ALA
1)7
Philip II. lie died in the 88th year of his age. His Spanish translation of Tacitus , and the aphorisms which he added in themargin, gained him great reputation. This work was publishedat Madrid in 161-4.
ALAN, Cardinal William, born at Rossal in Lancashire , in1532. In 1550 he was elected fellow of Oriel College, Oxford .In 1556, being then only 24 years old, he was chosen principal ofSt. Mary’s Hall, and one of the proctors of the University . In1543 lie was made canon of York; but, upon queen Elizabeth’saccession to the throne, lie left England, and settled at Louvain , inan English college, of which he became (he chief support. In1565, he visited his native country; but, on account ot his ex-treme activity, in the propagation of the Roman Catholic religion,he Was obliged to tly the kingdom in 1563. He was created car-dinal on the 28tli of'July 1537, by the title of St. Martin in Mon-tibus ; and obtained from the king of Spain a rich abbey in thekingdom of Naples, and afterwards the bishopric of Mechlin. Itis supposed to have been by the advice and instigation of thispriest, that Philip II . attempted to invade England. He died onthe 20th of October 1594, aged 63 ; and was buried in the Eng-lish college at Rome . He wrote man}- books in defence of theRomish religion. The most remarkable are, 1. A Defence of thetwelve Martyrs in one Year. 2. A Declaration of the Sentenceof Sextus V, &c. A work intended to explain the pope’s bull forthe excommunication of queen Elizabeth, and to exhort the peo-ple of England to take up arms in favour of the Spaniards. Manythousand copies of this book, punted at Antwerp , were put onboard the Armada; but the enterprise failing, they were after-wards destroyed. 3. Of the Worship due to Saints and their Re-lics, 15S3. Tliis treatise was answered by lord Burleigh, and isesteemed the most elegant of the cardinal’s'writings.
ALAN'BY, an agreeable watering place in Cumberland, muchresorted to in the bathing season, situated about 20 miles N. ofWhitehaven.
ALAND, an island in the Baltic, subject to Sweden. ]75 miles E. from Stockholm , is about 40 miles long, ai
It lies
. _, . _ and 16
broad, and contains 15 villages, and about 9000 inhabitants.
AEANDES, a cluster of Swedish islands, of which Aland istire principal.
ALANORARIUS, [from the Gothic , alan, a greyhound,] inour ancient customs, a keeper or manager of spaniels, or settingdogs, for the sport of hunting, hawking, &c.
ALANQUAR. See Alenquf.r.
-A LA RAF, in the Mahometan theology, the partition wall thatseparates heaven from hell. The word is plural, and properlywritten at araf; in the singular at arf. It is derived from theArabic verb ara/u, to distinguish. Al araf gives the denominationto the 7th chapter of the Koran, wherein mention is made of thisWa h. Mahomet seems to have copied his al araf, either from thegieat gulf of separation mentioned in the New Testament , or fromthe Jewish writers, who also speak of a thin wall dividing heavenRom hell.
BES, those Arabians who live in tents.
ARES, in antiquity, are supposed to have been a kind ofof til 1 '-’ i ! nion S the Romans ; so called from ala, a wing, becauseeir lightness and swiftness in the combat. Others make them’■’f 1’annonia; hut others, with more probability, taketa tor an epithet, and apply it to the Roman cavalry ; because^^‘‘d'nlhe two wings. '
’til ^C, a famous general of the Goths. He entered Thrace wl ■ *.? | a d °t 200,000 men, and laid waste all the country through..,i Uc 1 , e ln:u 'che<l. He marched next to Macedonia and Thes-N l >'» "'here liehe '
aly, ana was bravely opposeihe .a K ’i ,<lmous consul Stilicho . After various battles and treaties,soh'll t0 ° k 1iomc by treachery, A. D. 409, and permitted his[■_, ei plunder it. Soon after he embarked for Sicily ; but a
Cosenz.i, v
4 ex a, the inmost of the three veins in (lie bend of
me anu.
any Viour' ° r ^ LARUM, a kind of clock to awaken persons
at
ans, who denied baptism, and
held that the words. This is my body, are not to be understood otthe bread, but of the whole action or celebration of the' eucliarisf.They were so named from Joannes Alasco.
ALASCO, John', a Polish nobleman and bishop of the 16thcentury, who, imbibing the reformed opinions, was expelled hiscountry, and became preacher to a Protestant congregation atEmbden ; but came to England while the reformation was carry-ing on under Edward VI . lie was learned, moderate, and pious,and greatly esteemed by the principal reformers, especially byErasmus , whose library he purchased. lie returned by favour ofSigisimitid to his own country, where he died in 1560. We haveof his writing, De C.-rna Domini Liber; Epistola continenssum-mam Conlroverskr de C;rna Domini, &c. He had some particu-lar tenets. See last artk le.
ALATAMAHA, a large river of North America , which, ris-ing in the Apatachian mountains, runs S. K. through thestate of Georgia, and falls into the Atlantic ocean , below Fre-derica.
ALATED, in botanv, a term applied to such parts of plants ashaveahe. Sec Ala:. Alated leaves are those made up of severalpinnated ones; as the orobus.
ALATR1, a town of Italy , in theCampagna di Roma, 40 milesS. E. of Rome .
ALATYR, a provincial town of Asiatic Russia , on the riverSum, in the circle of Alatyrskoi.
ALATYRSKOI, a district in the Asiatic part of the Russianempire, 40 miles E. of Gasan.
A LAVA, or ALABA, a district of Spain .
ALAUDA, or LARK, in ornithology, a genus of birds of theorder passeres; the characters of which are these: The beak iscylindrical, subulated, straight.; and the two mandibles or chaps,are of equal size. The tongue is bilid, and the hinder claw isstraight, and longer than the toe. There are 33 species, of whichwe shall notice the follow ing:
1. A. Ar.bor.ea, or Wood Lark, is a native of Europe , andis distinguished by ail annular white fillet about the head. It isless than the sky-lark, and of a shorter thicker form ; the coloursare paler, and its note is less sonorous and less varied, though notless sweet. It perches on krees, and whistles like the blackbird. ,It builds on the ground, aim lays five eggs, dusky and blotchedwith deep brown marks, darkest at the thicker end. The malesare larger than the females.
2. A. Arvensjs, or common Sky Lark. This afid the wood-lark arc tile only birds that sing as they tly; this raising its noteas it soars, and lowering it till it quite dies away as it descends. Itwill often soar to such a height, that we are charmed with the mu-sic when we lose sight of the songster; it also begins its song be-fore the earliest dawn. Milton, in his Allegro, most beautifullyexpresses these circumstances. It continues its harmony severalmonths, beginning early in the spring, on pairing. In the winterthey assemble in vast flocks, grow very fat, and are taken in greatnumbers for our tables. They build their nests on the ground,and lay four or five eggs. In the neighbourhood of Dunstable,between September and February, about 4000 dozen are caught,which supply the markets of the metropolis. See Bird -catcher.
3. A. Bratensis, or Tit Lark, has the two outward feather*!of ilie w ing edged with white, and frequents the meadows, andbuilds its nest among the grass.. It has a most remarkable finenote, singing in all situations, on trees, on the ground, while it i»sporting in the air, and partieularly in its descent.
4. A. Zealandica, the New Zf u.and Lark, (Plate viii.) isseven and a half inches in length: the bill is half an inch, of a paleash-colour, with the upper part black : the breast and belly arewhite. It inhabits Charlotte Sound, and is called kngoo arourr.
ALAUTA, a river of Turkey in Europe , which falls into the -Danube almost opposite to Nicopolis .
ALAY, signifying in the Turkish language “ The Triumph.’*a ceremony of the Turks at the breaking out of a war. It consistsof the most insipid buffoonery, and is attended with acts of th«most shocking barbarity. Generally each trade successively pre-sents to the spectators the mechanical exercise of its respectlive art.
Ai.ay, among sportsmen, a term probably borrowed from theabove barbarous ceremony, to express fresh dogs sent intothe err.
ALB,