his studies at Cracow, he settled at Lublin, where he was made burgomaster, and also president of the civil tribunal for Jewish affairs. His affairs getting into disorder, he was obliged to seek refuge in the hospital of Lublin, where he died in 1608. The principal of his numerous poetical and satirical works, including his poem, "Victoria Deorum," which took him ten years to finish, and his satire, "Worek Judaszow," or the "Purse of Judas," were destroyed, some by the Polish nobles, and some by the jesuits, and are now very rare.—J. F.
ACE´SEUS or A´CESAS, an ancient Greek artist, celebrated for his skill in embroidery. Several exquisite specimens of his workmanship were to be seen in the temple of the Pythian Apollo, but his masterpiece was the famous mantle of Minerva Polias in the Acropolis of Athens.
ACE´SIUS, a disciple of Novatus, and bishop of Constantinople in the time of Constantine the Great, who, on hearing him, at the council of Nice, urge the rigid views of the Novatians, is said to have exclaimed, "Acesius, make a ladder for thyself, and mount alone to heaven!"
ACEVE´DO, Cristofe, a Spanish painter, pupil of Carducho. He executed several sacred pictures for his native town, Murcia, which are highly estimated. Died 1592.
ACEVE´DO, Felix Alvarez, a Spanish patriot, born in the province of Leon. After studying at Salamanca, he was called to the bar, which he soon quitted to enter the army. As colonel of a regiment, he greatly distinguished himself in the defence of his country against Napoleon. When General Quiroga and Riego proclaimed the constitution in 1820, he took the command of the Galician insurgents, and, joined by crowds of adherents, many of whom issued from the dungeons of the Inquisition, whose doors were then thrown open, he soon drove the royalists from the left bank of the Minho, but was shot by a party of militia while he was attempting to gain them over to the constitutional cause.—E. M.
ACHÆUS of Eretria, a tragic poet, 484 b.c.; another, cousin to Antiochus the Great, and himself a powerful and, for a long time, a successful usurper.
ACHAINTRE, Nicolas-Louis, one of the most famous philologists and scholars of France, was born at Paris, Nov. 19, 1771, and died about 1830. Though destined for the church, he never took orders, but followed the profession of a schoolmaster. During the revolutionary years of 1793, 1794, and 1795, he had to serve in the army, and was at last taken captive and sent to Hungary, where he was detained for twenty-one months. On his return to France, he resumed his profession of teacher, and busied himself with preparing annotated editions of the classics. He was so successful in editing Horace, that the celebrated bookseller, Firmin Didot, made him corrector in his printing establishment, and Achaintre in this capacity gave to the world new editions of Juvenal and Persius. He edited various other Latin works, and translated several Greek and Latin works into French, among which were some philosophical treatises of Cicero, and "The War of Troy," attributed to Dictys of Crete. His latter days were embittered by wretchedness and want, the result of intemperance.—J. D.
ACHARD, an ecclesiastic, born in Normandy, became abbot of St. Victor-lez-Paris in 1155. He was highly respected by Henry II., king of England, who promoted him to the see of Abranches in 1161. His works—still in manuscript—are, 1. "De tentatione Christi," and 2. "De divisione animæ et spiritus." Some writers have confounded him with Achard, a monk of Clairvaux, and friend of St. Bernard.
ACHARD, Antoine, a learned divine, pastor of the French protestant church at Werder in Prussia, author of two volumes of sermons, and an essay in refutation of fatalism, inserted in the Transactions of the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences; born at Geneva in 1696.
ACHARD, Claude François, a French physician, author of various interesting works on the language, topography, and history of Provence; born at Marseilles in 1753; died in 1809.
ACHARD, Franz Karl, a German naturalist and chemist, was born at Berlin, 1753, and died at Kunern, 1821. He was descended from a French protestant family, who, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, took refuge in Berlin. He was director of the physical department of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. He devoted much attention to the manufacture of beet-root sugar, which he carried on at a domain in Silesia, granted to him by the king of Prussia.—J. H. B.
ACHARDS, Eleazar, a French bishop, titular of Halicarnassus, born at Avignon in 1679, and memorable for the humanity and intrepidity he exhibited when Marseilles and Provence were visited by the plague in 1721. Induced to proceed to China in order to appease dissensions among the Roman Catholic missionaries, he died in Cochin in 1741.
ACHA´RIUS, Erik, a Swedish botanist and physician, was born at Gefle, 1757, and died at Wadstena, 1819. After getting the elements of his education at Gefle, he went to the university of Upsal, and studied under Linnæus, who committed to his care the natural history drawings, illustrating the Transactions of the Stockholm Academy of Sciences. He obtained the degree of doctor of medicine at Lund in 1782, and in 1796 was admitted a member of the Stockholm Academy. In 1801 he became professor of botany. His death was caused by apoplexy, at the age of sixty-two. He devoted his attention in an especial manner to lichens, and his works on lichenography, more particularly his "Lichenographia Universalis," published in quarto at Göttingen in 1804, place him among the chief authorities in this department of botany. Thunberg has named a genus Acharia after him. Acharius left an herbarium of 11,000 species, the lichens belonging to which were purchased by the university of Helsingfors.—J. H. B.
ACHARI or ASHARI, a Moslem doctor, and founder of the sect called Asharians, whose distinctive principle is such a view of predestination as virtually amounts to fatalism, was born in the latter part of the 9th century, and died at Bagdad in 936.
ACHEN, Johann van, a German historical and portrait painter, pupil of Jerrigh, whom he quitted in order to perfect himself in his studies in Italy. When he left Rome, he proceeded to Prague, where he executed several works in the Rhadschin. Born at Cologne, 1556; died at Prague 1621.
ACHENWELL, Godfrey, an eminent German economist and jurist, many years professor in the university of Gottingen, and founder of the science of statistics, was born at Elbing in Prussia in 1719. His principal works are—1. "Elements of the Statistics of the principal European States," 1749, 2. "A brief history of the principal existing States of Europe," 1759; 3. "A sketch of European diplomacy during the 17th and 18th centuries," 1756; and 4. "Principles of Political Economy," 1761. Died 1772.—E. M.
ACHE´RY, Luca d', a Benedictine monk, born at St. Quentin in 1609, who spent the greatest part of his life in the abbey of St. Germain-des-prés, devoting himself almost exclusively to mediæval researches. He had a great share in compiling the lives of saints of the Benedictine order, published by Mabillon, and edited numerous rare mediæval works. His principal publication is in 13 vols. 4to, and entitled "Veterum aliquot Scriptorum qui in Galliæ Bibliothecis, maxime Benedictorum, Spicilegium," &c. The Spicilegium contains a mass of curious documents, and the preface and notes with which Achery has enriched each volume, evince an amazing acquaintance with the institutions, history, and literature of the middle ages. Died at Paris in 1685.—E. M.
ACHILLES, the hero of the Iliad, was the son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons in Thessaly, and of the marine goddess Thetis, the daughter of Nereus. In his youth he was intrusted to the care of Phœnix and the centaur Cheiron. His mother foretold him that he might either have a glorious but short life, or a long and inglorious life. He chose the former, and thus became distinguished for his bravery above all the Greeks who fought at Troy. In the first book of the Iliad, Achilles is represented as retiring from the Greek army, because Agamemnon deprives him of a beautiful maiden who had fallen to his lot in the division of the spoil. In consequence of his absence the Trojans gain the superiority over the Greeks, and the Trojan hero. Hector, fights unchecked. At length, however, Achilles yields so far as to give his friend Patroclus his armour, and permit him thus accoutred to enter the lists with the Trojans. Patroclus is killed, and the armour of Achilles is taken. Achilles now no longer hesitates. He equips himself in new armour supplied him by the gods, and, rushing into the battle-field, carries everything before him, until at length he meets and slays Hector. Homer alludes to the death of Achilles, but nowhere describes it. We have given the Homeric account of Achilles. Later traditions added many stories about his youth, about his being invulnerable everywhere except in the heel, and about his dying by a wound from Apollo or from Paris.—J. D.
