however ingenious, that he drew from sources to which scarcely any one had access but himself. It may indeed be doubted whether in some cases he did not prefer the office of a commentator and critic, from conscious inability to fulfil the more humble duties of a faithful translator. It has been shown by the first living Chinese scholar, Stanislas Julien, in his recent translation of LaouTsze, that the opinion that the Chinese were familiar with the notion of a Trinity some centuries before Christ, founded by Amiot on a passage in that philosopher, was based on an erroneous translation of the passage, which, rightly rendered, contains nothing to support it; and Amiot, though never so entirely deviating from his original as Cibot, is fond of mixing up Chinese commentaries with texts, and his own ideas with both, to a degree which has rendered recent inquirers cautious of making use of his writings. In his his torical statements he may be observed to show a decided leaning to the Chinese. (Sir G. Staunton, Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, ii. 161.; Sir G. Staunton the younger, Miscellaneous Notices relating to China, 2d edit. p. 80.; Gabelentz, E'lémens de la Grammaire Mandchoue, p. 10, &c.; Abel Remusat, Récherches les Langues Tartares, i. 97.; Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, xxviii. 158, &c.; Mémoires concernant l'Histoire, &c. des Chinois (the 15th vol. of which contains a portrait of Amiot), and all the Works of Amiot quoted.)

sur

T. W.

'A'MIR IBN HAFS, ABU-L-YOKTA'N THE BLACK, was one of the earliest Arabic historians, having died in A. H. 170 (A. D. 786-7). He gave in several works the history and genealogies of the Temím and Ayyad tribes. His writings seem to have been lost at an early date, since we find him quoted only in very ancient historians. (Fihrist, vol. i. MS. of Paris, No. 874.) A. S. AMIRDOLVAT, an Armenian physician of the fifteenth century, was a native of Amasia, a city of Anatolia. He was well versed in the oriental languages, and visited various countries of the East in order to perfect himself in the medical sciences; finally he came to Constantinople, whence he went to Philippopolis, where he seems to have settled. In 1476 he composed a work on medicine in the Armenian language, to which he gave the title "Ankidatz anbed" ("Useless for the Ignorant"). This work forms two volumes folio, and contains the general principles of physiology in five parts: pathology, semeiotics, hygiène and therapeutics. The second volume is devoted entirely to Materia Medica, on which he treats in alphabetical order. Amirdolvat was of opinion that all diseases were based either upon cold or warmth: he consequently divided his the rapeutics into two parts, in the first of which he explains explai the treatment of those diseases

the basis of which is cold (general debility and nervous diseases), and in the second he enters on the treatment of the warm diseases (inflammatory diseases). Amirdolvat also wrote two treatises on the preparation of certain articles of diet, which in some instances may be noxious to health, and in others innoxious. He frequently quotes Greek, Arabic, Assyrian, and Armenian authorities. (Storia Letteraria di Armenia, p. 143.) A. S. AMISTRIS. [AMASTRIS.]

AMLETH, a prince of Jutland about the second century before Christ, according to Saxo Grammaticus, who relates his adventures at great length. By Saxo's account he was the son of Horvendill, a feudatory prince of Jutland, who had married Gerutha, the daughter of Roric, his superior lord, the fifteenth king of Denmark from Danus. Fengo, the brother of Horvendill, inflamed with envy, treacherously murdered him, and, persuading Gerutha that he had done the deed because her husband meditated putting her to death, succeeded to her bed and to the princedom. Amleth, afraid of sharing his father's fate, counterfeited madness, and Saxo relates a number of stories to show with what remarkable sagacity he gave his speeches and actions the appearance of insanity, while in reality they were full of meaning. A courtier of Fengo's suggested a plan of ascertaining if the madness were assumed, by admitting Amleth to an interview with his mother, and he offered to play the spy on their meeting, concealed from both. Fengo consented, and the courtier hid himself in the straw on the floor of Gerutha's apartment. Amleth, suspicious of treachery, when he met his mother began crowing like a cock, and jumping idiotically about the room, till he jumped on the unhappy spy, who, being thus detected, paid for his officiousness with his death. Amleth then addressed his mother on the enormity of her marriage with his father's murderer, aroused her to repentance, and made her the confidant of his intended revenge. Fengo, still disquieted with suspicion, but afraid of provoking Gerutha, conceived the plan of sending Amleth on a mission to England, in company with two of his courtiers, who carried with them letters cut in wood (literas ligno insculptas), requesting the king of England to take Amleth's life. On the voyage, Amleth got possession of the letters, and substituted others, requesting the king to put his companions to death, but to grant to himself his daughter in marriage. The altered instructions were obeyed, and after a year's time Amleth unexpectedly made his reappearance at the court of Jutland, where he had long been supposed to be dead. At a feast which was given in honour of his return he kept himself sober, while he took care to make all the nobles drunk; and while they lay about, he loosened a curtain made by his mother which hung above the hall, and letting it fall on their prostrate bodies, fastened it tight by pegs to the ground, and set the building on fire. He then hastened to the bedchamber of Fengo, who had retired at an earlier period of the evening, aroused him from sleep, informed him of the destruction of all the courtiers, and told him he came to take revenge for the murder of his father. After slaying Fengo, he at first concealed himself; but finding that the usurper's death was not much lamented, he made a speech to the people, unfolding to them the whole of the course he had taken, and was elected to the throne of his father.

This is only the first part of the story of Amleth in Saxo. It is added, that on his returning to England, the king of that country, desirous of revenging the death of Fengo, persuaded him to go on an embassy to a certain Hermutruda, queen of Scotland, to ask her hand in marriage for the king, well aware that Hermutruda, averse to a wedded life, was in the habit of cutting off the head of any one who dared to bring proposals. The scheme signally failed, for Hermutruda, struck with admiration at the wisdom and the good looks of Amleth, made him a speech to persuade him to woo her in person instead of by proxy, and concluded it by rushing to embrace him. This novel mode of courtship subdued Amleth, who returned to England with a second wife, not much, it is to be supposed, to the satisfaction of the king, whose daughter he had already married. In a battle which ensued Amleth was defeated; but with his usual wisdom he resorted, on the next day, to the expedient of propping up the bodies of all of his party who had been slain the day before, and thus presenting an appearance of undiminished strength to the enemy. The English took to flight, and their king was slain, after which Amleth returned to Jutland with both of his wives. Not long after, he was slain in battle by Vigleth, the successor of Roric, who complained that Amleth had taken possession of his father Horvendill's princedom without soliciting the permission of his superior lord. The faithless Hermutruda, who had urged Amleth to the combat, transferred her affections to the victor.

This story, which is accompanied in Saxo with a number of ridiculous incidents not necessary to mention, bears about it all the evidence of being derived from some ancient poem or fictitious narrative. The circumstance that some of the sayings of Amleth recorded by Saxo as evincing deep sagacity are exceedingly flat in his Latin narrative, while, if translated into Icelandic, they contain a play upon words, points to an Icelandic saga as the probable source of his statements. But this original saga (if it ever existed) is now lost. "With regard to the Amleth of Saxo," says Torfæus, an Icelander by birth, whose book on the kings of Den

mark was published in 1702, "when I was a boy I often heard the story of Amlod related in Iceland by old women, and such sort of people, and even in that tender age only looked upon it as a fiction. But after I was grown up and had read it as set forth and adorned by the eloquence of Saxo, I laid aside my first notions about it as puerile. I continually entreated all my friends to look out for this history for me in every direction, and they often expressed their regret to me in letters at not being able to succeed. At last, some years ago, I obtained it, and found it not at all worth reading, being a silly old woman's story, and recently put together, stating among other things that Amlod was not a Dane, but a Spaniard. It is plain that it was written after the time of Tamerlane (about 1400), because some of his actions are inserted." P. E. Müller, in his "Critical Researches on the Sources of Saxo," mentions that there are two Icelandic stories, one the Amloda Saga, a free translation of Saxo's narrative; the other, Amboles Saga, a more extravagant tale, with the same main outlines. It is evident that if Müller is correct in his statement of the existence of two sagas, that of "Ambole" must be the one mentioned by Torfæus. A copy of this story, which has never yet found its way into print, is in a collection of Icelandic manuscripts, purchased of Finn Magnusson in 1837 for the British Museum, and forms part of volume 11,158 of the "additional manuscripts" of that repository. It is divided into forty chapters, and occupies a hundred and one rather closely-written quarto pages. The name of the hero is given as Amlooda on the last page, but elsewhere as Amboles; the scene is laid in Spain and Southern Europe; and the names of the other characters are Solomon, Gamaliel, &c. This saga seems to deserve the contempt with which Torfæus treats it.

Johannes Magnus, in his history of Sweden, mentions Horvendill, Feugo (not Fengo), and Amleth, whom he represents as having successively usurped the crown of Denmark, in opposition to Roric, or Roderic, whom their rebellion drove into Sweden. In a quotation from a poet named Snæbiorn given in a sort of Icelandic "Gradus ad Parnassum," called "Skalda," affixed to Snorro Sturleson's "Edda," the sea is called "Amloth's mill," which is an allusion to one of the prince's witty sayings recorded in Saxo. Torfæus mentions that in Iceland in his time the word "Amlod" was still used to signify a simpleton, a circumstance which may admit of two interpretations: that the name was given to the prince because he was a simpleton, or that simpletons were so called from their resemblance to him. That such a person as Amleth existed seems to be also supported by national tradition. Saxo mentions that there was in his time (about 1200) in Jutland "a field distinguished by the tanus, whose history of Denmark was published in 1631, in recording his defeat by Vigleth, states that it took place "in campo Amlethi dicto" (" in the spot called Amleth's field"). On the other hand it is seen how little reliance can be placed upon a tradition of this sort, by the ease with which one seems to have crept into existence about "Hamlet's garden." A place bearing this name is now shown to travellers in the vicinity of Elsinore as the spot upon which Hamlet's father was murdered. Saxo states that Fengo murdered his brother, but does not mention where, in what manner, or under what circumstances. Belleforest, from whose spiritless and garbled version of Saxo, Shakspere borrowed the first materials of his immortal drama of Hamlet, takes the liberty of adding that Fengo slew Horvendill at a banquet; so that in all probability the incident of the murder in the garden was first introduced in the English play, and the tradition has crept into existence since that play became known in Denmark, which was certainly within the last hundred years.

Whatever may be thought of Saxo's story, his chronology must of course be rejected. Torfæus, who endeavoured to fix the dates of the ancient history of Denmark on the authority of the Icelandic sagas, transferred the reign of Roric, or, as he calls him, Hrærec Slongvanbaug, from the second century before Christ to the sixth century after. Dahlmann, the most recent investigator of ancient Danish history, seems inclined to admit the possible existence of a Hamlet, on the ground that Eginhard, the contemporary chronicler of Charlemagne, who is supposed to have died about the year 840, confirms the existence of independent princes of Jutland. Holberg, Baden, and Petersen, and most of the other recent historians of Denmark, regard the whole story as baseless, while Müller thinks it must have had some foundation. (Saxo Grammaticus, Historia Danica, edit. of P. E. Müller and Velschow, i. 135-161.; P. E. Müller, Critisk Undersögelse af Danmarks og Norges Sagnhistorie, eller om Troværdigheden af Saxos og Snorros Kilder, p. 42-44.; Joannes Magnus, De omnibus Gothorum Sveonumque Regibus, p. 95, 96.; Pontanus, Rerum Danicarum Historia, p. 19, 20.; Pontoppidan, Gesta et Vestigia Danorum extra Daniam, ii. 22-24.; Torfæus, Series Dynastarum Daniæ, p. 238.302.; Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dännemark, i. 19.; P. E. Müller, Sagabibliothek med Anmærkninger, iii. 480.; Sir J. Carr, A Northern Summer, p. 89.)

T. W.

AMLING, CARL GUSTAV, a celebrated German designer and engraver of the seventeenth century; Heineken terms him a painter also. He was born at Nürnberg in 1751, and after he had made himself master of drawing and engraving in his native place,

cured him the notice of the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian II., who at his own cost sent Amling to Paris, that he might perfect himself in his art. Amling studied in Paris with F. de Poilly, one of the most able engravers of his time, and acquired much of that artist's style of execution, although he never equalled him. Upon his return to Munich he was appointed court engraver to the Elector, and he passed the remainder of his life in that capital. He died, according to Doppelmayr, in his fiftieth year, in 1701, with the reputation of the best engraver of Germany of his time; Heineken, however. mentions two plates by Amling which are dated 1702.

Amling's prints are numerous, and are generally marked "C. G. ab Amling sculp. Monachii." Heineken has given a long list of his works. He engraved many portraits, several of which were drawn from life by himself. He engraved in a large size the portraits of the various members of the reigning electoral family of Bavaria, which are among his best works. His historical pieces are inferior to his portraits. Of Amling's historical prints, the most interesting are twenty-two plates engraved from the tapestries in the palace at Munich, after the designs of Pietro Candido; they were not published, but were engraved and printed for the Elector, who gave the prints as a mark of favour to those of his friends whom he wished to distinguish. J. A. Zimmermann also engraved some plates from these tapestries. Amling's plates consist of thirteen, representing the histories of the Emperor Otho, Louis of Bavaria, and Otho of Wittelsbach; the Four Seasons; Day and Night; and the months September, October, and December. Sandrart speaks of the works of Amling with great praise. Amling engraved several plates for Sandrart's " Deutsche Academie," among them the frontispiece to the first volume ; but it is a plate of very little merit. His style is cold and silvery, and wants effect; and although many of his portraits have great merit, his historical pieces are flat, feebly and sometimes incorrectly drawn, are deficient in expression, and unfinished in the extremities: his works are, however, much valued by some collectors. (Doppelmayr, Historische Nachricht von den Nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern; Heineken, Dictionnaire des Artistes, &c.)

R. N. W.

AMMAN, JOHANN, was the son of Johann Conrad Amman, and was born at Schaffhausen in 1707. He studied medicine and took his doctor's degree at Leyden in 1729, when he published an inaugural dissertation, "De Venis in Corpore bibulis," which is often ascribed to his father. But very soon afterwards he gave up medicine that he might devote himself to natural history, and especially to botany, which had been the favourite study of his youth. He became curator of the botanical part of Sir Hans Sloane's museum, and, at his recommendation, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1733 he was appointed professor of botany and a member of the Academy of Sciences at Petersburg, and he resided there, occupying himself entirely with natural history, till his death in 1742. An extensive library of botanical works, which he had collected, was purchased after his death, and incorporated with that of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

J. Amman's chief work was "Stirpium rariorum in Imperio Rutheno sponte provenientium Icones et Descriptiones." Petersburg, 1739, 4to. It contains descriptions and thirty-five plates of those of the rare plants of Russia, which were not mentioned in the "Centuriæ" of Buxbaum. The descriptions are drawn up partly from the observations made in Siberia by Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt and Johann Georg Gmelin, and partly from Amman's own examinations of the plants whose seeds had been collected by them in Siberia, and by Hainzelmann in Tartary, and which had grown in the garden of the academy at Petersburg. Many short notices are also given from the diary kept by Messerschmidt in his travels. [MESSERSCHMIDT, D. G.] The plates are well engraved from drawings made, for the most part, from the living plants in Kamtchatka. Sprengel has given a list of the plants which are described for the first time in this work. Amman's other writings are papers on botany and natural history in the "Commentarii Academiæ Scientiarum Petropolitanæ," t. viii. -xiii., the titles of which are given by Richter. (Richter, Geschichte der Medicin in Russland, iii. 268.; Sprengel, Geschichte der Botanik, ii. 198.; J. Amman, Works.) J. P. AMMAN, JOHANN CONRAD, was born at Schaffhausen. About the year 1690 he settled at Amsterdam, having left Schaffhausen soon after he had been induced by the members of some religious sect to which he belonged to decline a medical professor

work entitled "Surdus loquens, dat is wiskonstige beschrywinge op wat wyze man doof geborene sal konnen leeren spreken," Haarlem, 1692, 8vo., which was afterwards repeatedly published in Latin, French, and German, and was translated into English by Dr. Daniel Foot in 1694. The most numerous editions were in Latin, with the title "Dissertatio de Loquela," and from one of these, published in 12mo. at Amsterdam in 1700, the following account is taken of the system which the author followed in practice, and of the principles on which it was founded, both of which are interesting as well in a philological as in a medical view.

In the first chapter he treats briefly of speech and voice in general, and of the simple non-sonorous breathing. He supposed the voice to result from the vibrations of the whole larynx, produced by the conflict of the contracting muscles and the elastic cartilages, and propagated thence to the head and chest; and he points out this vibration as a character which the deaf must learn by feeling the larynx, in order that, before being taught anything else, they may know how to distinguish between vocal speech and that which is merely whispered. He enters also on a discussion of the origin of speech and of the various languages, the obscurity of which contrasts strongly with his clearness and simplicity in speaking of matters of fact or practice; and he describes briefly the organs of speech.

In the second chapter Amman treats of the nature of letters, and explains the modes of forming them. "Letters," he says, "as they are enunciated, are the voice or breath. or both together, variously shaped by the organs destined to speech." He speaks especially of German letters, which alone, as the most simple and definite in their pronunciation, he taught his patients, and had considered in the first edition of his work; but in the later editions he draws many illustrations from other European languages. He classifies all letters according to the appearances which are presented to the eye or touch in pro

tised medicine for several years in Holland, and gained a very high reputation for teaching the deaf and dumb to speak; an art in which he far surpassed all his predecessors, and for his attainment in which he deserves much more credit than is commonly awarded to him. The year and place of his death are unknown.

Amman's chief predecessors in teaching the dumb were Petrus Pontius, Franciscus Mercurius Van Helmont, Dr. John Wallis, and William Holder, whose systems, so far as they are known, will be mentioned in their several biographies; but he was unacquainted with their writings, and his whole system was of his own discovery or invention. He first published his account of it in a little

their sound or their philological import; and in this view he says it is essential to consider the semi-vowels and consonants in their simplest form by dissociating them from the vowels which are added to them in calling them by their names: p, for example, must be regardly simply, not as pe; f not as ef; and this, he adds, should be made clear in teaching languages as well to those who can hear as to those who are deaf. In the same view he says that each class of letters vowels, semi-vowels, and consonants - may best be resolved into three divisions, accordingly as they are formed at the throat, the palate, or the teeth.

The vowels he divides into simple or uniform (a, e, i, j, y, o, u, w,) and mixed, in