The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 15

ALBRECHT. See ALBERT.

ALBRIZZI, a powerful Florentine family, rivals of the Medicis and the Alberti.

ALBUE'RA, a Spanish village 12 m. SE. of Badajoz, scene of a victory (May 16, 1811) of General Beresford over Marshal Soult.

ALBUFE'RA, a lake on the coast of Spain, 7 m. S. of Valencia, near which Marshal Suchet gained a victory over the English in 1811.

AL'BULA, Swiss mountain pa.s.s in the canton of Grisons, 7595 ft.

high.

ALb.u.mEN, a glairy substance a const.i.tuent of plants and animals, and found nearly pure in the white of an egg or in the serum of the blood.

ALBUQUERQUE', ALFONSO D', a celebrated Portuguese patriot and navigator, the founder of the Portuguese power in India, who, after securing a footing in India for Portugal that he sought for, settled in Goa, where his recall at the instance of jealous rivals at home gave him such a shock that he died of a broken heart just as he was leaving. The Indians long remembered his benign rule, and used to visit his tomb to pray him to deliver them from the oppression of his successors (1453-1513).

ALBYN, ancient Celtic name of Scotland.

ALCae'US OF MITYLENE, a Greek lyric poet, an aristocrat by birth, a contemporary and an alleged lover of Sappho, and much admired by Horace; flourished about 600 B.C.

ALCA'LA DE HENA'RES (14), a town in Spain, the birthplace of Cervantes, 21 m. E. of Madrid, long the seat of a famous university founded by Cardinal Ximenes.

ALCAN'TARA, a town of Spain, on the Tagus, near Portugal, with a bridge of six arches, 670 ft. long and 210 ft. high, built in honour of Trajan in 104. The Order of Alcantara, a religious and military order, was established in 1176 here, for defence against the Moors, and was suppressed in 1835.

ALCESTE, the chief character in Moliere's _Misanthrope_.

ALCES'TIS, the wife of Admetus, who gave herself up to death to save her husband. Hercules descended to the lower world and brought her back.

She is the subject of one of the tragedies of Euripides.

ALCHEMY, the early a.n.a.lysis of substances which has in modern times developed into chemistry, and which aimed chiefly at the discovery of the philosopher's stone, of a universal solvent, and of the elixir of life; it has been defined to be "an art without art, which has its beginning in falsehood, its middle in toil, and its end in poverty."

ALCIBI'ADES, an Athenian of high birth, and related to Pericles, possessed of a handsome person, brilliant abilities, and great wealth, but was of a wayward temper and depraved, whom Socrates tried hard to win over to virtue, but failed. He involved his country in a rash expedition against Sicily, served and betrayed it by turns in the Peloponnesian war, and died by a.s.sa.s.sination in exile (450-404 B.C.).

ALCI'DES, the grandson of Alcaeus, a patronymic of Hercules.

ALCIN'OUS, a king of the Phaeacians, the father of Nausicaa, who figures in the Odyssey as the host of Ulysses, who had been shipwrecked on his sh.o.r.e.

ALCI'RA (18), a walled town in Spain, on an island 22 m. SW. of Valencia.

ALCMAN, an early Greek lyric poet, born at Sardis.

ALCME'NE, the wife of Amphitryon and the mother of Hercules.

ALCMEONIDae, a powerful Athenian family, of which Pericles and Alcibiades were members, who professed to be descended from Alcmaeon, the grandson of Nestor.

ALc.o.c.k, JOHN, an eminent ecclesiastic of the reign of Edward IV., distinguished for his love of learning and learned men; _d_. 1500.

ALCOHOL, pure or highly rectified spirit obtained from fermented saccharine solutions by distillation, and the intoxicating principle of all spirituous liquors.

ALCOHOLISM, the results, acute or chronic, of the deleterious action of alcohol on the human system.

ALCORAN'. See KORaN.

ALCOTT, LOUISA MARY, a popular American auth.o.r.ess, who acted as a nurse to the wounded during the Civil War; her works mostly addressed to the young (1832-1888).

ALCOY (30), a town in Spain, N. of Alicanti; staple manufacture, paper.

AL'CUIN, a learned Englishman, a disciple of Bede; invited by Charlemagne to introduce scholarly culture into the empire and establish libraries and schools of learning; was one of those men whose work lies more in what they influence others to do than in what they do themselves (735-804).

ALCY'ONE, daughter of aeolus, who threw herself into the sea after her husband, who had perished in shipwreck, and was changed into the kingfisher.

ALDE'BARAN, the bull's-eye, a star of the first magnitude in the eye of the constellation Taurus; it is the sun in the Arabian mythology.

ALDEHYDE, a limpid, very volatile liquid, of a suffocating odour, obtained from the oxidation of alcohol.

AL'DERNEY (2), one of the Channel Islands, 3 or 4 m. long by 2 broad, celebrated for its breed of cows; separated from Cape de la Hogue by the dangerous Race of Alderney.