antiquarian studies in Italy when he was seized with a fatal illness, and died at Paris in January, 1804.

home government of the Spanish colonies. His principal | others so frequently fostered at that time, and which always work is his Travels in South America from 1781 to 1801; resulted in failure and renewed oppression. His treatise published in French from the author's MS., by C. A. Degli Ultimi Casi di Romagna (Of the Last Events in the Walckenaer, with atlas and plates, 4 vols. 8vo, Paris, Romagna), published in 1846, before the death of Pope 1809. It contains a valuable account of the discovery, Gregory XVI., was at once a satire on the Papal Governconquest, and civil and natural history of Paraguay and ment, a denunciation of the republican attempts at insurRio de la Plata; and embodies his former contributions to rection, and an exhortation to the Italian princes to adopt the zoology of these countries, which had appeared in a a national policy. M. d'Azeglio returned to Rome in 1846, French translation at Paris in 1801. The work is enriched after the death of Pope Gregory, in June, and, it is thought, with the notes of Walckenaer and Cuvier, and a notice of had considerable influence in persuading the new Pope the author by the former. An English translation of part (Pius IX.) to conduct his government in accordance with of Azara's work on the Natural History of Paraguay ap-liberal principles. He supported measures relating to the peared at Edinburgh in 1838. freedom of the press, the reform of the Papacy, and the emancipation of the Jews. In 1848 he accompanied the Papal army of observation sent from Rome to watch the insurgent forces in Lombardy and Venetia, which had temporarily discomfited the Austrians, and were being supported by Charles Albert, king of Sardinia. General Durando, who had the command of the Papal army, actively assisted the rebels, in defiance, it is said, of his instructions; and Azeglio was severely wounded in the leg at the battle of Vicenza, where he commanded a legion. In the same year (1848), he published a work on the Austrian Assassinations in Lombardy; and on the opening of the first Sardinian parliament he was chosen a member of the chamber of deputies. After the crushing defeat of the Sardinians at Novara, March 23, 1849,-a defeat, which brought the second of the two brief wars with Austria to a disastrous close,-D'Azeglio was made president of the cabinet by Victor Emmanuel, in whose favor his father, Charles Albert, had just resigned. In this position the marquis used his high powers with great advantage to the progress and consolidation of the Sardinian kingdom. His occupation of the office lasted from the 11th of May, 1849, to the 20th of October, 1852, when he was replaced by Count Cavour. At the termination of the war of 1859, when a large portion of the States of the Church shook off the dominion of the Pope, and declared for annexation to the kingdom of Northern Italy, Azeglio was appointed general and commissioner-extraordinary, purely military, for the Roman States-a temporary office, which he administered in a conciliatory and sagacious spirit. He died on the 11th of January, 1866, leaving a reputation for probity and wisdom, which his countrymen will not forget to cherish. His writings, chiefly of a polemical character, were numerous. In addition to those already mentioned, the most noteworthy was a work on The Court of Rome and the Gospels, of which an English translation, with a preface by Dr. Layard, appeared in 1859. A volume of personal recollections was issued, in 1867, after M. d'Azeglio's death.

AZEGLIO, MASSIMO TAPARELLI, MARQUIS D', an eminent Italian author and statesman, was born in October, 1798, at Turin. He was descended from an ancient and noble family of Piedmont, and was the son of a military officer, who, when the subject of this notice was in his fifteenth year, was appointed ambassador to Rome. The boy went with him, and, being thus introduced to the magnificent works of art for which the Eternal City is famous, contracted a love for painting, as well as for music. He desired to become a painter, and, although his studies were for a time interrupted by his receiving a commission in a Piedmontese cavalry regiment, and by a subsequent illness, brought on by the severity of his scientific investigations and resulting in his quitting the service, he eventually returned to Rome, and, with some difficulty, obtained his father's permission to devote himself to art. He remained at the Papal capital eight years, and acquired great skill and some fame as a landscape-painter. At the close of that period events directed his mind into other channels. His father died in 1830, and the younger Azeglio then removed to Milan, where he became acquainted with Alessandro Manzoni, the poet and novelist, whose daughter he married. In this way his thoughts were turned towards literature and politics. At that time, Italy was profoundly agitated by the views of the national and liberal party. The country was divided into several distinct states, of which the greater number, even of those that were nominally independent, were under the influence of Austria. Lombardy and Venetia formed parts of the Austrian dominions. The petty monarchies of the north were little better than vassals to the house of Hapsburg; the Papacy, in the centre, was opposed to all national aspirations; and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in the south, was a despotism, which for cruelty and mental darkness could not have been exceeded in Asia itself. The French revolution of July, 1830, gave additional force to the movements of the Italian liberal party, and the young men of the day threw themselves with fervor into the crusade against old abuses and foreign domination. Mazzini was just beginning his career as an agitator, and the whole air was surcharged with revolutionary enthusiasm. This was especially the case in the north of Italy, where Massimo d'Azeglio was now settled. Art was abandoned by him for literature, and literature was practised with a view to stimulating the sense of national independence and unity. In 1833, M. d'Azeglio published a novel called Ettore Fieramosca, which was followed in 1841 by another, entitled Niccolo di Lapi. Both had a political tendency, and, between the two dates at which they appeared, M. d'Azeglio visited various parts of Italy, diffusing those liberal principles which he saw were the only hope of the future. His views, however, were very different from those of the republican party. He was a constitutional monarchist, and strongly opposed to the insurrections and secret conspiracies which Mazzini and

AZERBIJAN (so called, according to Sir William Ouseley, from a fire-temple; azer, fire, and baijan, a keeper), a province of Persia, corresponding to the ancient Atropatene It is separated from a division of the Russian Empire on the N. by the River Araxes, and from Irak on the S. by the Kizil-Uzen, or Golden Stream, while it has the Caspian Sea and Ghilan on the E., and Asiatic Turkey on the W. Its area is estimated at 25,280 square miles. The country is superior in fertility to the southern provinces of Persia. It differs entirely from the provinces of Fars and Irak, as it consists of a regular succession of undulating eminences, partially cultivated, and opening into extensive plains such as Anjan, Tabreez, and Urumiyah or Van. Near the centre of the province the mountains of Sahend or Serhund rise in an accumulated mass to the height of 9000 feet above the sea. The highest point, Mount Sevellan, towards its eastern frontier, attains a height of about 12,000 feet according to some authorities, but according to Khanikoff, it is 15,400; and the Talish Mountains, which run from N. to S. parallel to, and at no great distance from, the Caspian, have an altitude of 7000 feet. Except the boundary rivers already mentioned, there are none of any great extent; but these both receive a number of tributaries from the province, and several streams of considerable volume, such as the Jughutu, the Agi, and the Shar, belong to the basin of the Lake Urumiyah. This lake is about 300 miles in circumference, and 4200 feet above the sea. Its waters are more intensely salt than the sea, and it is "supposed to contain no living creature except a kind of polype;" but it is the resort of great flocks of the flamingo. The country to the N. and W., namely, the districts of Urumiyah and Selmart, is the most picturesque and prosperous part of Azerbijan;