ASTERIUS, a native of Antioch, and bishop of Amasea in Pontus, in the fourth century. He was the author of many sermons, part of which were published by Rubenius, and part by Cambesis and Richer. There is a sermon attributed to him on St. Peter and St. Paul, but on doubtful authority, in which the supremacy of the successors of St. Peter is maintained over all the churches both of the East and West. ASTESANO, (Antonio di,) was born in 1412, at Aste, in Piedmont. He wrote the History of Aste in elegiac verses. It has been published by Muratori, Scrip. Rer. Ital. vol. xiv. (Biog. Univ.) ASTLE, (Thomas,) an eminent archivist and antiquarian writer, was born in 1735, being the son of Mr. Daniel Astle, who was keeper of Needwood Forest, in Staffordshire. He was introduced at an early period of life into the British Museum, where he was employed in forming an index to the catalogue of the Harleian MSS. In 1763, he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; and about that time was selected by Mr. Grenville, then first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, to be joined in commission with Sir Joseph Ayloffe and Dr. Ducarel, for superintending the regulation of the public records at Westminster, a work, to the due performance of which there were obstacles not easily to be overcome. In 1765, through the patronage of the Grenville family, he was appointed receiver-general of the sixpence in the pound on the civil list. It was in 1766 that the plan was formed for the publication of the rolls of parliament, one of the most important bodies of public records. Mr. Astle was consulted respecting the design, and finally he and his father-inlaw, Mr. Morant, the author of the History of Essex, conducted the work through the press. It forms six folio volumes. It was about the time when this undertaking was completed, that Mr. Astle was appointed chief clerk in the record office at the Tower, and subsequently keeper of the records there; an appointment which he held till his death, in 1803. One of his latest works was connected with the records in that depository, the publication of an old calendar, which had been formed of a portion of the documents entered on the patent rolls, which publication was recommended by the committee of the House of Commons on the public records, in their report of 1800, out of which the record commission arose. This calendar has been much censured, on account of its imperfection, by those who did not observe that there was no intention in the compiler of it to make it a complete calendar of the documents on the patent rolls; but only of those which appeared to possess an interest and value above that which belonged to the other entries. Mr. Astle was also connected with the StateHe died at Battersea paper office. Rise, and was buried in the church of Battersea, where is a monument to his memory. Beside the works on which he was engaged, of which notice has already been taken, Mr. Astle was the author of various communications to the Society of Antiquaries, which are printed in the Archæologia, and in the Vetusta Monumenta. These are for the most part on subjects of considerable antiquarian interest, and they all evince the extent and variety of his archæological knowledge. He published, in 1775, the Will of king Henry VII., with a preface and notes. In 1777 there was published, in an 8vo volume, a catalogue of the MSS. in the Cottonian library, with an appendix, and a catalogue of the charters preserved in the same library. This catalogue was prepared by Mr. Astle. The catalogue of the MSS. has been superseded by the more extended and more complete catalogue prepared by Mr. Planta; but this is the only printed work which contains any catalogue of the charters in that library. In 1784 appeared the work by which Mr. Astle is better known, entitled The Origin and Progress of Writing, as well Hieroglyphic as Elementary; of which a second edition appeared in 1803. (Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century.) ASTLEY, (Sir Jacob,) Lord Astley of Reading, a very eminent soldier, and one who had a chief command in the king's army in the time of the civil wars. He was the second son of Isaac Astley, of Melton-Constable, in the county of Norfolk, esq., and entered very early on a military life, serving under Maurice and Henry, princes of Orange, in the Low Countries. He was, while in this service, at the battle of Newport, and the siege of Ostend. He then entered the service of Christian IV. king of Denmark, and Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and gained great renown. On the breaking out of the civil wars, he entered the service of the king, whom he served with great fidelity and courage. Lord Clarendon says of him, that "he was an honest, brave, plain man, and as fit for the office he exercised, of major-general of the foot, as Christendom yielded, and was so generally esteemed; very discerning and prompt in giving orders, as the occasion required; and most cheerful and present in any action. In council he used few, but very pertinent words, and was not at all pleased with long speeches usually made there." He was for some time in command of the garrison at Oxford and at Reading, and was present in the field at the battle of Kineton, Brentford, Newbury, and Lostwithiel, beside several encounters of less note. He had a commission as lieutenant-general of his majesty's forces in the counties of Worcester, Stafford, Hereford, and Salop; and was created a peer on the 4th of November, in the 20th of Charles I., by the title of lord Astley of Reading. He died at Maidstone, in Kent, in 1651, and was buried in the church of that town. One of his sons, Sir Barnard Astley, was a colonel in the king's service, and slain at the siege of Bristol. The title became extinct on the death of Sir Jacob's grandson in 1688. ASTLEY, (John,) a painter, who was pupil of Hudson, was born at Wemm, in Shropshire. After leaving Hudson, he visited Rome; and was there at the same time as Sir Joshua Reynolds. On his return to England, he resided some months in London; whence he removed to Dublin, where he made 3000l. in three years. He married Lady Daniel, a widow, who, it is said, offered him her hand; and, at her death, settled on him the estate of Duckenfield, in Cheshire, worth 5000. a year, after the death of her daughter by her first husband, Sir William Daniel, into possession of which he came in a few years. Late in life he remarried, and left a son and a daughter; and died at Duckenfield lodge, Nov. 14, 1787. He was a good artist, and was not deficient in taste for architectural design. (Adams's Biog. Hist.) ASTOLPHUS succeeded to the throne of the Lombards in 749. In 751 he took Ravenna from Eutychius, who was the last of the exarchs, and carried his arms to Rome itself. Pepin, king of the Franks, conducted an army into Italy in 754, overcame Astolphus, and made him sign a peace. Notwithstanding this, Astolphus again raised an army, and ventured to lay siege to Rome. The assistance of Pepin was again required, and again Astolphus was reduced by him to submission. On this occasion, however, the dominions of the exarchate were given to the pope, spite of the protestations of the emperor Constantine Copronymus. The sovereignty of the popes was not, however, at this time securely established in the exarchate. Astolphus was killed by a wild boar, while hunting, in 756. (Biog. Univ. Gibbon.) ASTON, (Sir Arthur,) eminent in the military service of king Charles I., in the time of the civil wars, was of an ancient family in the county of Lancaster, and learned and practised his profession of arms in the wars upon the continent. At the beginning of the civil wars he joined the king, and at the battle of Edgehill had the command of the dragoons, with which he did excellent service. He made a brave defence of Reading for the king; when having received a dangerous wound, he was compelled to leave that place, and was sometime after appointed to command the garrison at Oxford. He gave up the command before the surrender, and went to Ireland, where he was the governor of Drogheda, at the time when the town was taken by Cromwell, and the whole garrison, including the governor himself, was put to the sword. This was in September 1649. Much may be read concerning him in Clarendon. ASTON, (Anthony,) was a person of much notoriety, besides being an actor of considerable celebrity, in the beginning of the last century. The best account of his life is given by himself at the end of his Fool's Opera, to which the Biographia Dramatica assigns the date of 1731, asserting that it was "probably” by him. It is a very rare tract, and was never seen by any of the compilers of that work, or they would have known that it has no date, and that it was certainly the authorship of Anthony Aston. He there tells us that he had figured as "gentleman, lawyer, poet, actor, soldier, sailor, exciseman, and publican,' only in the three kingdoms, but in America and the West Indies. He does not give us the date of his birth; but he states that his father was Richard Aston, Esq., principal of Furnival's Inn, and secondary of the King's Bench office; and his mother the daughter of Colonel Cope, of Drumully castle, Armagh. He was educated at Tamworth, where he was probably born-his father belonging to Staffordshire; and his schoolmasters' names, Ramsey and Antrobus. On coming not to London, he was placed as clerk, first with Mr. Randal, of the Six-clerks' office, and subsequently with Mr. Paul Joddrell. At this time he was in the habit of creeping out to the theatres, and finally took to the stage. "I went," he says, "into the old play-house, and succeeded in many characters," but he does not mention them. They were certainly of a comic cast; and one of them, as we learn from the bills of the day, was Fondlewife, in Congreve's Old Bachelor. In 1717 Aston was giving a performance at the Globe and Marlborough Head, in Fleetstreet, on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which seems to have been a speculation solely on his own account; for he got up a piece which he called a medley, selected from various comedies and farces, in which he and his wife and son performed. His Fool's Opera purports to have been acted by Mr. Aston, sen., Mr. Aston, jun., Mrs. Motteux, and Mrs. Smith; and facing the title-page is a wood-cut representing all four in their characters of the poet, the fool, the lady, and the maid. It was produced after the Beggar's Opera in 1727, and in burlesque imitation of it. In another rare work by Aston, called, A Brief Supplement to Colley Cibber, Esq., his Lives of the famous Actors and Actresses, without date, but printed after 1742, he informs us that he first took to the stage in the latter end of the reign of William III., "when Dogget left it, and Joe Haines was declining in years and reputation" but Dogget returned to the boards in 1701, and continued upon them until 1712. Anthony Aston was of a volatile character, and irregular life, and never continued long in any London theatre, preferring to travel round the country with his medley, levying precarious contributions in different towns where he was well known and usually much followed. The Biographia Dramatica informs us, that, in 1735, "he petitioned the House of Commons to be heard against the bill, then pending, for regulating the stage; and was permitted to deliver a ludicrous speech;" but we hear nothing of it in the parliamentary history of that period, and the published address, purporting to have been then delivered, is obviously a mere joke. He seems to have been a very merry, jovial companion, and secured many friends in all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Chet wood, who wrote his History of the Stage in 1749, believed that Aston was still travelling with his medley; but after this date we hear no more of him, or his family. Chetwood assigns to Anthony Aston, Love in a Hurry, which was never printed, but acted in Dublin in 1709; and his name is upon the title-page of another drama, called Pastora, or the Coy Shepherdess, performed at Tunbridge Wells, and printed in 1712. His only production of any value is his Supplement to Colley Cibber, already mentioned, which contains some information regarding actors and actresses not preserved elsewhere. ASTON, (Sir Thomas,) was the son of John Aston, of Aston, in Cheshire, Esq. He entered at Brazennose college, Oxford, in 1626; and was created a baronet in 1628. He engaged in the king's service in the rebellion, and was killed in 1645, as he was in the act of making his escape from prison. He wrote A Remonstrance against Presbytery, A Short Review of the Presbyterian Discipline, and A Brief Review of the Institution of Bishops. He also made a collection of petitions presented to the king and parliament. (Biog. Brit. Wood Ath.) ASTON, (Sir Walter,) the eldest son and heir of Sir Edward Aston, of Tixall, in Staffordshire, by Anne, his wife, the daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford-upon-Avon, was born at Charlecote, about the year 1579. His father died in 1598, and his wardship was given to Sir Edward Coke, the eminent lawyer. Inheriting an ample fortune, and being the representative of an ancient house, he was early noticed by king James I., by whom he was made a knight of the bath soon after he came of age, and by whom also he was created a baronet at the first institution of that order. In 1618 he was appointed steward of the honour of Tutbury, and keeper of the royal forests in the counties of Stafford and Derby, with the exception of the forest of the High Peak. But in 1619 he was called to the performance of more important services, being sent ambassador to Spain, to negotiate the marriage of prince Charles with the infanta. Here he became a Roman catholic, though he had been brought up a protestant, in which profession his mother's family, the Lucys, had been singularly zealous. On his return to England, he was created a peer of Scotland, by the title of Baron Aston of Forfar. The letters patent were dated November 28, 1627. In 1635 he was sent again into Spain, from whence he returned in 1638, and died in the follow- Sir Walter Aston was a friend of Fanshaw the poet; but he is more particularly connected with the literature of his age by his patronage of Drayton, who was his esquire on the occasion of his being made a knight of the bath, and who dedicated to him one of his England's Heroical Epistles. He alludes also to the favours he had received from Sir Walter in his Polyolbion "Trent, by Tixall graced, the Astons' ancient seat, Which oft the Muse bath found her safe and sweet retreat." There is an engraved portrait of Sir Walter Aston in Sir Thomas Clifford's Historical Description of the Parish of Tixall-a work printed at Paris in 1817, together with many other particulars of the Astons and their transactions. ASTORGA, (Emanuele, Baron d',) a Sicilian by birth, was an elegant musical composer. In the beginning of the last century he was at the court of Vienna, and was greatly favoured by the emperor Leopold. From thence he is supposed to have gone to Spain. He was at Lisbon some time, and afterwards at Leghorn, where becoming acquainted with some English merchants, he was induced to visit England. He remained a winter or two in London, and then went to Bohemia. In 1776 he composed at Breslau a pastoral drama, called Daphne, which was performed with great applause. He excelled in vocal composition; and his cantatas, in particular, are by the Italians most esteemed. Dr. Burney says, his best are Quando penso; Torne Aprile; and In questo core; in which, he says, "there is expression, grace, and science, devoid of pedantry.' The Academy of Ancient Music have a copy of his Stabat Mater, one of his best compositions; and a considerable portion of it has been introduced into Latrobe's Selection of Sacred Music. (Mus. Biog. Burney's Hist. of Mus. iv. 178. Dict. of Mus.) societies, and carried on an extensive correspondence with the first scholars of the age. He published several pieces on classical and antiquarian subjects in the Galleria di Minerva and other collections. He died in 1743. (Biog. Univ.) ASTORINI, was born in the kingdom of Naples in 1651, and died in 1702. He was translator of Euclid's Elements, and Apollonius on Conic Sections. (Dict. Hist.) ASTRAMPSYCHUS, the author of a small poem, in Greek iambics, on Dreams, which is to be found at the end of Rigault's edition of Artemidorus. The time at which he lived is uncertain. (Biog. Univ.) ASTRONOMUS, or the ASTRONOOMUS, MER, a name which, in the absence of his real name, has been given to a French historian, who lived in the eighth and ninth centuries, at the court of Louis le Debonnaire. Nothing is known of his personal history, except that it appears from his book, that he held some office or dignity attached to the court, and that he was a distinguished astronomer. After the death of Louis, his patron, he wrote a history of that monarch's reign, which is still preserved, and is much valued. It will be found in the large collections of the French historians. (Hist. Lit. de Fr. v. 49.) ASTRUA, (Giovanna,) one of the most celebrated and most excellent singers of the last century, born at Turin, 1725. After some successful trials at the Italian operas, she went, in 1747, to Berlin, where she first sung in the opera Il ne Pastore, of which the words and music were composed by Frederic II. of Prussia, and Messrs. Quanz and Nichelmann. From her first appearance, she was engaged by the king, at a salary of 6000 thalers a year, a very great sum in those times. A pulmonic complaint obliged her soon to retire from the stage, and she died in Italy, in 1758. ASTRUC, (John, 1684-1766,) a celebrated French physician, the son of a protestant minister, and born at Sauves, in Lower Languedoc. He received the rudiments of his education from his father, who having, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, preferred to abjure rather than quit his native country, had devoted himself to the profession of an advocate, and to the education of his two children. Astruc acquired, under the tuition of his parent, considerable general knowledge, and a taste for literature, which greatly distinguished his perform T ances in after life. He was sent to the university of Montpellier, where he took a master of arts degree in 1700, and that of a bachelor of medicine in 1702, upon which occasion he delivered and defended a thesis on the cause of fermentationThesis Medica de Causâ Mechanicâ Motûs Fermentativi, Monsp. 1702, 12mo. This treatise espouses the doctrine of Descartes, long before refuted. At the time of its publication, however, it was attacked by the celebrated anatomist and physiologist Raymond Vieussens, and Astruc responded, in a modest manner, in a tract entitled, Responsio critica Animadversionibus R. Vieussens in Tractatum de Causâ Motûs Fermentativi, Monsp. 1702, 4to. The remarks of Vieussens served, however, to lay the basis of an animosity, the fruits of which are evident in some of the writings of Astruc, by the meagre manner in which he estimates his genius and talents. Astruc took the degree of doctor of medicine January 25, 1703, but he did not then commence practice. He resolved upon making himself intimately acquainted with the writings of ancient and modern professors, and devoted himself entirely to his studies, and attendance at the hospitals. In 1706, Chirac, a cele brated surgeon and teacher, was called to accompany the duke of Orleans with the army, and his chair of medicine was filled by Astruc during his absence, in the years 1707, 1708, and 1709. Astruc contributed two papers to the Transactions of the Academy of Montpellier in 1708: 1. Mémoire sur les Pétrifications de Bontonnet, petit Village près de Montpellier, Mont. 1708, 8vo. This paper is only worthy of notice for having combated an opinion then prevalent, that petrifactions and fossils, in general, were to be regarded merely as the sports of nature. 2. Conjectures sur le Redressement des Plantes inclinées à l'Horizon, Montp. 1708, 8vo. In 1710 he published Dissertatio Physico-Anatomica de Motu Musculari, Monsp. 1710, 12mo, which is altogether an elegant composition, and was thought worthy of a place in the Theatrum Anatomicum of Mangetus. The author espouses the doctrine of the mechanical philosophers, especially of Borelli, on this subject, and contends that the muscular fibre is composed of a chain of vesicles, on which the nervous fluid acts, by distending or enlarging them, and thus producing contractions and relaxations of the muscles. In this year he obtained by concours (public ex amination and disputation) a professorship of anatomy and medicine in the university of Toulouse, and commenced his lectures in the following year, in which he printed another work, entitled, Mémoire sur la Cause de la Digestion des Alimens, Montp. 1711, 4to, which was read at the Society of Medicine of Montpellier, and is to be found in a Collection of the Memoirs of the Society, published at Lyons in 1766, 4to. It led to a more extended work, published at Toulouse in 1714, in 12mo, Traité de la Cause de la Digestion, où l'on refute le Nouveau Système de la Trituration et du Broyement, et où l'on prouve que les Alimens sont digérés et convertis en Chyle par une véritable Fermentation. From the adoption of the principles of the mathe matical physiologists by Astruc in general, it is rather remarkable that he should in this work have abandoned them, and sought for an explanation of the phenomena of digestion in the process of fermentation, a theory as difficult to sustain as that to which he was opposed. Astruc fancied he saw a resolution of all difficulties in the discovery of a species of fermentation produced by the saliva and pancreatic juices, which he regarded as the principle of the digestive process. Further researches have shown, that to no one principle can digestion be referred; but that its explanation is to be found in an union of mechanical, chemical, and vital forces. Astruc's work involved him in a controversy, and to one of his antagonists he replied in a work entitled, Epistolæ quibus respondetur epistolari Dissertationi Thomas Boeri de Concoctione, Toulouse, 1715, 8vo. Astruc gained great reputation by his opposition to the lucubrations of the mathematical philosophers on this subject, and was esteemed so highly as to be selected by Chirac and Vieussens to arbitrate on a difference of opinion held between them on a subject of physiology, relative to the presence of an acid in the blood, to the discovery of which both professors laid claim, and Astruc proved them both to be in error. To the credit of Chirac, it must be stated that it established for Astruc his friendship, which was evinced by his obtaining for him the promise of succession to the chair he then filled in the university. An opportunity, however, presenting itself, by the death of Chastelain, he obtained an appointment as professor in the university of Montpellier, and commenced teaching in 1717. In 1718 Astruc published, Dissertatio |