The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 45

AUREOLA, a wreath of light represented as encircling the brows of the saints and martyrs.

AURILLAC (14), capital of the dep. of Cantal, on the Jourdanne, affluent of the Dordogne, built round the famous abbey of St. Geraud, now in ruins.

AU'ROCHS, a German wild ox, now extinct.

AURO'RA, the Roman G.o.ddess of the dawn, charged with opening for the sun the gates of the East; had a star on her forehead, and rode in a rosy chariot drawn by four white horses. See EOS.

AURORA (19), a city in Illinois, U.S., 35 m. SW. of Chicago, said to have been the first town to light the streets with electricity.

AURORA BOREALIS, or Northern Lights, understood to be an electric discharge through the atmosphere connected with magnetic disturbance.

AURUN'GABAD' (50), a city in Hyderabad, in the Nizam's dominions; once the capital, now much decayed, with the ruins of a palace of Aurungzebe.

AU'RUNGZEBE, Mogul emperor of Hindustan, third son of Shah Jehan; ascended the throne by the deposition of his father, the murder of two brothers and of the son of one of these; he governed with skill and courage; extended his empire by subduing Golconda, the Carnatic, and Bengal, and though fanatical and intolerant, was a patron of letters; his rule was far-s.h.i.+ning, but the empire was rotten at the core, and when he died it crumbled to pieces in the hands of his sons, among whom he beforehand divided it (1615-1707).

AUSCULTATION, discerning by the sound whether there is or is not disease in the interior organs of the body.

AUSCULTATOR, name in "Sartor Resartus," the hero as a man qualified for a profession, but as yet only expectant of employment in it.

AUSONIA, an ancient name of Italy.

AUSONIUS, DECIMUS MAGNUS, a Roman poet, a native of Gaul, born in Bordeaux; tutor to the Emperor Gratian, who, on coming to the throne, made him prefect of Latium and of Gaul, and consul of Rome. He was a good versifier and stylist, but no poet (300-394).

AUSTEN, JANE, a gifted English novelist, daughter of a clergyman in N. Hamps.h.i.+re; member of a quiet family circle, occupied herself in writing without eye to publication, and only in mature womanhood thought of writing for the press. Her first novel, "Sense and Sensibility," was published in 1811, and was followed by "Pride and Prejudice," her masterpiece, "Persuasion," and others, her interest being throughout in ordinary quiet cultured life, and the delineation of it, which she achieved in an inimitably charming manner. "She showed once for all,"

says Professor Saintsbury, "the capabilities of the very commonest and most ordinary life, if sufficiently observed and selected, and combined with due art, to furnish forth prose fiction not merely that would pa.s.s, but that should be of the absolutely first quality as literature. She is the mother of the English 19th-century novel, as Scott is the father of it" (1775-1816).

AUS'TERLITZ (3), a town in Moravia, near Brunn, where Napoleon defeated the emperors of Russia and of Austria, at "the battle of the three emperors," Dec. 2, 1805; one of Napoleon's most brilliant victories, and thought so by himself.

AUSTIN (14), the capital of Texas, on the Colorado River, named after Stephen Austin, who was chiefly instrumental in annexing Texas to the States.

AUSTIN, ALFRED, poet-laureate in succession to Tennyson, born near Leeds, bred for the bar, but devoted to literature as journalist, writer, and poet; has written "The Golden Age, a Satire," "Savonarola," "English Lyrics," and several works in prose; _b_. 1835.

AUSTIN, JOHN, a distinguished English jurist, professor of Jurisprudence in London University; mastered the science of law by the study of it in Germany, but being too profound in his philosophy, was unsuccessful as professor; his great work, "The Province of Jurisprudence Determined," and his Lectures, were published by his widow after his death (1790-1859).

AUSTIN, MRS. J., (_nee_ Sarah Taylor), wife of the preceding, executed translations from the German, "Falk's Characteristics of Goethe"

for one; was, like her husband, of the utilitarian school; was introduced to Carlyle when he first went up to London; he wrote to his wife of her, "If I 'swear eternal friends.h.i.+p' with any woman here, it will be with her" (1793-1867)

AUSTIN FRIARS. See AUGUSTINIANS.

AUSTRALASIA (i. e. Southern Asia), a name given to Australia, New Zealand, and the islands adjoining.

AUSTRALIA, a continent entirely within the Southern Hemisphere, about one-fourth smaller than Europe, its utmost length from E. to W.

being 2400 m., and breadth 1971; the coast has singularly few inlets, though many and s.p.a.cious harbours, only one great gulf, Carpentaria, on the N., and one bight, the Great Australian Bight, on the S.; the interior consists of a low desert plateau, depressed in the centre, bordered with ranges of various elevation, between which and the sea is a varying breadth of coast-land; the chief mountain range is in the E., and extends more or less parallel all the way with the E. coast; the rivers are few, and either in flood or dried up, for the climate is very parching, only one river, the Murray, 2345 m. long, of any consequence, while the lakes, which are numerous, are shallow and nearly all salt; the flora is peculiar, the eucalyptus and the acacia the most characteristic, grains, fruits, and edible roots being all imported; the fauna is no less peculiar, including, in the absence of many animals of other countries, the kangaroo, the dingo, and the duck-bill, the useful animals being likewise all imported; of birds, the ca.s.sowary and the emu, and smaller ones of great beauty, but songless; minerals abound, both the precious and the useful; the natives are disappearing, the colonists in 1904 numbering close upon 4,000,000; and the territory divided into Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, S. Australia, and W. Australia, which with Tasmania federated in 1900 and became the Commonwealth.

AUSTRASIA, or the East Kingdom, a kingdom on the E. of the possessions of the Franks in Gaul, that existed from 511 to 843, capital of which was Metz; it was celebrated for its rivalry with the kingdom of Neustria, or the Western Kingdom.

AUSTRIA, or AUSTRO-HUNGARY, is a country of every variety of surface and scenery; is inhabited by peoples of different races and nationalities, speaking different languages, as many as 20, and composed of 50 different states, 5 of them kingdoms; occupies the centre of Europe, yet has free communication with the seas on all sides of it; is the third country for size in it; is divided by the Leitha, a tributary of the Danube, into Cis-Leithan on the W. and Trans-Leithan on the E.; has next to no coast-line; its chief seaport, Trieste; is watered by rivers, the Danube in chief, all of which have their mouths in other countries; has three zones of climate with corresponding zones of vegetation; is rich in minerals; is largely pastoral and agricultural, manufacturing chiefly in the W.; the capital Vienna, and the population over 40,000,000.

AUSTRIAN LIP, a thick under-lip characteristic of the House of Hapsburg.

AUTEUIL, a village in the dep. of the Seine, now included in Paris.

AUTHORISED VERSION OF THE BIBLE was executed between the years 1604 and 1610 at the instance of James I., so that it is not undeservedly called King James's Bible, and was the work of 47 men selected with marked fairness and discretion, divided into three groups of two sections each, who held their sittings for three years severally at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford, the whole being thereafter revised by a committee of six, who met for nine months in Stationers' Hall, London, and received thirty pounds each, the rest being done for nothing. The result was a translation that at length superseded every other, and that has since woven itself into the affectionate regard of the whole English-speaking people. The men who executed it evidently felt something of the inspiration that breathes in the original, and they have produced a version that will remain to all time a monument of the simplicity, dignity, grace, and melody of the English language; its very style has had a n.o.bly educative effect on the national literature, and has contributed more than anything else to prevent it from degenerating into the merely frivolous and formal.

AUTOCHTHONS, Greek for aborigines.

AUTO-DA-Fe, or Act of Faith, a ceremony held by the court of the Inquisition in Spain, preliminary to the execution of a heretic, in which the condemned, dressed in a hideously fantastic robe, called the San Benito, and a pointed cap, walked in a procession of monks, followed by carts containing coffins with malefactors' bones, to hear a sermon on the true faith, prior to being burned alive; the most famous auto-da-fe took place in Madrid in 1680.

AUTOL'YCUS, in the Greek mythology a son of HERMES (q. v.), and maternal grandfather of Ulysses by his daughter Anticlea; famed for his cunning and robberies; synonym for thief.

AUTOM'EDON, the charioteer of Achilles.

AUTONOMY (i. e. Self-law), in the Kantian metaphysics denotes the sovereign right of the pure reason to be a law to itself.

AUTRAN', JOSEPH, a French poet and dramatist, born at Ma.r.s.eilles; he was of the school of Lamartine, and attained distinction by the production of the tragedy "La Fille d'Eschyle" (1813-1877).

AUTUN' (15), an ancient city in the dep. of Saone-et-Loire, on the Arroux, 28 m. NW. from Chalons, where Talleyrand was bishop, with a fine cathedral and rich in antiquities; manufactures serges, carpets, velvet, &c.