during the Civil War he was himself editor of the New York Illustrated News. In 1865 he moved to Boston and was editor for ten years for Ticknor and Fields—then at the height of their prestige—of the eclectic weekly Every Saturday, discontinued in 1875. From 1881 to 1890 he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Meanwhile Aldrich had written much, both in prose and verse. His genius was many-sided, and it is surprising that so busy an editor and so prolific a writer should have attained the perfection of form for which he was remarkable. His successive volumes of verse, chiefly The Ballad of Babie Bell (1856), Pampinea, and Other Poems (1861), Cloth of Gold (1874), Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Jerome’s Beautiful Book (1881), Mercedes and Later Lyrics (1883), Wyndham Towers (1889), and the collected editions of 1865, 1882, 1897 and 1900, showed him to be a poet of lyrical skill, dainty touch and felicitous conceit, the influence of Herrick being constantly apparent. He repeatedly essayed the long narrative or dramatic poem, but seldom with success, save in such earlier work as Garnaut Hall. But no American poet has shown more skill in describing some single picture, mood, conceit or episode. His best things are such lyrics as “Hesperides,” “When the Sultan goes to Ispahan,” “Before the Rain,” “Nameless Pain,” “The Tragedy,” “Seadrift,” “Tiger Lilies,” “The One White Rose,” “Palabras Cariñosas,” “Destiny,” or the eight-line poem “Identity,” which did more to spread Aldrich’s reputation than any of his writing after Babie Bell. Beginning with the collection of stories entitled Marjorie Daw and Other People (1873), Aldrich applied to his later prose work that minute care in composition which had previously characterized his verse—taking in a near, new or salient situation, and setting it before the reader in a pretty combination of kindly realism and reticent humour. In the novels, Prudence Palfrey (1874), The Queen of Sheba (1877), and The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), there is more rapid action; but the Portsmouth pictures in the first are elaborated with the affectionate touch shown in the shorter humourous tale, A Rivermouth Romance (1877). In An Old Town by the Sea (1893) the author’s birthplace was once more commemorated, while travel and description are the theme of From Ponkapog to Pesth (1883). Aldrich died at Boston on the 19th of March 1907.
His Life was written by Ferris Greenslet (1908).
ALDRINGER (Altringer, Aldringen), JOHANN, Count von (1588–1634), Austrian soldier, was born at Diedenhofen (Thionville) in Lorraine. After travelling as page to a nobleman in France, Italy and the Netherlands, he went to the university of Paris. In 1606 he entered the service of Spain, in which he remained until 1618, when he joined the imperial army. Here he distinguished himself in the field and in the cabinet. Made a colonel in 1622, two years later he was employed on the council of war and on diplomatic missions. At the bridge of Dessau in 1626 he performed very distinguished service against Ernst von Mansfeld. He and his constant comrade Matthias Gallas (q.v.) were ennobled on the same day, and in the course of the Italian campaign of 1630 the two officers married the two daughters of Count d'Arco. Aldringer served as Count Rambold Collalto’s major-general in this campaign and was present at the taking of Mantua. The plunder of the duke of Mantua’s treasures made Gallas and Aldringer wealthy men. Back in Germany in 1631, he served after Breitenfeld as Tilly’s artillery commander, and, elevated to the dignity of count of the Empire, he was present at the battle of the Lech, where he was wounded. When Tilly died of his wounds Aldringer succeeded to the command. Made field-marshal after the assault of the Alte Veste near Nuremberg, at which he had been second in command under Wallenstein, duke of Friedland (with whom he was a great favourite), he was next placed at the head of the corps formed by Maximilian I. of Bavaria to support Wallenstein. In this post his tact and diplomatic ability were put to a severe test in the preservation of harmony between the two dukes. Finally Count Aldringer was won over by the court party which sought to displace the too successful duke of Friedland. After Wallenstein’s death Aldringer commanded against the Swedes on the Danube, and at the defence of Landshut he fell (July 22, 1634). His great possessions descended to his sister, and thence to the family of Clary and Aldringen.
See Brohm, Johann von Aldringen (Halle, 1882), and Hermann Hallwich, Johann von Aldringen (Leipzig, 1885); also Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, s.v. Gallas, correcting earlier biography of Aldringer in the same work.
ALDROVANDI, ULISSI (1522–1605), Italian naturalist, was born of noble parentage at Bologna on the 11th of September 1522. He was apprenticed to a merchant in Brescia, but a commercial career being distasteful to him, he turned his attention to law and medicine, studying first in his native town and afterwards at Padua. In 1550 he was accused of heresy, but succeeded in clearing himself before the Inquisition. In 1553 he took his doctor’s degree in medicine at Bologna, and in the following year was appointed professor of philosophy and also lecturer on botany at the university. In 1560 he was transferred to the chair of natural history. At his instance the senate of Bologna established in 1568 a botanical garden, of which he was appointed the first director. About the same time he became inspector of drugs, and in that capacity published in 1574 a work entitled Antidotarii Bononiensis Epitome, which formed the model for many subsequent pharmacopoeias. He was also instrumental in founding the public museum of Bologna, which contains, especially in the natural history department, a large number of specimens collected by him. The results of his various researches were embodied in a magnum opus, which was designed to include everything that was known about natural history. The first three volumes, comprising his ornithology, were published in 1599, and a fourth, treating of insects, appeared in 1602. After his death a number of other volumes were compiled from his manuscript materials, under the editorship of several of his pupils, to whom the task was entrusted by the senate of Bologna. The work was enriched by a large number of illustrations prepared at great expense, the author having, it is said, employed several celebrated artists for thirty years. Among these were Lorenzo Benini of Florence and Christopher Coriolanus of Nuremberg. It has been said, indeed, that the cost of the undertaking was so great as to exhaust its author’s means, and that he died penniless and blind in the public hospital of Bologna. This, however, is probably incorrect, at least as regards the allegation of poverty. Published records of the senate of Bologna show that it liberally supported Aldrovandi in his undertaking, doubling his salary soon after his appointment as professor, and bestowing on him from time to time sums amounting in all to 40,000 crowns. If, therefore, he died in the public hospital, he probably went there for the better treatment of his disease. His death occurred on the 10th of May 1605. Aldrovandi was chiefly remarkable for laborious and patient research. He seems to have been totally destitute of the critical faculty, and hardly any attempt is made in his great work to classify facts or to distinguish between the true and the fabulous, the important and the trivial. Much is thus included that is of no scientific value, but it also contains much information of very great interest to the naturalist.
ALE, an old word for a fermented liquor obtained chiefly from malt. In England “ale” is nowadays practically synonymous with “beer.” Before the introduction of hops into England from Flanders in the 16th century ale was the name exclusively applied to malt liquor, the term beer being gradually introduced to describe liquor brewed with an infusion of hops. This distinction does not apply at the present time, except in so far as the term ale is not applied to black beers (stout and porter) nor to lager beer. In the United States, however, it is customary to confine the designation beer to the article obtained by the bottom fermentation process. In former times the Welsh and Scots had two distinct kinds of ale, called common and spiced ales, the relative values of which were appraised by law in the following terms: “If a farmer have no mead, he shall pay two casks of spiced ale, or four casks of common ale, for one cask of mead.” There are numerous varieties of English ales, such as mild ale, which is a full, sweetish beer, of a dark colour and with relatively little hop; pale ale, which is relatively dry, of light colour and of a more pronounced hop flavour than the mild ale;
