720

good habit and lusty are athletes, since they have fortified | divinités d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1884); Döllinger, Sectengeschichte des
against the soul the body which should be its servant; but the
disciples of wisdom are pale and wasted, and in a manner reduced
to skeletons, because they have sacrificed the whole of their
bodily strength to the faculties of the soul."

His own favourite ascetics, the Therapeutae, whose chief centre was in Egypt, had renounced property and all its temptations, and fled, irrevocably abandoning brothers, children, wives, parents, throngs of kinsmen, intimacy of friends, the fatherlands where they were born and bred (see THERAPEUTAE). Here we have the ideal of early Christian renunciation at work, but apart from the influence of Jesus. In the pages of Epictetus the same ideal is constantly held up to us.

In the Christian Church there was from the earliest age a leaning to excessive asceticism, and it needed a severe struggle on the part of Paul, and of the Catholic teachers who followed him, to secure for the baptized the right to be married, to own property, to engage in war and commerce, or to assume public office. One and all of the permanent institutions of society were condemned by the early enthusiasts, especially by those who looked forward to a speedy advent of the millennium, as alien to the kingdom of God and as impediments to the life of grace. Marriage and property had already been eschewed in the Jewish Essene and Therapeutic sects, and in Christianity the name of Encratite was given to those who repudiated marriage and the use of wine. They did not form a sect, but represented an impulse felt everywhere. In early and popular apocryphal histories the apostles are represented as insisting that their converts should either not contract wedlock or should dissolve the tie if already formed. This is the plot of the Acts of Thecla, a story which probably goes back to the first century. Repudiation of the tie by fervent women, betrothed or already wives, occasioned much domestic friction and popular persecution. In the Syriac churches, even as late as the 4th century, the married state seems to have been regarded as incompatible with the perfection of the initiated. Renunciation of the state of wedlock was anyhow imposed on the faithful during the lengthy, often lifelong, terms of penance imposed upon them for sins committed; and later, when monkery took the place, in a church become worldly, partly of the primitive baptism and partly of that rigorous penance which was the rebaptism and medicine of the lapsed, celibacy and virginity were held essential thereto, no less than renunciation of property and money-making.

Together with the rage for virginity went the institution of
virgines subintroductae, or of spiritual wives; for it was often
assumed that the grace of baptism restored the original purity
Such
of life led by Adam and Eve in common before the Fall.
rigours are encouraged in the Shepherd of Hermas, a book which
emanated from Rome and up to the 4th century was read in
church. They were common in the African churches, where they
led to abuses which taxed the energy even of a Cyprian. They
were still rife in Antioch in 260. We detect them in the Celtic
church of St Patrick, and, as late as the 7th century, among the
Celtic elders of the north of France. In the Syriac church as late
as 340, such relations prevailed between the "Sons and daughters
of the Resurrection." It continued among the Albigenses and
other dissident sects of the middle ages, among whom it served
a double purpose; for their elders were thus not only able to
prove their own chastity, but to elude the inquisitors, who were
less inclined to suspect a man of the catharism which regarded
marriage as the "greater adultery" (maius adulterium) if they
found him cohabiting (in appearance at least) with a woman.
There was hardly an early council, great or small, that did not
condemn this custom, as well as the other one, still more painful
to think of, of self-emasculation. In the Catholic church, however,
common sense prevailed, and those who desired to follow the
Encratite ideal repaired to the monasteries.

AUTHORITIES.-E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London, 1903):
Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites (London, 1901); J. E.
Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion; F. Max Müller,
The Sacred Books of the East; Victor Henry, La Magie dans l'Inde
antique; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (London, 1900), and
Adonis, Allis, Osiris (London, 1906); Georges Lafay, Culte des

Mittelalters (Munich, 1890); Fr. Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra
PURIFICATION. Goldziher, "De l'ascetisme aux premiers temps
Chicago, 1903); Zöckler, Gesch. der Ascese (1863). See also under
Muratori, De Synisactis et Agapetis (Pavia, 1709); Jas. Martineau,
de l'Islam," in Revue de l'histoire des religions (1898), p. 314;
to Ethics (Oxford, 1883); Franz Cumont, Les Religions orientales
(F. C. C.)
Types of Ethical Theory (Oxford, 1885); T. H. Green, Prolegomena
nentia: Plutarchus, De Carnium Esu.
dans le paganisme romain (Paris, 1907); Porphyrius, De Absti

ASCHAFFENBURG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of
Bavaria, on the right bank of the Main, at its confluence with the
Aschaff, near the foot of the Spessart, 26 m. by rail S.E. of
chief buildings are the Johannisburg, built (1605-1614) by
Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1900) 18,091; (1905) 25,275. Its
Archbishop Schweikard of Cronberg, which contains a library
with a number of incunabula, a collection of engravings and
of Bavaria, but dating in the main from the early 12th and the
paintings; the Stiftskirche, or cathedral, founded in 980 by Otto
the Vischers, and a sarcophagus, with the relics of St Margaret
13th centuries, in which are preserved various monuments by
(1540); the Capuchin hospital; a theatre, which was formerly
German nobility. The town, which has been remarkable for its
the house of the Teutonic order; and several mansions of the
educational establishments since the 10th century, has a gym-
nasium, lyceum, seminarium and other schools. There is an
archaeological museum in the old abbey buildings. The graves
of Klemens Brentano and his brother Christian (d. 1851) are in
the churchyard; and Wilhelm Heinse is buried in the town.
Coloured and white paper, ready-made clothing, cellulose,
tobacco, lime and liqueurs are the chief manufactures, while
a considerable export trade is done down the Main in wood,
cattle and wine.

Aschaffenburg, called in the middle ages Aschafaburg and also Askenburg, was originally a Roman settlement. The 10th and their castrum the Frankish mayors of the palace built a castle. 23rd Roman legions had their station here, and on the ruins of A stone bridge over the Main was built by Bonifacius erected a chapel to St Martin, and founded a Benedictine monastery. Archbishop Willigis in 989. Adalbert increased the importance of the town in various ways about 1122. In 1292 a synod was held here, and in 1474 an imperial diet, preliminary to that of been sometimes called the Aschaffenburg Concordat. Vienna, in which the concordat was decided which has therefore

The town suffered greatly during the Thirty Years' War, being held in turn by the various belligerents. In 1842-1849, King Louis built himself to the west of the town a country house, called the Pompeianum, from its being an imitation of the house of Castor and Pollux at Pompeii. In 1866 the Prussians inflicted a severe defeat on the Austrians in the neighbourhood.

The principality of Aschaffenburg, deriving its name from the city, comprehended an area of 654 English sq. m. It formed part of the electorate of Mainz, and in 1803 was made over to the archchancellor, Archbishop Charles of Dalberg. In 1806 it was annexed to the grand-duchy of Frankfort; and in 1814 was transferred to Bavaria, in virtue of a treaty concluded on the 19th of June between that power and Austria. With lower ASCHAM, ROGER (c. 1515-1568), English scholar and writer, Franconia, it now forms a district of the kingdom of Bavaria. His name was born at Kirby Wiske, a village in the North Riding of Yorkshire, near Northallerton, about the year 1515. would be more properly spelt Askham, being derived, doubtless, from Askham in the West Riding. He was the third son of John Ascham, steward to Lord Scrope of Bolton. The family name of his mother Margaret is unknown, but she is said to have been well connected. The authority for this statement, as for most others concerning Ascham's early life, is Edward Grant, headdelivered a panegyrical oration on his life in 1576. master of Westminster, who collected and edited his letters and

Ascham was educated not at school, but in the house of Sir Humphry Wingfield, a barrister, and in 1533 speaker of the House of Commons, as Ascham himself tells us, in the Toxophilus, p. 120 (not, as by a mistake which originated with Grant and has been repeated ever since, Sir Anthony Wingfield, who was nephew

Shortly after the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., Ascham made public profession of Protestant opinions in a disputation on the doctrine of the Mass, begun in his own college and then removed for greater publicity to the public schools of the university, where it was stopped by the vice-chancellor. Thereon Ascham wrote a letter of complaint to Sir William Cecil. This stood him in good stead. In January 1548, Grindal, the princess Elizabeth's tutor, died. Ascham had already corresponded with the princess, and in one of his letters says that he returns her pen which he has mended. Through Cecil and at the princess's own wish he was selected as her tutor against another candidate pressed by Admiral Seymour and Queen Katherine. Ascham taught Elizabeth-then sixteen years old-for two years, chiefly at Cheshunt. In a letter to Sturm, the Strassburg schoolmaster, he praises her "beauty, stature, wisdom and industry. She talks French and Italian as well as English: she has often talked to me readily and well in Latin and moderately so in Greek. When she writes Greek and Latin nothing is more beautiful than her handwriting . . . she read with me almost all Cicero and great part of Titus Livius: for she drew all her knowledge of Latin from those two authors. She used to give the morning to the Greek Testament and afterwards read select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles. To these I added St Cyprian and Melanchthon's Commonplaces." In 1550 Ascham quarrelled with Elizabeth's steward and returned to Cambridge. Cheke then procured him the secretaryship to Sir Richard Morrison (Moryson), appointed ambassador to Charles V. It was on his way to join Morrison that he paid his celebrated morning call on Lady Jane Grey at Bradgate, where he found her reading Plato's Phaedo, while every one else was out hunting.

of the speaker). Sir Humphry "ever loved and used to have | John's College by the founder, Dr Lupton, in 1525, and the many children brought up in his house," where they were under endowment of which had been confiscated under the Chantries a tutor named R. Bond. Their sport was archery, and Sir Act. In 1546 Ascham was elected public orator by the university Humphry "himself would at term times bring down from on Sir John Cheke's retirement. London both bows and shafts and go with them himself to the field and see them shoot." Hence Ascham's earliest English work, the Toxophilus, the importance which he attributed to archery in educational establishments, and probably the provision for archery in the statutes of St Albans, Harrow and other Elizabethan schools. From this private tuition Ascham was sent "about 1530," at the age, it is said, of fifteen, to St John's College, Cambridge, then the largest and most learned college in either university. Here he fell under the influence of John Cheke, who was admitted a fellow in Ascham's first year, and Sir Thomas Smith. His guide and friend was Robert Pember," a man of the greatest learning and with an admirable facility in the Greek tongue." On his advice he practised seriously the precept embodied in the saying, "I know nothing about the subject, I have not even lectured on it," and to learn Greek more quickly, while still a boy, taught Greek to boys." In Latin he specially studied Cicero and Caesar. He became B.A. on the 18th of February 1534/5. Dr Nicholas Metcalfe was then master of the college, "a papist, indeed, and yet if any young man given to the new learning as they termed it, went beyond his fellows," he "lacked neither open praise, nor private exhibition." He procured Ascham's election to a fellowship, though being a new bachelor of arts, I chanced among my companions to speak against the Pope . . . after grievous rebuke and some punishment, open warning was given to all the fellows, none to be so hardy, as to give me his voice at that election." The day of election Ascham regarded as his "birthday," and "the whole foundation of the poor learning I have and of all the furtherance that hitherto elsewhere I have obtained." He took his M.A. degree on the 3rd of July 1537. He stayed for some time at Cambridge taking pupils, among whom was William Grindal, who in 1544 became tutor to Princess Elizabeth. Ascham himself cultivated music, acquired fame for a beautiful handwriting, and lectured on mathematics. Before 1540, when the Regius professorship of Greek was established, Ascham was paid a handsome salary to profess the Greek tongue in public," and held also lectures in St John's College. He obtained from Edward Lee, then archbishop of York, a pension of £2 a year, in return for which Ascham translated Oecumenius' Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles. But the archbishop, scenting heresy in some passage relating to the marriage of the clergy, sent it back to him, with a present indeed, but with something like a reprimand, to which Ascham answered with an assurance that he was no seeker after novelties," as his lectures showed. He was on safer ground in writing in 15421543 a book, which he told Sir William Paget in the summer of 1544 was in the press, on the art of Shooting." This was no doubt suggested partly by the act of parliament 33 Henry VIII. c. 9, an acte for mayntenaunce of Artyllarie and debarringe of unlawful games," requiring every one under sixty, of good health, the clergy, judges, &c., excepted, " to use shooting in the long bow," and fixing the price at which bows were to be sold. Under the title of Toxophilus he presented it to Henry VIII. at Greenwich soon after his triumphant return from the capture of Boulogne, and promptly received a grant of a pension of £10 a year, equal to some £200 a year of our money. A novelty of the book was that the author had written this Englishe matter in the Englishe tongue for Englishe men," though he thought it necessary to defend himself by the argument that what the best of the realm think it honest to use" he," ought not to suppose it vile for him to write." It is a Platonic dialogue between Toxophilus and Philologus, and nowadays its chief interest lies in its incidental remarks. It may probably claim to have been the model for Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler.

64

44

From 1541, or earlier, Ascham acted as letter-writer to the university and also to his college. Perhaps the best specimen of his skill was the letter written to the protector Somerset in 1548 on behalf of Sedbergh school, which was attached to St

The embassy went to Louvain, where he found the university very inferior to Cambridge, then to Innsbruck and Venice. Ascham read Greek with the ambassador four or five days a week. His letters during the embassy, which was recalled on Mary's accession, were published in English in 1553, as a "Report' on Germany. Through Bishop Gardiner he was appointed Latin secretary to Queen Mary with a pension of £20 a year. His Protestantism he must have quietly sunk, though he told Sturm that some endeavoured to hinder the flow of Gardiner's benevolence on account of his religion." Probably his never having been in orders tended to his safety. On the 1st of June 1554 he married Margaret Howe, whom he described as niece of Sir R. (? J., certainly not, as has been said, Henry) Wallop. By her he had two sons. From his frequent complaints of his poverty then and later, he seems to have lived beyond his income, though, like most courtiers, he obtained divers lucrative leases of ecclesiastical and crown property. In 1555 he resumed his studies with Princess Elizabeth, reading in Greek the orations of Aeschines and Demosthenes' De Corona. Soon after Elizabeth's accession, on the 5th of October 1559, he was given, though a layman, the canonry and prebend of Wetwang in York minster. In 1563 he began the work which has made him famous, The Scholemaster. The occasion of it was, he tells us (though he is perhaps merely imitating Boccaccio), that during the "great plague" at London in 1563 the court was at Windsor, and there on the roth of December he was dining with Sir William Cecil, secretary of state, and other ministers. Cecil said he had " strange news; that divers scholars of Eaton be run away from the schole for fear of beating "; and expressed his wish that more discretion was used by schoolmasters in correction than commonly is." A debate took place, the party being pretty evenly divided between floggers and anti-floggers, with Ascham as the champion of the latter. Afterwards Sir Richard Sackville, the treasurer, came up to Ascham and told him that "a fond schoolmaster" had, by his brutality, made him hate learning, much to his loss, and as he had now a young son, whom he wished to be learned, he offered, if Ascham would name a tutor, to pay for the education of their respective sons under

Ascham's orders, and invited Ascham to write a treatise on "the | Oliveto Maggiore, founded in 1320, famous for the frescoes by right order of teaching." The Scholemaster was the result. It Luca Signorelli (1497-1498) and Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma is not, as might be supposed, a general treatise on educational (1505), in the cloister, illustrating scenes from the legend of St method, but "a plaine and perfite way of teachyng children to Benedict; the latter master's work is perhaps nowhere better understand, write and speake in Latin tong "; and it was not represented than here. The church contains fine inlaid choir intended for schools, but " specially prepared for the private stalls by Fra Giovanni da Verona. The buildings, which are brynging up of youth in gentlemen and noblemens houses." mostly of red brick, are conspicuous against the gray clayey and The perfect way simply consisted in "the double translation of sandy soil. The monastery is described by Aeneas Sylvius a model book"; the book recommended by this professional | Piccolomini (Pope Pius II.) in his Commentaria. Remains of letter-writer being "Sturmius' Select Letters of Cicero." As a Roman baths, with a fine mosaic pavement, were found within method of learning a language by a single pupil, this method the town in 1898 (G. Pellegrini in Notizie degli scavi, 1899, 6). might be useful; as a method of education in school nothing ASCITANS (or ASCITAE; from do kós, the Greek for a wine-skin), more deadening could be conceived. The method itself seems a peculiar sect of 2nd-century Christians (Montanists), who to have been taken from Cicero. Nor was the famous plea for introduced the practice of dancing round a wine-skin at their the substitution of gentleness and persuasion for coercion and meetings. flogging in schools, which has been one of the main attractions of the book, novel. It was being practised and preached at that very time by Christopher Jonson (c. 1536–1597) at Winchester; it had been enforced at length by Wolsey in his statutes for his Ipswich College in 1528, following Robert Sherborne, bishop of Chichester, in founding Rolleston school; and had been repeatedly urged by Erasmus and others, to say nothing of William of Wykeham himself in the statutes of Winchester College in 1400. But Ascham's was the first definite demonstration in favour of humanity in the vulgar tongue and in an easy style by a well-known "educationist," though not one who had any actual experience as a schoolmaster. What largely contributed to its fame was its picture of Lady Jane Grey, whose love of learning was due to her finding her tutor a refuge from pinch-pressure on the large veins in the abdominal cavity by the ing, car-boxing and bullying parents; some exceedingly good criticisms of various authors, and a spirited defence of English as a vehicle of thought and literature, of which it was itself an excellent example. The book was not published till after Ascham's death, which took place on the 23rd of December 1568, owing to a chill caught by sitting up all night to finish a New Year's poem to the queen.

His letters were collected and published in 1576, and went through several editions, the latest at Nuremberg in 1611; they were reedited by William Elstob in 1703. His English works were edited by James Bennett with a life by Dr Johnson in 1771, reprinted in 8vo in 1815. Dr Giles in 1864-1865 published in 4 vols. select letters with the Toxophilus and Scholemaster and the life by Edward Grant. The Scholemaster was reprinted in 1571 and 1589. It was edited by the Rev. J. Upton in 1711 and in 1743, by Prof. J. E. B. Mayor in 1863, and by Prof. Edward Arber in 1870. The Toxophilus was republished in 1571, 1589 and 1788, and by Prof. Edward Arber in 1868 and 1902. (A. F. L.) ASCHERSLEBEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, 36 m. by rail N.W. from Halle, and at the junction of lines to Cöthen and Nienhagen. Pop. (1900) 27,245; (1905) 27,876. It contains one Roman Catholic and four Protestant churches, a synagogue, a fine town-hall dating from the 16th century, and several schools. The discovery of coal in the neighbourhood stimulated and altered its industries. In addition to the manufacture of woollen wares, for which it has long been known, there is now extensive production of vinegar, paraffin, potash and especially beetroot-sugar; while the surrounding district, which was formerly devoted in great part to marketgardening, is now turned almost entirely into beetroot fields. There are also iron, zinc and chemical manufactures, and the cultivation of agricultural seeds is carried on. In the neighbourhood are brine springs and a spa (Wilhelmsbad). Aschersleben was probably founded in the 11th century by Count Esico of Ballenstedt, the ancestor of the house of Anhalt, whose grandson, Otto, called himself count of Ascania and Aschersleben, deriving the former part of the title from his castle in the neighbourhood of the town. On the death of Otto III. (1315) Aschersleben passed into the hands of the bishop of Halberstadt, and at the peace of 1648 was, with the bishopric, united to Brandenburg. ASCIANO, a town of Tuscany, in the province of Siena, 19 m. S.E. of the town of Siena by rail. Pop. (1901) 7618. It is surrounded by walls built by the Sienese in 1351, and has some 14th-century churches with paintings of the same period. Six miles to the south is the large Benedictine monastery of Monte

ASCITES (Gr. ȧoxirns, dropsical, from άoκós, bag; sc. vooos, disease), the term in medicine applied to an effusion of non-inflammatory fluid within the peritoneum. It is not a disease in itself, but is one of the manifestations of disease elsewhere-usually in the kidneys, heart, or in connexion with the liver (portal obstruction). Portal obstruction is the commonest cause of well-marked ascites. It is produced by ❘ (1) diseases within the liver, as cirrhosis (usually alcoholic) and cancer; (2) diseases outside the liver, as cancer of stomach, duodenum or pancreas, causing pressure on the portal vein, or enlarged glands in the fissure of the liver producing the same effect. Ascites is one of the late symptoms in the disease, and precedes dropsy of the leg, which may come on later, due to

ascitic fluid. In ascites due to heart disease, the dropsy of the feet and legs precedes the ascites, and there will be a history of palpitation, shortness of breath, and perhaps cough. In the ascites of kidney troubles there will be a history of general oedema-puffiness of face and eyes on rising in the morning probably having attracted the attention of the patient or his friends previously. Other less common causes of ascites are chronic peritonitis, either tuberculous in the young, or due to cancer in the aged, and more rarely still pernicious anaemia.

B.C.

ASCLEPIADES, Greck physician, was born at Prusa in Bithynia in 124 B.C., and flourished at Rome in the end of the 2nd century He travelled much when young, and seems at first to have succeed, but he acquired great reputation as a physician. He settled at Rome as a rhetorician. In that profession he did not founded his medical practice on a modification of the atomic or corpuscular theory, according to which disease results from an irregular or inharmonious motion of the corpuscles of the body. His remedies were, therefore, directed to the restoration of harmony, and he trusted much to changes of diet, accompanied by friction, bathing and exercise, though he also employed emetics and bleeding. He recommended the use of wine, and in every way strove to render himself as agreeable as possible to his patients. His pupils were very numerous, and the school formed by them was called the Methodical. Asclepiades died at an advanced age.

ASCLEPIADES, of Samos, epigrammatist and lyric poet, friend of Theocritus, flourished about 270 B.C. He was the earliest and most important of the convivial and erotic epigrammatists. Only a few of his compositions are actual "inscriptions "; others sing the praises of the poets whom he specially admired, but the majority of them are love-songs. It is doubtful whether he is the author of all the epigrams (some 40 in number) which bear his name in the Greek Anthology. He possibly gave his name to the Asclepiadean metre.

ASCLEPIODOTUS, Greek military writer, flourished in the 1st century B.C. Nothing is known of him except that he was a pupil of Poseidonius the Stoic (d. 51 B.C.). He is the supposed author of a treatise on Graeco-Macedonian tactics (Taktika Kepáλaia), which, however, is probably not his own work, but the skeleton outline of the lectures delivered by his master, who is known to have written a work on the subject.

ASCOLI, GRAZIADIO ISAIA (1829-1907), Italian philologist; of Jewish family, was born at Görz, and at an early age showed a

AND ASCUS

ASHANTI

ash requires much light, but grows rapidly, and its terminal shoots pierce easily through thickets of beech, with which it is often associated. Unmixed ash plantations are seldom satisfacthrows up strong root shoots. The tory, because the foliage does not sufficiently cover the ground; but when mixed with beech it grows well, and attains great height and girth. Owing to the dense mass of roots which it sends out horizontally a little beneath the surface of the ground, is therefore obnoxious as a hedgerow tree. Coppice shoots yield excellent hop-poles, crates, hoops, whip-handles, &c. The the ash does much harm to vegetation beneath its shade, and timber is much used for agricultural implements, and by coachbuilders and wheelwrights.

ASCUS (Gr. ȧokós, a bag), a botanical term for the mem- | drawn up free from large side-branches. The tree is easily branous sacs containing the reproductive spores in certain propagated from seeds; lichens and fungi. Various compounds of the word are used, e.g. ascophorous, producing asci; ascospore, the spore (or sporule) developed in the ascus; ascogonium, the organ producing it, &c. ASELLI [ASELLIUS, or ASELLIO], GASPARO (1581-1626), Italian physician, was born at Cremona about 1581, became professor of anatomy and surgery at Pavia, and practised at Milan, where he died in 1626. To him is due the discovery of the lacteal vessels, published in De Lactibus (Milan, 1627). ASGILL, JOHN (1659-1738), English writer, was born at Hanley Castle, in Worcestershire, in 1659. He was bred to the law, and gained considerable reputation in his profession, increased by two pamphlets-the first (1696) advocating the establishment of some currency other than the usual gold and silver, the second (1698) on a registry for titles of lands. In 1699, when a commission was appointed to settle disputed claims in Ireland, he set out for that country, attracted by the hopes of practice. Before leaving London he put in the hands of the printer a tract, entitled An Argument proving that, according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scripture, Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life without passing through Death (1700). Coleridge has highly praised the "genuine Saxon English," the "irony" and "humour" of this extraordinary pamphlet, which interpreted the relation between God and man by the technical rules of law, and insisted that, Christ having wiped out Adam's sin, the penalty of death must consequently be illegal for those who claim exemption. How far it was meant seriously was doubted at the time, and may be doubted now. But its fame preceded the author to Ireland, and was of material service in securing his professional success, so that he amassed money, purchased an estate, and married a daughter of the second Lord Kenmare. He was returned both to the Irish and English parliaments, but was expelled from both on account of his "blasphemous " pamphlet. He was also involved in money difficulties, and litigation about his Irish estate, and these circumstances may have had something to do with his trouble in parliament. In 1707 he was arrested for debt, and the remainder of his life was spent in the Fleet prison, or within the rules of the king's bench. He died in 1738. Asgill also wrote in 1714-1715 some pamphlets defending the Hanoverian succession against the claims of the Pretender.

ASH' (Ger. Esche), a common name (Fr. frêne) given to certain❘ trees. The common ash (Fraxinus excelsior) belongs to the natural order Oleaceae, the olive family, an order of trees and shrubs which includes lilac, privet and jasmine. The Hebrew word Oren, translated "ash" in Isaiah xliv. 14, cannot refer to an ash tree, as that is not a native of Palestine, but probably refers to the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis). The ash is a native of Great Britain and the greater part of Europe, and also extends to Asia. The tree is distinguished for its height and contour, as well as for its graceful foliage. It attains a height of from 50 to 80 ft., and flowers in March and April, before the leaves are developed. The reddish flowers grow in clusters, but are not showy. They are naked, that is without sepals or petals, and generally imperfect, wanting either stamens or pistil. The large leaves, which are late in appearing, are pinnately compound, bearing four to seven pairs of gracefully tapering toothed leaflets on a slender stalk. The dry winged fruits, the so-called keys, are a characteristic feature and often remain hanging in bunches long after the leaves have fallen in autumn. The leaves fall early, but the greyish twigs and black buds render the tree conspicuous in winter and especially in early spring.

The ash is in Britain next in value to the oak as a timber-tree. It requires a good deep loam with gravelly subsoil, and a situation naturally sheltered, such as the steep banks of glens, rivers or lakes; in cold and wet clay it does not succeed. As the value of the timber depends chiefly on its toughness and elasticity, it is best grown in masses where the soil is good; the trunk is thus

The homonym, ash or (pl.) ashes, the residue (of a body, &c.) after burning, is a common Teutonic word, Ger. Asche, connected with the root found in Lat. ardere, to burn.

has simple leaves. It occurs wild in woods in Europe and England. Another variety of ash (pendula) is met with in which A variety of the common species, known as var. heterophylla, the branches are pendulous and weeping. Sometimes this variety is grafted on the tall stem of the common ash, so as to produce a pleasing effect. It is said that the weeping variety (crispa) occurs with curled leaves, and another with warty stems and branches, called verrucosa. was first observed at Gamlingay, in Cambridgeshire. A variety MANNA), a handsome tree with greenish-white flowers and native in south Europe. In southern Europe there is a small-leaved ash, called Fraxinus parvifolia. F. floribunda, a large tree with F. Ornus is the manna ash (see terminal panicles of white flowers, is a native of the Himalayas. In America there are several species-such as Fraxinus americana, the white ash; F. pubescens, the red ash; and F. sambucifolia, the black ash.

from the common ash. It is called Pyrus Aucuparia, and belongs The 64 mountain ash" belongs to a totally different family includes also apples, pears, &c. Its common name is probably due to its resemblance to the true ash, in its smooth grey bark, to the natural order Rosaceae, and the tribe Pomeae, which graceful ascending branches, and especially the form of the leaf, which is also pinnately compound but smaller than in the true ash. Its common name in Scotland is the rowan tree; it is well known by its clusters of white blossoms and succulent scarlet fruit. The name of poison ash is given to Rhus venenata, the North American poison elder or sumach, belonging to the Indies is Simaruba excelsa, which belongs to the natural order Simarubaceae. The Cape ash is Ekebergia capensis, belonging Anacardiaceae (Cashew family). The bitter ash of the West of Good Hope. The prickly ash, Xanthoxylon Clava-Herculis (nat. ord. Xanthoxyleae), a native of the south-eastern United to the natural order Meliaceae, a large tree, a native of the Cape States, is a small tree, the trunk of which is studded with corky tubercles, while the branches are armed with stout, sharp, brown prickles.

Mahomet, and lived long enough to accept the mission of the
prophet. He was born in Manfüha, a village of al-Yemama in
A'SHA [MAIMUN IBN QAIS], Arabian poet, was born before
through all Arabia from Hadramut in the south to al-Hira in
the north, and naturally frequenting the annual fair at Okaz
the centre of Arabia, and became a wandering singer, passing
(Ukāz). His love poems are devoted to the praise of Huraira,
a black female slave. Even before the time of Mahomet he is
said to have believed in the resurrection and last judgment,
and to have been a monotheist. These beliefs may have been
due to his intercourse with the bishop of Nejrān (Najrän) and the
'Ibadites (Christians) of al-Hira.
skill in praise and satire, and for the varieties of metre employed.
His best-known poem is that in praise of Mahomet.
their descriptions of the wild ass, for the praise of wine, for their
His poems were praised for

Les Poètes arabes chrétiens (Jesuit press, Beirut, 1890), pp. 357-399
His eulogy of Mahomet has been edited by H. Thorbecke, Al Asa's
His poems have been collected from various sources in L. Cheikho's
Lobgedicht auf Muhammad (Leipzig, 1875).
by the (French) Ivory Coast colony, N. by the British Pro-
ASHANTI, a British possession in West Africa, bounded W.
(G. W. T.)
tectorate known as Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (see