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A U G I E R — AUGUSTA
poet Auersperg gained great reputation by the anonymous Walks of a Vienna Poet (1831), a collection of lyrics displaying the humour, tender feeling, and power of natural description which continued to characterize him, and which excited especial attention by so pronounced a hostility to Metternich’s despotic system that the author was obliged to print them at Hamburg. Subsequent volumes under the pseudonym of u Anastasius Grim ” were no less successful, and in 1850 Auersperg further endeared himself to his countrymen by an epic of popular life, Der Pfaff von Kohlenberg. If not the greatest of Austrian poets, he is the most typically national. Among his works is a version of the English ballads of the Robin Hood cycle. , (R. G.)x Augier, Guillaume Victor £mile (18201889), French dramatist, who with Dumas and Sardou, may be said to have held the French stage during the second empire, was born at Valence in Drome on the 17th September 1820. He received a good education and studied for the bar. In 1844 he wrote a play in two acts and in verse, La Gigu'e, refused at the Theatre Frangais, but produced with considerable success at the Odeon. This settled his career. Thenceforward, at fairly regular intervals, either alone or in collaboration with some wellknown writer—Musset, Sandeau, Labiche—he produced plays which were in their way eventful, and in the case of the Fils de Giboyer—which was regarded as an attack on the clerical party in France, and only brought out by the direct intervention of the emperor—-caused some political excitement. His last comedy, Les Fourchambault, belongs to the year 1878. After that date he wrote no more, restrained by an honourable fear of producing inferior work. The Academy had long before, on the 28th January 1858, elected him to be one of its members. He died in his house at Croissy on the 25th October 1889. Such, in briefest outline, is the story of a life which Augier himself describes as “without incident”—a life in all senses honourable. The man respected himself and his art, and his art on its ethical side—for he did not disdain to be. a teacher—has high qualities of rectitude and selfrestraint. Uprightness of mind and of heart, generous honesty, as M. Jules Lemaitre well said, constituted the very soul of all his dramatic work. Nor are exemplifications far to seek. In the Manage dOlympe (1855) the courtesan is shown as she is, not glorified as in Dumas’s Dame aux Camelias. In Gabrielle (1849) the husband, not the lover, is the sympathetic, poetic character. In the Lionnes pauvres (1858) the wife who sells her favours. comes under the lash. Greed of gold, social demoralization, lust of power, these are satirized in Les Effrontes (1861), Le Fils de Giboyer (1862), Contagion (1866), Lions et Renards (1869)—which, with the Gendre de M. Poirier, reach the high-water mark of Augier’s art ; while in Jean de Thommeray (1873), brought out after the great reverses of 1870, the regenerating note of patriotism rings high and clear: But it would be unfair to suggest that Augier was a preacher only. He was a moralist in the great sense, the sense in which the term can be applied to Moliere and the great dramatists—a moralist because of his large and sane outlook on life. Nor does the. interest of his dramas depend on elaborate plot. It springs from character and its evolution. His men and women move as personality, that mysterious factor, dictates. They are real, several of them typical. Augier s first drama, La Cigue, belongs to a time (1844) when the romantic drama was on the wane • and his almost, exclusively domestic range of subject scarcely lends itself to lyric outbursts of pure poetry. But his verse, if not that of a great poet, has excellent dramatic qualities, while the prose of his prose dramas is admir-
able for directness, alertness, sinew, and a large and effective wit. Perhaps it wanted these qualities to enlist laughter on his side in such a war as he waged against false passion and false sentiment. (f. t. m.) Augsburg", a town and episcopal see of Bavaria, Germany, chief town of the district of Swabia, on the river Lech, 39 miles W.N.W. from Munich by rail. The newer buildings, all in the recently built W. quarter of the city, include law courts, theatre, and municipal library, with 150,000 vols. Augsburg is particularly well provided with special and technical schools. It has become a centre of the acetylene gas industry of Germany, and the number of artisans engaged in its various works now exceeds 19,000. Population (1885), 65,905; (1900), 89,109. AugfUSta, a fortified seaport of the province of Syracuse, Sicily, Italy, on an island on the S. side of Cape Santa Croce, on the E. coast of the island, 19 miles by rail N. from Syracuse. It is connected with the mainland by a bridge, and has a spacious harbour, fortified, with a small foreign and some coasting trade. The people cure fish, crush out olive oil, quarry chalk, burn lime, and extract salt. Population, about 14,000. The town was founded in 1232 by the emperor Frederick II., and is memorable for the defeat (1676) of the Dutch admiral De Buy ter by the French under Duquesne, in which De Ruyter was mortally wounded. Augusta., capital of Richmond county, Georgia, U.S.A., in 33° 29' N. lat. and 81° 51' W. long., on the west bank of the Savannah, at the head of navigation and at the falls in the river. These afford a magnificent waterpower, which is extensively utilized in manufactures. The city stands at 143 feet above sea-level, is divided into five wards, is well drained and lighted, and is supplied with water from the Savannah. It is the most important cotton manufacturing centre of the south. In 1890 the cotton factories employed 4500 hands, and their annual product was valued at over $6,000,000. The assessed valuation of real and personal property in 1899 was $18,780,076, the net debt $1,896,469, and the tax rate $24.76 per $1000. Population (1880), 21,891 ; (1890), 33,300; (1900), 39,441, of whom 995 were foreign-born and 18,487 were negroes, Augusta, capital of Kennebec county and of the state of Maine, U.S.A., on the Kennebec, at the head of tide and navigation. Its site is hilly, the land rising sharply from the river on both sides. The city is regularly laid out, and is entered by the Maine Central railway. Few of the streets are paved, and the drainage system is incomplete. There is a fine public library, and the state-house, a beautiful structure, stands on an eminence in the southern outskirts. It has considerable manufactures, chiefly in cotton, wool, and lumber, the falls in the river at this point furnishing water-power. It was settled under the name of Cushnoc in 1754, was afterwards a part of Hallowell, was incorporated as the town of Augusta in 1797, was made the capital in 1827, and received a city charter in 1849. Population (1880), 8665; (1890), 10,527; (1900), 11,683. Augusta, Marie Louise Catherine, Queen of Prussia and German Empress (1811-1890), born at Weimar on the 30th of September 1811, was the second daughter of Charles Frederick, grand-duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, son of Karl August, the patron of Goethe and Schiller. In 1829 she married Prince William, second son of Frederick William III. of Prussia ; her elder sister, Princess Marie, had two years before married Charles, the third son of the king of Prussia, and
