voted the hours which could be spared from the duties of his post to the study of natural philosophy. Here also an acquaintance contracted with Mr., afterwards Sir George, Warton, led him into the absurd mysteries of astrology. From Oxford he removed to Worcester, where he was commissioner, receiver, and registrar of the excise; and, soon after, a captain in Lord Ashley's regiment, and comptroller of the ordnance. In 1646, he lost his mother. His father had died in 1634. Grief, and the certainty that the king's affairs were now growing desperate, induced him again to retire into Cheshire, where he continued till the latter part of the year, and then came up to London. In 1647 we find him at Englefield in Berkshire, pursuing his studies and cultivating botany. In this retreat he became acquainted with Mary, the sole daughter of Sir William Forster, of Aldermaston, in the county of Berks, bart. who had been first married to Sir Edward Stafford, then to a Mr. Hamlyn, and lastly to Sir Thomas Mainwaring, knt. recorder of Reading, when an attachment took place, which was much and violently resented by Mr. Humphrey Stafford, lady Mainwaring's second son, who in one instance attempted to murder Mr. Ashmole. In the latter part of 1648, lady Mainwaring conveyed to Ashmole her estate at Bradfield; and on November 16, 1649, they were married. Ample means were now afforded to him in following his pursuits; and his house in London became the resort of learned, eminent, and scientific men. His second marriage, however, involved him in various law-suits; and at last produced a domestic dispute, which, as Ashmole himself states in his diary, came to a hearing in the court of Chancery, on October the 8th, 1657; when Sergeant Maynard having observed, that in eight hundred sheets of depositions taken on the part of lady Mainwaring, not so much as a bad word was proved against her husband; her bill was dismissed, and she delivered back to him. Ashmole, during the whole of these annoyances, continued ardent in the study of the hermetic science; in 1650, though without his name, he published a treatise of Dr. Dee's upon the Philosopher's Stone; and in 1652, with his name, a quarto volume, containing many pieces of our old hermetic philosophers, under the title of Theatrum Chymicum Britannicum.

Ashmole now devoted himself, jointly with chemistry, to the study of antiquity

and records; he accompanied Mr., afterwards Sir William, Dugdale in his survey of the fens; and in 1658 began to collect materials for his History of the Order of the Garter. Soon after the restoration, he was appointed Windsor herald, June 18th, 1660: and on November the 2d in the same year was called to the bar. In 1668, Ashmole lost his second wife and soon after married his third, Elizabeth, the daughter of his friend, Sir William Dugdale. His History of the Order of the Garter, on which his reputation as an antiquary chiefly rests, was presented to the king, May 8th, 1672; who, as a mark of approbation, rewarded him with a privy seal for 4007. In 1675 he resigned the office of Windsor herald; and in 1677, upon Sir Edward Walker's death, might have been made garter king of arms, but waived the appointment in favour of Sir William Dugdale, his father-in-law.

Ashmole was twice invited to represent his native city in parliament, and would have been successful the second time, in 1685, had not king James II. induced him to resign his interest to a Mr. Lewson. He died May 18th, 1692; and was interred at Lambeth.

Ash

Ashmole's manuscripts and library, together with the collection of rarities which he had received from the Tradescants (see the name), were transferred by him in 1682, to the building which the university of Oxford had just completed, as a repository for curiosities. mole's Diary, published from this collection in 1717, and reprinted at the end of Lilly's History of his Life and Times, in 1774, abounds so much in absurd and whimsical facts as to be almost an injustice to Ashmole's memory. His History of Berkshire, in 3 vols, 8vo, republished in folio, was posthumous, and too meagre a compilation from his papers to do him credit. Beside the manuscripts at Oxford, several volumes of Ashmole's collections on chemistry and alchemical science are preserved among Sir Hans Sloane's manuscripts in the British Museum; one of them is his own transcript of Dr. Dee's Liber Mysteriorum, the account of his conference with angels.

ASHMORE, (John,) an English poet of the early part of the seventeenth century, of whom only one work remains, entitled, Certain selected Odes of Horace Englished, and their Arguments annexed; with Poems, ancient and modern, of divers subjects, translated: whereunto are added, both in Latin and English, sundry new Epigrams, Anagrams, and Epitaphs.

4to, 1621. It appears by the subjects of several of the poems, that the author lived in the part of Yorkshire about Ripon. Some account of this rare volume may be seen in the Censura Literaria, vol. ii. p. 411.

ASHMUN, (Jehudi,) who was agent in Liberia to the American Colonization Society, was born at Champlain, New York, in April, 1794; graduated at Burlington college in 1816; and was elected professor in the theological seminary at Bangor, Maine. In this situation, however, he continued for only a short period; and removing to the district of Columbia, joined the episcopal church, and undertook the conduct of the Theological Review. It was at this time that he wrote the Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel Bacon. He also published the first number of a periodical journal for the American Colonization Society; but the work failed from want of support. He was then appointed to conduct a reinforcement to Liberia, for which he embarked on the 19th June, 1822, and arrived at Cape Montserado on the 8th August. On his arrival, by the authority of the society, he took upon himself the office of agent, which he performed with great skill and ability-passing laws, and even superintending the erection of fortifications for the protection of the colonists. He suffered considerably from ill health; and before he had recovered from a severe illness with which he had been afflicted, the settlement was attacked by the savages, who were, although numerically superior, repulsed, and, on their again resuming the conflict, utterly defeated. He was, however, at length compelled-greatly to the regret of the colonists-to return to America, to recruit his health. He arrived at Newhaven on the 10th August, 1828; having been landed at St. Bartholomew. He died a fortnight afterwards, (August 25.) Besides his Memoirs of Mr. Bacon, he published some papers in the (American) Repository.

ASHMUNI, (Ali-ben-Mohammed,) the author of a commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry.

ASHRAF-SHAH, son of Meer Abdullah, succeeded as king of Persia, then conquered by the Ghilji Affghans, on the death of his cousin, Meer Mahmood Shah, April 1725. His reign was at first popular, as he endeavoured to heal the wounds inflicted by the cruelty of his predecessor. He gained a victory over the Turks, which led to an advantageous peace with the Porte; but he sustained

a defeat at Dameghan, from the famous Nadir-Kooli, who had taken arms in Khorassan, in the name of the Soofavi prince Tahmasp; and a second overthrow, in which his entrenched camp was stormed by the Persians, compelled him to abandon Ispahan. A third defeat near Istakhr, (the ancient Persepolis,) reduced his fortunes to the lowest ebb; and in the fear of being delivered up by his own followers to Nadir, he attempted to escape through Seistan to his native country of Affghanistan, but was cut off in the desert, and his head sent to Tahmasp, A.D. 1730. With his life ended the short but destructive rule of the Affghans in Persia. (Hanway. Malcolm. Sheikh Ali Hazin.)

ASHRAF, (Malek al) the son of Timur Tash, and grandson of Júbán, chief emir of Abusaid Khan, Tartar sovereign of Persia. Malek Ashraf, inheriting the rebellious spirit of his father, seized upon the Tartar possessions in Persia, and used the power thus acquired with so little moderation, that many of his subjects fled from his tyranny to the protection of Jani Beg Khán, governor of Kapchak. One of these, expounding the Koran in the mosque, in the presence of Jani Beg, spoke of the scandalous life of Malek Ashraf, and declared that he, and the rest of the tyrant's subjects, would bear witness against his royal hearer in the day of judgment, if he neglected to do what was in his power to repress these enormities. Jani Beg was terrified by this threat, or, perhaps more truly, was glad of a pretext for extending his dominions. He invaded the territories of Malek Ashraf, whom he defeated and slew, (A. D. 1355), took possession of his kingdom, and gained a booty, it is said, of 400 camel's loads of goods and jewels.

ASHTON, (Charles, D. D.) an eminent scholar of the eighteenth century, was one of twelve children of Robert and Dorothy Ashton, of Bradway, a hamlet of the parish of Norton, in the northern parts of Derbyshire, where they lived in matrimony more than sixty years. He was baptized in the parish church of Norton, May 25, 1665, and admitted of Queen's college, Cambridge, 18th May, 1682. He was elected fellow on the 30th of April, 1687. He took orders, became chaplain to Patrick, bishop of Ely, by whom he was presented to the rectory of Rattenden, in Essex. He was also, for a while, chaplain to Chelsea Hospital; but this appointment he resigned, a prebendal stall in Ely being given to him, and

ne being made master of Jesus college. This was done in July 1701, and from that time till his death, more than fifty years, he resided constantly in his college, living the life of a studious recluse. He died, at the age of eighty-six, in March 1752, and was buried in the chapel of his college. He served the office of vice-chancellor.

His reading was chiefly in the writings of the ancients, and especially the fathers, so that he had made great attainments in ecclesiastical antiquities and chronology. He wrote various treatises connected with these subjects, published without his name, and he is best known and remembered by an edition of Justin Martyr, prepared by him for the press, and published after his death by Mr.

Kellett.

ASHTON, (Thomas,) born in 1631, was educated at Brazennose college, Oxford, of which he was elected a fellow. He was, from Wood's account, a forward and conceited scholar, and became a malapert preacher in and near Oxford." He was near being expelled for an offensive sermon preached by him in St. Mary's, and was obliged to quit his fellowship from some quarrel with the principal of his college. He died soon after the restoration. He published two works, of which the commencements of the titles (themselves almost pamphlets) are, Blood-thirsty Cyrus unsatisfied with Blood; or the boundless Cruelty of an Anabaptist's Tyranny; and Satan in Samuel's Mantle; or the Cruelty of Germany acted in Jersey. They were levelled against Colonel Mason, the governor of Jersey. (Biog. Brit. Wood, Ath).

ASHTON, (Thomas,) born in 1716, was educated at Eton, and went from thence to King's college, Cambridge. He was a friend of Horace Walpole, who addressed a letter to him from Florence in 1740, published in his works. He was elected preacher at Lincoln's-inn in 1762, but resigned it in 1764. He died in 1775. He was a popular preacher, and published several of the sermons he delivered on public occasions. He also published some tracts relating to the election of aliens into the vacancies at Eton college. (See Lord Orford's Works. Nicol's Life of Bowyer. Cole's MSS. in Brit. Mus.)

-1. Fides Apostolica, Oxon. 1653, which Baxter impugned, but afterwards expressed his sorrow for having done so. 2. Gestus Eucharisticus, Oxon. 1663. 3. De Socino et Socinianismo. 4. De Ecclesiâ, Oxford, 1688. He had the character of a peaceable and religious man, and of being well versed in logic, the schoolmen, and the fathers. He was many years rector of Hanwell, in Oxfordshire. (See Biog. Brit. Wood, Ath.)

ASHWELL, (John,) prior of Newnham abbey, near Bedford, has had his name preserved by George Joye, one of the English Protestant reformers in the reign of king Henry VIII., who published, while in exile at Strasburgh, a copy of a letter which Ashwell had addressed to his diocesan, the bishop of Lincoln, concerning the errors maintained by Joye, then fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, together with Joye's answer to the same. The title of this rare and curious tract may be read in Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual, and some account of the contents of it in the Retrospective Review, vol. ii. of the New Series, page 96.

ASHWELL, (Thomas,) a church composer of the time of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. Many of his works are still preserved at Oxford. (Dict. of Mus.)

ASHWORTH, (Caleb, D. D.) was born, not in Northamptonshire, as is said in the General Biographical Dictionary of Alexander Chalmers, but in Lancashire, where his father, Richard Ashworth, was the pastor of a congregation of Baptist Dissenters, at a place called Clough-Fold, in Rossendale, in the wilder parts of the county. There his father died in 1751, at the age of eighty-four. He had three sons, all of whom were ministers among the Protestant Dissenters, but only this son attained to any eminence. He was born in 1721; became a student for the dissenting ministry in an academy at Northampton, over which Dr. Doddridge presided, in 1739, at which time he was only eighteen years of age, which renders improbable another statement in the work above alluded to, that he had been brought up to the business of a carpenter. It is certain that he passed with much credit through the course of study prescribed at Northampton. In 1746 he became minister of a dissenting congregation at Daventry; first as assistant to an old minister there, and afterwards as the sole minister. In this connexion he continued till his death, which happened on July 18, 1775.

Dr. Doddridge died in 1751, and in his last will earnestly recommended to the trustees of Coward's Foundation, by whom scholarships were provided for many of the young men educated for the dissenting ministry in his academy, that they should transfer the scholars on his decease to Mr.Ashworth, as the person who appeared to him best qualified to carry out plans of education which had been highly approved by the dissenting public. With this recommendation they complied, and Mr. Ashworth, for whom there was soon after obtained a diploma of D. D. from one of the universities of Scotland, was placed in a station, which, among the Protestant Dissenters, is looked upon as one of honour, as it also is one of great responsibility and difficulty, the tutor and principal of an institution in which academical learning is taught to the young men destined for the ministry among them. Over this institution Dr. Ashworth presided for twenty-three years, during which period he had many young persons entrusted to his care, who afterwards became eminent in the religious body to which they belonged, and some of them also as writers on theology or in general literature.

The date of the death of Dr. Ashworth, and also his age, are mistated in the work above referred to, where they stand thus, 1774 and 65. It appears by the inscription on his monument at Daventry, printed in Baker's History of Northamptonshire, vol. i. p. 332, that he died July 18, 1775, aged fifty-four. In that inscription it is said that," with indefatigable application, with genuine and well-regulated zeal, and with growing reputation and success, he exerted his eminent abilities and extensive acquaintance with sacred and human literature in the service of his great Master, and in promoting the important interests of fearning, religion, and charity." Dr. Ashworth printed three funeral sermons, preached by him on the deaths of three ministers, Dr. Isaac Watts, James Lloyd, his predecessor at Daventry, and Samuel Clark of Birmingham. He was also the author of a grammar of the Hebrew language, and an Introduction to the Knowledge of Plane Trigonometry.

AŠICO, ESICO, or EZICO, the name of a person mentioned in the legends of the ninth and tenth centuries, but to whose history, and that of his castle Ascaria, or Ascania, and the fact of the first margraves of Brandenburg being descended from

him, and the counts de Ascheria, or Ascania, the charters of those times afford but a doubtful clue.

ASINARI, (Frederic, count de Camerano,) a nobleman of Asti, in Piedmont, flourished about 1550. In his youth he followed the profession of arms, but he was no less distinguished as a poet. His poems are published in different collections. 1. Two sonnets, in the Scelta di Rime di diversi excellenti Poeti, by Zabata, 1579. 12. Four canzoni and a sonnet in the Muse Toscane of Borgogni, 1594. 3. Several pieces in Borgogni's Rime di diversi illustri Poeti, Venice, 1599. 4. He published in 1587 a tragedy, entitled Il Tancredi. (Biographie Universelle.)

ASINIUS POLLIO (C., B.C. 76 to A.D. 4.) The family of Asinius came originally from Teate (Chieti), a large and populous town on the right bank of the Aternus (Pescara), in the territory of the Marrucini. (Sil. Ital. Punicor. viii. 521, xvii. 457.) Caius, with whom, probably, the name of Pollio was introduced into the family of the Asinii, was born at Rome, B.C. 76, where his father, Cneius Asinius, who is otherwise unknown, resided. According to Velleius, (2, 128,) the Asinii had the rank of Equites. Pollio received an excellent education; he studied assiduously and successfully eloquence, philosophy, and literature; and entered with reluctance upon the public duties which Rome exacted from every citizen whose birth or talents were not wholly obscure. The civil wars which pervaded through so considerable a portion of his life, and which drew him into the dangerous maze of party collision, he regretted less, perhaps, as a patriot, than as a student whose leisure was interrupted. (Cic. ad Fam. 10, 31.) His public history begins with the year 54 B.C., when he impeached the late tribune C. Cato, for his activity in 56 in procuring a second consulship for Pompey and Crassus. And before he had attained the age at which he was legally allowed to sue for the lowest magistracies, he was distinguished for the number of his speeches on public and important causes. (Quintil. Inst. Or. 12, 6, 1.) The political feelings or principles of Asinius were not, however, determined by his early forensic life. In the year 48, when the long-contending parties in Rome once again embodied themselves under Cæsar and Pompey, Asinius attached himself to the Cæsareans. In January, 49, he was present at the passage of the Rubicon;

and shortly after, went under the command of Curio, to Sicily and Africa. After the defeat and death of Curio on the Bagradus, Asinius collected the remains of the army, and, with great difficulty, rejoined Cæsar, then preparing to cross the Ionian sea in pursuit of Pompey. He was present at Dyracchium and Pharsalia, but without any principal command, and returned to Rome after the latter engagement. In 47 he is mentioned as one of the principal opponents of Dolabella, and probably as one of the tribunes of the year. In December he accompanied Cæsar to his African campaign. In his history of the civil war, quoted by Plut. Cæsar, 52, Asinius related his share in the repulse of an unexpected attack; and, about the same time, among other rumours unfavourable to Cæsar, it was said at Rome that he had been taken prisoner. In 45 he was with Cæsar in his last campaign with the sons of Pompey; and hence he had some grounds for asserting that at Munda the dictator had no time for that address to the soldiers which appears in the account of the second Spanish war. In the September of this year he returned to Italy, and was probably one of the fourteen prætors whom Cæsar appointed, for the purpose of multiplying honorary distinctions for his friends. (Vell. 2, 73, with Dio. 43, 47.) Before, however, the following March, the memorable "ides," Asinius was again sent into further Spain, with the office of proprætor, to watch the movements of Sextus Pompeius, who, from the wreck of his brother's army, and the numerous clients of his family in that province, had already organized a considerable force. The conduct of Asinius is extolled by Velleius, 1. c.; but it is certain he was defeated, and it is more than probable he was saved only by Marc Antony's directions to Lepidus, who commanded in the nearer Spain, and in Narbonnese Gaul, to conclude a truce with the Pompeians. Many circumstances, indeed, extenuate his ill success. The provincials were devoted to the family and the memory of the elder Pompey. The army of Sextus was superior in number, and its ranks were filled with veterans of the eastern wars, eager to wipe out the defeats of 49 and 45. During the contentions between Antony and the senate, the conduct of Asinius was doubtful, and is explicable only by supposing him averse to the restoration of the aristocratical party, with whom, as a "novus homo," as one who inherited

neither ancient nobility nor remarkable wealth, he had no sympathies; while he distrusted the talents or the principles of the new chiefs of the Cæsareans. His letters in 43 to Cicero and Pansa profess general good-will to liberty and the republic; but beyond professions he took no steps in their behalf. In a letter from Corduba, 16th March, (Cic. ad Fam. 10, 31,) he pleads in excuse of remaining inactive the want of directions from the consuls or the senate. He recommended that the different divisions of the army should be concentrated; but adds, that without the sanction of Lepidus, who was between him and Italy, and of whom and Plancus he betrays either jealousy or distrust, he could neither advance into Gaul, nor cross the mountains. After the engagements in the neighbourhood of Mutina, (ib. ep. 33,) he held the same language; accused the consuls of mismanagement, in not awaiting the arrival of Lepidus, Plancus, and himself; while, at the same time, he regrets the infrequency and tardiness of the reports that reached him in Spain; owing to which, and his ignorance and uncertainty as to the real state of affairs in Italy, he had dispersed his own division into winter quarters in Lusitania. In a third letter from Corduba, 8th June, he complains of the attempts made by Antony and Lepidus to entice away his soldiers; speaks with complacency of the peaceful state of his province; and lays on the senate the blame of his inactivity. The union of the leaders of the Cæsareans on the 29th of May, at length determined Pollio. Yet he hesitated to declare himself openly, until, in August, Octavianus, as consul, compelled the senate to revoke the decrees against his colleagues and himself, when, at the head of three legions, he passed over to the triumvirs. His adhesion was the more valuable, since he induced Munatius Plancus, with a nearly equal force, to follow his example. Asinius was appointed consul for 40 B.c.; and, in return, gave up to proscription his father-in-law, L. Quintius. In the interval, Pollio was the lieutenant of Antony in Cisalpine Gaul. To this time is probably to be referred the passage in Macrobius. (Sat. i. 11.) In the Perusine war he rendered but feeble aid to Fulvia and Lucius Antonius, either from reluctance to renew the civil collisions, or doubtful as to the real feelings of Marc Antony. Upon the capture of Perusium, he was superseded in his province by Alfenus Varus; but he rendered impor