his acquaintance he now began to number the better names of Selden, Oughtred, and Dr. Wharton.

His wealthy marriage involved him in abundance of legal disputes; and at length the lady herself made an attack upon him in chancery; but to his honour serjeant Maynard observed, that in eight hundred sheets of depositions on her part, not so much as an ill word was proved against Mr. Ashmole; and the result was, that her bill was dismissed, and herself re-delivered to her happy spouse.

He had for some time attached himself to the study of antiquity and the perusal of records, which were very happily suited to his talents. He accompanied Sir W. Dugdale in his survey of the Fens, and traced a Roman road to Lichfield. He took a civil leave of hermetic philosophy in the preface to a treatise on the philosopher's stone, which he edited; and began to make collections for the work on which his fairest reputation is built, his "History of the Order of the Garter." For this purpose he was most assiduous in examining the records in the Tower and elsewhere. In a visit to Oxford he drew up a full description of the coins given to that university by archbishop Laud. His love for botany had induced him to take up his residence at the house of the celebrated gardener of Lambeth, John Tradescant. This person and his father had made a great collection of curiosities, which he, with the concurrence of his wife, made over to Ashmole by a deed of gift signed in December 1659. On the restoration, Ashmole was very graciously received, both as a loyalist and a man of learning, by the king, who appointed him to the suitable post of Windsor herald, and committed to his care a description of the royal medals. He was also made a commissioner and afterwards comptroller of the excise; was called to the bar in the Middle Temple, and admitted a fellow of the newly constituted royal society. Various other employments were successively bestowed upon him, as well honourable as lucrative, and Oxford presented him with the diploma of doctor of physic. His second wife dying, he soon after married the daughter of his friend, Sir. W. Dugdale. He was now considered as a firstrate literary character, and was visited with respect by the greatest persons in the kingdom. In May 1672 he presented to the king his capital work on the "Order of the Garter," which obtained great applause not only from his majesty, but from all the knights companions and others attached to studies of that kind. It is entitled, "The Institution, Laws, and Ceremo

nies of the most noble Order of the Garter. Collected and digested into one body by Elias Ashmole of the Middle Temple, Esq. Windesore Herald at Arms," fol. Lond. 1672. In 1675 he resigned his office of Windsor herald in favour of his brother-in-law, Mr. Dugdale. On a vacancy in the office of garter king-at-arms some time afterwards, he was thought of for the place, but declined it, and it was given to Sir W. Dugdale. An accidental fire which broke out in the chambers next to his in the Temple, destroyed a library he had been thirty-three years in collecting, with a cabinet of nine thousand coins, and a number of valuable antiquities; but his MSS. and gold medals escaped. In 168; 3, the university of Oxford having finished an edifice for a museum, Mr. Ashmole sent thither his Tradescantian collection of rarities, with the addition he had made to it; and afterwards added to this donation that of his books and MSS. They are the foundation of the Museum Ashmoleanum, now subsisting at Oxford. On the death of Sir W. Dugdale he was offered, but again declined, the place of garter king-at-arms. It appears that his own wish had long been to be appointed historiographer to the order, but for some reason this desire was never gratified. He died in May 1692, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and was interred in the church of Great Lambeth. Besides the works abovementioned as printed in his life-time, he left a number of pieces in manuscript, chiefly on subjects of English antiquities, of which a few have been published; as has likewise a "Diary of his Life," written by himself, which has afforded copious materials for his biographers. The rank he bears in literature may be estimated from the account of his pursuits already given. To class him with our first philosophers and men of letters, and call him, in the words of the Biogr. Britan. "one of the greatest men in the last century," is manifestly ridiculous. Neither the strength of his understanding, nor the nature of his studies, at all justify such a panegyric. But industry, perseverance, curiosity, and exactness, may be allowed him in a high degree; and Antony Wood, in his quaint language, has perhaps, not ill characterised him as "the greatest virtuoso or curioso that was ever known or read of in England before his time." Biog. Britan.-A.

ASHWELL, GEORGE, an English episcopalian divine, born at Harrow on the Hill, in Middlesex, in the year 1612, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford, was rector of Hanwel in Oxfordshire. He was a zealous advocate for the doctrine and worship of the church

of England, and wrote in their defence several treatises: "Fides Apostolica," [A Discourse on the Authors and Authority of the Apostle's Creed] with An Appendix on the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds," printed in 8vo. at Oxford, 1653;" Gestus Eucharisticus," [Concerning the Gesture to be used at the receiving of the Sacrament] in 8vo. at Oxford, 1663; "De Socino et Socinismo;" "De Ecclesiâ Romanâ," 4to. Oxford, 1658. He also translated into English Pococke's Latin translation of an Arabic work, "The Self-taught Philosopher, Hai Ebn Yokdan," by Tophail. Wood, Athen. Oxon. Biog. Brit.-E.

ASPASIA, a Grecian lady more celebrated for her talents than her virtue, was a native of Miletus, and daughter of one Axiochus. Settling at Athens, in the profession of a courtesan, and even of a procuress, she excited as much admiration by the accomplishments of her mind as the beauty of her person. She was a proficient in rhetoric, and was well versed in philosophy and political science; and even the wise Socrates (such were the manners of the time) did not think it misbecame him to cultivate an acquaintance with her, and receive lessons from her. Her house was frequented by persons of character, who even brought their wives to be her auditors. The great statesman Pericles was so much attached to her, that after maintaining for some time an illegitimate commerce with her, he divorced his wife and married Aspasia. She was supposed to have a great influence over his political conduct; and the war against Samos, in order to assist the Milesians, is imputed to her. The satirists of Athens also accused her of being the author of the war with Megara, (which was the commencement of the Peloponnesian war) in revenge for the seisure of two of her damsels by the Megarians, who only retaliated a similar outrage of the Athenians. Aspasia was criminally prosecuted by Hermippus, a comedian, on the two charges of impiety and procurement; and it required all the tears and entreaties of Pericles to save her. After the death of Pericles she attached herself to a man of mean condition, whom, by her interest, she raised to the first offices of the state. Plutarch. in Vit. Pericl. Athenæus. Aristophanes. Bayle.-A. ASPASIA, daughter of Hermotimus of Phocæa, a person of mean circumstances, was originally named Milto, and was brought up with no other advantages than nature gave her. She neither possesssed nor wished for foreign ornaments to set off a person exquisitely beautiful, and decorated with modesty and feminine softness. The commander for Cyrus, brother of

Artaxerxes Mnemon, in those parts, took her away by force along with other maids of the country, and sent her to his master. Here she so much distinguished herself from her companions by the reserve and repugnance with which she received the advances of Cyrus, that he became deeply enamoured with her, and treated her more like a wife than a concubine. He gave her the name of Aspasia, in honour of the subject of the preceding article, whose renown had pervaded all Lesser Asia. She participated in his counsels, and accompanied him in his expeditions. She used her power with great moderation; and, contented with making the fortune of her father, she showed herself indifferent to wealth and splendor on her own account. She dexterously obtained the favour of the imperious Parysatis by respectful attention; and her chief magnificence was displayed in her offerings to Venus, whom she esteemed the patroness of her fortunes. After the fatal battle in which Cyrus lost his life fighting against his brother, she fell into the conqueror's hands, over whom she soon gained an influence almost equal to that she had possessed with her former master. The remainder of her story, as related by Plutarch and Justin, almost surpasses the bounds of credibility. They assert that Darius, son of Artaxerxes, on being publicly declared his successor, and, according to custom, allowed to demand a favour, asked of his father his Aspasia; and that the fair one, being allowed to make her choice between the father and son, preferred the latter. It is further added that Artaxerxes, jealous of his gift, took her out of his hands, by making her priestess of Diana, which bound her to perpetual continence; an artifice so mortifying to Darius, that it occasioned him to rebel. As Darius was fifty when declared successor to the throne, this precious object of contention. must then, by calculation, have been about her seventy-fifth year! [In the passage of Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes, where Darius's age is thus stated, some read twenty-five; and the length of Artaxerxes, reign is abridged near twenty years by Diodorus] If there is any truth in the story, the event must probably have happened in an earlier period of Darius's life, perhaps when he came of age. Bayle's Dict. A.

ASSELYN, JOHN, a painter, was born in Holland about 1610. He was brought up under Isaiah Vanden-Velde, a battle painter, at the Hague, and afterwards travelled into France and Italy. He studied at Rome, and was particularly an imitator of the manner of Bambochio. The Flemish community of students gave him the

name of Krabbete, on account of the crooked ness of his hand and fingers; but no traces of this defect appear in his paintings, which are remarkable for the freedom and lightness of their touch. During his residence in Rome he was perpetually copying nature in the environs of that city-villages, remains of antiquity, animals, human figures, all were with great rapidity committed to paper, so that he acquired a prodigious stock of studies of this kind. On his return he staid some time at Lyons, where he gratified the curious with his designs. In this city he married the daughter of a merchant of Antwerp, and brought her with him to Amsterdam in 1645. He was received with great applause by his countrymen, and his example first gave the Dutch painters the idea of imitating the clear and natural manner of colouring landscape so much admired in Claude Lorrain, and quitting their dark and sombre style, with the prevalent blue and green tints of Paul Bril and Breugel. Asselyn was in great vogue at Amsterdam, and obtained a high price for his paintings, which were history pieces, battles, but chiefly landscapes with antiquities, and men and animals, represented with great truth and admirable brilliance of colouring. They are highly esteemed; and a set of twenty-four of his landscapes and ruins has been engraved by Perelle. Asselyn died at Amsterdam in 1650. D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres.-A.

ASSER, or ASSERIUS MENEVENSIS, an English divine, bishop of Salisbury, lived in the ninth century. He was born in Wales, and took the monastic habit among the Benedictines at St. David's. He was appointed secretary to the bishop of Sherbourn, and afterwards preceptor to the son of Alfred, which prepared the way for his advancement to the see of Sherbourn. It is said, that it was by the advice of this bishop that Alfred founded the university of Oxford; but the time when this university was founded has been a subject of much dispute. Asser wrote the "Life of Alfred," which was first published by archbishop Parker in the old Saxon character at the end of his edition of Thomas Walsingham's History, printed in folio, at London, in 1574; and reprinted the next year at Zurich. The life was brought down by Asser only to his forty-fifth year, or, according to his computation, the year of Christ 893; the rest has been added from authors of later date. Another work, under the title of "Asserius's Annals," was published by Dr. Gale, in folio, at Oxford, in 1691. It has been doubted, whether his name has not been prefixed without sufficient authority to a collection, which, at its first ap

pearance, was anonymous: but the learned édi, tor makes no question of its authenticity; and the copious manner in which it treats of the fortunes of Alfred favours this opinion. Asserius has the reputation of a very faithful historian. The time of his death is fixed by Godwin in 883, but by Cave in 909. Godwin de Præsul. Voss. de Hist. Lat. lib. ii. c. 39. Nicholson's English Historical Library, p. 47. ed. 1736. Cav. Hist. Lit.-E.

ASSER, a Jewish rabbi of the fifth century, wrote, with the assistance of Hamai, "The Talmud of Babylon," so called from the city where it was compiled. This collection, commented upon in 547 by the rabbi Mair, and afterwards by another Asser, was printed at Leyden, in 4to. in 1630; and with various notes, in twelve volumes folio, at Amsterdam in 1744. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-E.

ASSHETON, WILLIAM, an English episcopalian divine, rector of Beckenham in Kent, was born at Middleton in Lancashire in the year 1641, and was educated at Brazen Nose College, Oxford. He was frequently chosen proctor for Rochester in convocation; a proof that he was thought a worthy representative of his order. In his professional character he appears to have been faithful and assiduous. With a considerable share of ability and learning, and, doubtless, with genuine integrity and purity, he defended the established system of religion; and he wrote several useful pieces on subjects of morality and practical religion. It will not however, at present, be considered as any proof of the liberality of his spirit, or the soundness of his judgment, that he wrote expressly against toleration, and in defence of belief in apparitions. He published his "Toleration disapproved," at Oxford in 1670; and his " Cases of Scandal and Persecution," in 1674. His "Possibility of Apparitions," was occasioned by the story of Mrs. Veal, since prefixed to "Drelincourt on Death." Assheton was a strenuous advocate for monarchy, and in 1685 wrote "The Royal Apology," in defence of James II. yet, in 1688, he happily transferred his loyalty to William and Mary, and wrote, "A seasonable Vindication of their present Majesties;" declaring to the world the reasons which induced him to swear allegiance to them. He wrote against popery, and in defence of the Trinity. This divine is, perhaps, chiefly entitled to memorial as the first projector of the scheme for providing for clergymen's widows and others, by a jointure payable out of the mercers' company. The worthy doctor took great pains to bring this scheme to perfection, and had the sa