Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/401

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
ABC—XYZ

A K C A R C 379 judicature for tlie archbishop s court. After the College of Advocates was incorporated and had established itself in Doctors Commons, the archbishop s court of appeal, as well as his prerogative court, were usually held in the hall of the College of Advocates, but since the destruction of the buildings of the college, the court of appeal has had no settled place of judicature, and the official principal appoints from time to time its sittings, which have been held for the most part in Westminster Hall. The appeals from the decisions of the Court of Arches were formerly made to the king in Chancery, but they are now by statute addressed to the king in Council, and they are heard before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. By 23 Henry VIII. c. 9, the Arches Court is empowered to hear, in the first instance, such suits as are sent up to it by letters of request from the consistorial courts of the bishops of the province of Canterbury ; and by the statute 3 and 4 Viet. c. 86 (the Church Discipline Act) this jurisdiction is continued to it, and it is further empowered to accept letters of request from the bishops of the province of Canterbury after they have issued commissions of inquiry under that statute, and the commissioners have made their report. The official principal of the Arches Court is the only ecclesiastical judge who is empowered to pass a sentence of deprivation against a clerk in holy orders. (T. T.) AECHIDOXA, a town in the province of Malaga, in Spain, situated on the slope of a hill, about 10 miles W.N.W. of Loja. It seems to have been a flourishing place under the Romans, to judge by the statues, columns, and other remains which are found, but it is now, in the words of O Shea, a " wretched village with nothing to visit." The inhabitants, about 7600 in number, are employed in fruit-growing, weaving, oil-pressing, and bacon-curing. ARCHIL, or ORCHIL (Oraeille, Fr.), a purple dye yielded by various species of lichens. The name is supposed to originate from the Portuguese rochet, a rock, in allusion to the source from which the raw material is derived. Archil can be extracted from many species of the genera JiOccella, Lecanora, Umbilicaria, Parmelia, and others, but in practice two species of Roccella, R. tinctoria and R. fuciformis, are almost exclusively used. These, under the name of " Orchella Weed," are imported from the Portu guese colony of Angola, on the west coast of Africa, where the most valuable kinds are gathered ; from Cape de Verde Islands ; from Lima, on the west coast of South America ; and from the Malabar coast of India. They grow on maritime rocks and on trees along sea- coasts, and it will be seen that the species are very widely distributed. The colouring properties of the lichens do not exist in them ready formed, but are developed by the treatment they receive at the hands of manufacturers. Small proportions of a colourless, crystalline principle, termed orcine, is found in some, and in all a series of acid substances, which on treatment split up into orcine and other products. Orcine in presence of oxygen and ammonia takes up nitrogen and becomes changed into orceine, which is essentially the basis of all lichen dyes. Archil is prepared for the dyer s use in the form of a " liquor" and a " paste," and the latter when dried and finely powdered forms the " cudbear " of com merce, a dye formerly manufactured in Scotland from a native lichen, Lecanora tartarea. The manufacturing pro cess consists in washing the weeds, which are then ground up with water to a thick paste. If archil paste is to be made this paste is mixed with a strong ammoniacal solution, and agitated in an iron cylinder heated by steam to about 140 Fahr. till the desired shade is developed a process which occupies several days. In the preparation of archil liquor the principles which yield the dye are separated from the ligneous tissue of the lichens, agitated with a hot ammoniacal solution, and exposed to the action of air. When carbonate of potassium or sodium is added, a blue dye known as litmus, much used in chemical testing, ia produced. French purple or lime lake is a lichen dye prepared by a modification of the archil process, and is a more brilliant and durable colour than the other. The dyeing of worsted and home-spun cloth with lichen dyes was formerly a very common domestic employment in Scotland ; and to this day, in some of the outer islands, worsted continues to be dyed with " crottle," the name given to the lichens employed. Stale urine is the form of ammoniacal liquor used in these localities, and that in early days was the recognised source of ammonia in the manufac ture. ARCHILOCHUS, one of the first Greek lyric poets, was born at Paros, one of the Cyclades. The date of his birth is uncertain, but he flourished between 720 and 680 B.C. His father, Telesicles, was of noble family, and had been selected to consult the Delphic oracle relative to sending out a colony from Paros. His mother, Enipo, was a slave. While still young, Archilochus gained a prize for a hymn to Demeter ; he soon after left Paros and proceeded to Thasos, according to some authorities, as leader of a colony. But his chief reasons for leaving his native place seem to have been personal disappointment and disgust. Lycambes had promised him his daughter Neobule in marriage, and had afterwards withdrawn his consent. Archilochus, taking advantage of the licence allowed at the feasts of Cere?, poured out his wounded feelings in verses of unmerciful satire. Lycambes he accused of perjury, and his daughters of leading the most abandoned lives. Such was the effect produced by his verses, that Lycambes and his daughters are said to have hanged themselves. The satire was written in iambics, a measure introduced for the first time, and from its structure admirably adapted for light sarcastic poetry. At Thasos the poet passed some unhappy years, and incurred the great dishonour of throwing away his shield and fleeing from the field of battle. He does not seem to have felt the disgrace very keenly, for, like Alcseus and Horace, he commemorates the event in his verses. After leaving Thasos he is said to have visited Sparta, but to have been at once banished from that city on account of his cowardice. His works, owing to their licentious character, were also prohibited by the Spartans. He next visited Siris, in lower Italy, a city of which he speaks very favourably. He then returned to his native place, and was slain in a battle against the Naxians by one Calondas or Corax, who was cursed by the oracle for having slain a servant of the Muses. The writings of Archilochus consisted of elegies, hymns, one of which used to be sung by the victors in the Olympic games, and of poems in the iambic and trochaic measures. To him certainly we owe the invention of iambic poetry and its application to the purposes of satire. The only previous measures in Greek poetry had been the epic hexameter, and its offshoot the elegiac metre ; but the slow measured structure of hexameter verse was utterly unsuited to express the quick, light motions of satire. Archilochus made use of the iambus and the trochee, and organised them into the two forms of metre known as the iambic trimeter and the trochaic tetrameter. The trochaic metre he generally used for subjects of a serious nature; the iambic for satires. He was also the first to make use of the arrangement of verses called the epode. Horace in his metres to a great extent follows Archilochus. All ancient authorities unite in praising the poems of Archilochus, in terms which appear to be somewhat exaggerated. His verses seem certainly to have possessed strength, flexibility, nervous vigour, and, beyond everything else, impetuoiis vehemence and energy. Horace speaks of the "rage" of Archilochus, and

Hadrian calls his verses " raging iambics." By his country-