ALEXANDER TRALLIAʼNUS ('Aλégavdpos Tpaλλiavós), one of the most valuable of the ancient Greek physicians, was born (as his surname implies) at Tralles, a city of Lydia. His date can be ascertained with tolerable certainty, as he quotes Aëtius, (lib. xii. c. 8. p. 779. edit. Guinter,) who probably lived at the close of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century after Christ; and he is mentioned by Agathias (Hist. lib. v. p. 149.), who wrote his history about the year 565, and also by Paulus Egineta (De Med. lib. iii. cap. 28. vii. 5. 11. 19.), who is supposed to have lived in the seventh century. His father, whose name was Stephanus, was also a physician; and Agathias mentions that he had four brothers, all of whom were distinguished in their several professions. Of the events of his life we merely know that he visited Gaul and Spain, and finally settled at Rome, where he attained to great eminence in his profession. He was probably a Christian, and seems to have been a religious man, though (as was the case with Aëtius) his piety often degenerates into gross superstition. One or two examples of his faith in charms and amulets may be given, especially as it is surprising that an author, who displays so much judgment in other matters, should show so much weakness in this. For epilepsy he recommends a piece of an old sail-cloth taken from a shipwrecked vessel to be tied to the right arm for seven weeks together (lib. i. cap. 20. p. 30.); for the colic he orders the heart of a lark to be fastened to the left thigh (vi. 6. p. 165.); for a quartan ague, a few hairs taken from a goat's chin are to be carried about (x. 6. p. 241.): several other equally ridiculous instances might be given. By way of excuse he tells us that in his time many persons, particularly the rich, were very averse to medicine, and would by no means be persuaded to persist in a proper method; which forced them, says he, to have recourse to amulets and such things as were fondly imagined to effect a cure in a more expeditious manner. (viii. 7. 10. p. 165. 198.) He appears to have written several medical works besides those which are still extant, one of which, Пep Tŵv év 'Oplaλμoîs Пalŵv, "On Diseases of the Eyes," is mentioned by himself (ii. 1. p. 122.), and was translated into Arabic. (Al. Sprenger, De Orig. Medic. Arab. sub Kalif, 8vo. Lugd. Bat. 1840, p. 24.) Another of his works, " On Pleurisy," which is said to have been also translated into Arabic, was probably only the sixth book of his great medical work, entitled Bi6λía 'Iатρiкà dνокαíSeкα, "Twelve Books on Medicine," which is entirely devoted to this disease. This was written, as he tells us himself, (xii. 1. p. 666.) in his old age, when he was no longer able to bear the fatigues of practice, and treats of diseases in order, from head to foot. the first book he notices the falling off In | of the hair, &c., cutaneous affections of the scalp, different forms of cephalalgia, phrensy, lethargy, various kinds of paralysis, and melancholy; the second is devoted to diseases of the eyes; the third, to diseases of the ears, nose, and teeth; the fourth treats of the different species of cynanche; the fifth, of diseases of the lungs; the sixth, of pleurisy; the seventh, of those of the stomach; the eighth, of those of the liver, spleen, and intestinal canal; the ninth treats of the different kinds of dropsy, and diseases of the kidneys, and urinary and genital organs; the tenth is devoted to the colic; the eleventh, to the gout; and the twelfth, to the different species of fevers. With respect to the merits of this work, Mr. Adams remarks (Barker's edition of Lempriere, London, 1838), that Alexander Trallianus " is a most judicious, elegant, and original author. No medical writer of ancient or modern times," says he," has treated diseases more methodically; for, after all the nosological systems proposed and tried, none is more advantageous to the student than the method adopted by him of treating of diseases according to the part of the body which they affect, beginning with the head, and proceeding downwards. The same plan is pursued in the third book of Paulus Ægineta, who has copied freely from Alexander. Of the ancient medical writers subsequent to Galen, Alexander Trallianus shows the least of that blind deference to his authority for which all have been censured; in many instances he ventures to differ from him, apparently not from a spirit of rivalship, but a commendable love of truth. In his eleventh book he has given a fuller account of the causes, symptoms, and treatment of gout, than any ancient writer; it contains many things not to be found elsewhere, and deserves to be carefully studied. He judiciously suits the treatment to the circumstances of the case; but his general plan of cure appears to have consisted in the administration of purgative medicines, cathartic salts, or drastic purgatives, scammony, aloes, and hermodactylus. The last-mentioned medicine is most probably a species of colchicum autumnale, which forms the active ingredient of a French patent medicine called 'Eau Médicinale d'Husson,' which was much celebrated some years ago for the cure of gout and rheumatism.. .... The writers, both Greek and Arabian, subsequent to Alexander Trallianus, repeat the praises bestowed by him on the virtues of hermodactylus; and Demetrius Pepagomenus has written a professed treatise to recommend this medicine in gout. The style of Alexander, though less pointed than that of Celsus, and less brilliant than that of Aretæus, is remarkable for perspicuity and elegance." He tells us himself (lib. xii. cap. 1. p. 667.) that his aim was to be concise and plain, and to make use of common words and expressions, and such as 66 would be easily understood by ordinary persons. This work first appeared in a Latin translation (Lyon, 1504, 4to.) by Franc. Fradin, cum Expositione Glose interlinearis Jacobi de Partibus et Januensis in Margine posite (sic).” It was first printed in Greek by Rob. Stephens, Paris, 1548, fol., edited by Jac. Goupyl, together with "Rhazæ de Pestilentia Libellus, ex Syrorum Lingua in Græcam translatus. The Greek original, together with a new Latin version of Jo. Guinter, was published by Henr. Petrus, Basel, 1556, 8vo. This Latin translation has been several times reprinted; it is inserted in H. Stephens's " Medicæ Artis Principes," Paris, fol. 1567.; and also forms two of the volumes of Haller's Collection, Lausanne, 1772, 8vo. Besides this work of Alexander Trallianus there is extant a short treatise on Worms, Пept 'Exμívov, written by him in the form of a letter, of which an Arabic translation is mentioned by Dr. Sprenger (loco cit.). This was first published in Greek and Latin, Venice, 1570, 4to., edited by Hieron. Mercurialis; it is inserted in Greek and Latin in the twelfth volume of the old edition of Fabricius's "Bibliotheca Græca," p. 602, sq.; the Greek original is to be found in the first volume of Ideler's "Physici et Medici Græci Minores," Berlin, 1841; and a Latin translation is contained in Haller's edition of Alexander Trallianus mentioned above. There is an account of the life and works of Alexander Trallianus published by Edw. Milward, M.D., London, 1734, 8vo., with the title "Trallianus Reviviscens; or an Account of Alexander Trallian, one of the Greek Writers that flourished after Galen; showing that these Authors are far from deserving the Imputation of mere Compilers," &c. (Freind's Hist. of Physic; Fabricius, Biblioth. Græca, vol. xii. p. 600, sq., ed. vet.; Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, tom. ii.; Haller, Biblioth. Medic. Pract. tom. i.) Besides these two works, which are universally attributed to Alexander Trallianus, there are extant two others, the author of which is not certainly ascertained, but which may be noticed in this place. The first of these is a collection of Medical and Physical Problems, 'Iaтpiкà кal Þvσiкà Про6λhμатα, in two books, which generally go under the name of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, but which may be proved both from external and internal evidence to be the work of some other author. In the first place, they are not mentioned in the catalogue of his works given by the anonymous author of the 'Arabica Philosophorum Bibliotheca," quoted by Casiri (Biblioth. Arabico-Hisp. Escur. tom. i. p. 243.); secondly, they appear to have been written by a person belonging to the medical profession, as he not only prefixes to the second book an encomium on physic, and everywhere displays much medical 66 knowledge, but also speaks in one passage as if he were in the constant habit of himself administering remedies (lib. ii. probl. 11.); thirdly, he refers (i. 87.) to the second book of a work by himself, entitled 'A^^nyopíaı τῶν εἰς Θεοὺς ̓Αναπλαττομένων Πιθανῶν Ἱστοpiv, Allegories of the Credible Stories fabricated about the Gods," which is nowhere mentioned as belonging to Alexander Aphrodisiensis; fourthly, he more than once speaks of the soul to be immortal (lib. ii. præf. et probl. 63. 67.), whereas Alexander Aphrodisiensis frequently argues against this doctrine, and says in one place (Comment. in Aristot. “Topic II." p. 72. ed. Ald.) that "whoever declares the soul to be separable from the body and immortal, is as far from the truth as if he were to say that two and two make five;" and fifthly, the style and language of these books plainly show that the author must have lived later than the third century after Christ. Hieron. Mercurialis, Gataker, Sprengel, Choulant, and others attribute the work to Alexander Trallianus. This conjecture is somewhat confirmed by the numerous explanations of different morbid symptoms contained in it, which agree very well with the great value which Alexander everywhere sets upon a correct diagnosis (lib. v. c. 3. p. 239. viii. 4. p. 455. ix. 5. p. 512.); but as that writer, in his great work, refers to several of his other treatises, it is rather singular that he nowhere alludes to this; besides that it does not seem very likely that a pious Christian, like Alexander Trallianus, should have written the mythological work mentioned above. Like the works on the same subject by Cassius, Theophylactus, and others, these two books contain, along with much that is trifling and frivolous, several curious and interesting physiological and medical observations. It was first published in a Latin Translation by George Valla, Venice, 1488, fol. The Greek text is to be found in the Aldine edition of Aristotle's works, Venice, fol. 1495; and in that by Sylburgius, Frankfurt, 1585, 8vo.; it was published with a Latin translation at Paris, 1540-1, 12mo., edited by J. Davion; and it is inserted by J. L. Ideler in the first volume of his "Physici et Medici Græci Minores," Berlin, 1841, 8vo. The other work is a short treatise on Fevers, Пepì Пuper@v, which has also been attributed to both Alexander Trallianus and Alexander Aphrodisiensis. It is not likely to have been written by the former; for, in the first place, the whole of the twelfth book of his great work is taken up with the subject of fever, and he would hardly have composed two treatises on the same disease without making in either the slightest reference to the other; secondly, the way of treating the subject is quite different from Alexander's usual manner in his great work, as this is merely a theoretical treatise, without any directions about the use of drugs, while that on the contrary is almost exclusively practical, and abounds especially in pharmaceutical preparations; thirdly, the writers quoted in the two works are quite different, as Empedocles, Zenon, and Aretæus (who are the only authors besides Hippocrates mentioned in the treatise on Fevers), are not once referred to by Alexander, while "the most divine" Galen (& DelÓTATOS), whom he notices so often, is not once named by the author of this treatise. The work bears the name of Alexander Aphrodisiensis, but, as it is addressed to a medical pupil whom the author offers to instruct in any other part of medicine (p. 1. ed. Passow), and as it is not noticed in the Arabic list of Alexander's works mentioned above, it is probably the work of some other person of the same name, who may be conjectured to have lived shortly before the time of Galen. It may be added that it is the more improbable that Alexander Aphrodisiensis would have omitted to mention Galen, as we happen to know that he was personally acquainted with him, and that he nicknamed Galen "mule's head" on account of "the strength of his head in argument and disputation." (Casiri, loco cit.; Abú-l-fáraj, Hist. Dynast. p. 78.) The work was first published in a Latin translation by George Valla, at Venice, 1498, fol., which was several times reprinted. The Greek text first appeared in the Cambridge " Museum Criticum," vol. ii. p. 359-389., transcribed by Demetrius Schinas, from a manuscript in the Medicean library at Florence; it was published together with Valla's translation by Franz Passow, Breslau, 1822, 4to., and also in Passow's "Opuscula Academica," Leipzig, 1835, 8vo. p. 521.; the Greek text alone is inserted in the first volume of Ideler's "Physici et Medici Græci Minores," Berlin, 1841, 8vo. W. A. G. ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, Earl of Stirling, was the son of Alexander Alexander of Menstrie. The date of his birth is not very satisfactorily fixed. His father died in 1594. An engraved portrait of the Earl of Stirling, found in a few copies of the collected edition of his poems published in 1637, bears the inscription"ætatis suæ 57." According to this very imperfect evidence, he would have been born in 1580. But the print is of extreme rarity and very high value, being considered the finest production of William Marshall, the celebrated engraver of that day. The probability therefore is, that it was not originally attached to the edition of 1637, and, bearing no date itself, does not fix the age of the person represented. William Alexander, having succeeded to his father's landed property in the counties of Clackmannan and Perth, travelled for some time with Archibald the seventh Earl of Argyle. After his return to Scotland, he published in 1603, "The Tra 66 gedy of Darius ;" which was followed in 1604 by two other tragedies, "Julius Cæsar" and "Croesus." In 1604 he published A Parænesis to the Prince," the object of which was "to speak of princely things," and especially to enforce the choice of patriotic and disinterested councillors. In the same year he also printed "Aurora, containing the first Fancies of the Author's Youth, William Alexander of Menstrie." A collected edition of his plays, including a fourth, called “The Alexandræan Tragedy," was published in London in 1607, under the title of "The Monarchicke Tragedies." These were reprinted in 1616, and again in 1637, when they appeared with "Doomsday," a poem (originally published in 1614), containing something more than ten thousand lines; the Parænesis ;" and "Jonathan," an unfinished poem. This collection was entitled "Recreations with the Muses." In these successive editions of his works, Alexander took very commendable pains to free them from those Scotticisms with which they originally abounded. Langbaine, speaking of the "Darius," says: " It was first composed in a mixed dialect of English and Scotch, and even then was commended by two copies of verses. The author has since polished and corrected much of his native language." In the last collected edition of these plays it is almost impossible to detect any of this dialect, which Langbaine seems to have considered as another tongue. 66 The poems of Alexander can scarcely now be regarded in a higher light than as literary curiosities. The quantity of verse which this author poured out in the course of ten years is remarkable enough; and this apparent facility is more remarkable, when it is considered that he was composing in a language which in many respects was to him a foreign one. But to this circumstance may be attributed not only what the critics of a later generation would have called the correctness of his versification, but the circumstance that the author is always labouring to express the commonest thoughts in the most high sounding words, and by the most wearisome circumlocutions. It is in vain that we turn over his pages to find a single natural image expressed with force and simplicity. His genius, if genius it can be called, was exclusively of the didactic character. All his productions, whatever form they assume, are a succession of the most cumbersome preachments, unenlivened by any variety of illustration; without adaptation, when they take the dramatic form, to the character of his speakers, and altogether wanting in applicability to the habits and feelings of mankind, and the practical business of human life. It is almost incomprehensible how such productions as the "Four Monarchicke Tragedies" could have appeared in the age of Shakspere and his great dramatic contemporaries. Their author must un The passage:- "Cæsar also had Cassius in great jealousy, and suspected him much: whereupon he said on a time to his friends, What will Cassius do, think ye? I like not his pale looks.' Another time, when Cæsar's friends complained unto him of Antonius and Dollabella, that they pretended some mischief towards him, he answered them again, As for those fat men and smooth-combed heads, quoth he, I never reckon of them; but these pale-visaged and carrion-lean people, I fear them most,' meaning Brutus and Cassius." The Julius Cæsar of William Alexander thus addresses Calphurnia : : "No corpulent sanguinians make me fear, And do themselves like th' Epicurians bear Then still they love to sport, though gross, and plain, What Brutus would, he vehemently would; doubtedly have fancied that he was doing a higher and a better thing than presenting a poetical view of real life, when he produced such a tragedy as his "Julius Cæsar," where the great interest of the action is utterly lost in the tumid dialogues and interminable soliloquies, and the personages talk, not only unlike Romans, but unlike men. Oldys, who has written his life in the "Biographia Britannica," says of his plays: "He calculated them not for the amusement of spectators, or to be theatrically acted, so much as for readers of the highest rank; who, by the wisest counsels and cautions that could be drawn from the greatest examples, of the ill effects of misgovernment, and confident reliance upon human grandeur, might be taught to amend their own practices, to moderate their own passions and their power over all in subjection to them; and if they have but this end with such readers, to term them historical dialogues, or anything else, can be no discredit to them." Alexander was evidently composing these tragedies upon a totally false theory of art; but it was one suited to his natural powers and his acquirements. character of a poet, with which he chose to invest himself, had in his view no regard to the highest objects of poetry. Verse was for him a conventional thing, suited as he thought for the delivery of a series of lectures upon state policy and the moral virtues, in which the introduction of historical names as the speakers of the said lectures might give the sentences a greater authority than if they appeared to come wholly from the mouth of William Alexander. In our great age of dramatic poetry, these tragedies, therefore, offer a remarkable contrast to the living spirit which informs the acting plays of even the humblest of Alexander's contemporaries. A singular notion has prevailed, nevertheless, that Shakspere borrowed from Alexander, particularly in his own "Julius Cæsar." Malone suspects this, although he has the good sense to observe that what he calls the parallel passages "might perhaps have proceeded only from the two authors drawing from the same source.' Another critic, of whom it would be difficult "Of the affinity between these dramas a to say whether his presumption or his igno- few extracts will convince the most careless rance is the most conspicuous, affirms the re-reader," says the writer in Lardner's Cyclosemblance more dogmatically: "There is a great similarity between the Julius Cæsar of Shakespear and that of Lord Stirling. Which was written the first? In other words, which of these writers borrowed from the other? This, we fear, cannot be ascertained The probability is, that Shakespear borrowed from the northern poet." (Lardner's. Cyclopædia: "Literary and Scientific Men," vol. ii.) One of the extracts given by this critic in support of this position we shall subjoin, with the addition of a passage from the source from which the two writers derived an incident common to each. Cæsar's fear of Cassius, simply and forcibly expressed in the translation of Plutarch, paraphrased and diluted in the version of Alexander, is thus presented to us by Shakspere, in his dialogue between Cæsar and Antony: "Cæsar. Let me have men about me that are fat; "Ant. Fear him not, Cæsar, he's not dangerous; He is a noble Roman, and well given. "Cæsar. Would he were fatter:-But I fear him not: Yet, if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much; pædia. The poems of Alexander were sufficiently bepraised in his own day. One calls him "the monarch-tragic of this isle ;" another compares him with Sophocles, Euripides, and Eschylus. Even Drummond addresses him with "Thy Phoenix muse, still wing'd with wonders, flies." John Davis of Hereford, in his Epigrams published about 1611, thinks that Alexander the Great had not won more glory by his sword than this Alexander with his pen. Yet in less than forty years after his death In North's Plutarch we find the following his poems were forgotten. Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, does not even mention him in his "Theatrum Poetarum," although Drummond is spoken of as writing in a style sufficiently smooth and delightful." Alexander began to pay to King James the homage of verse-adulation at the exact moment when the king was in a condition to confer substantial benefits in return. In 1604, he addressed two poems to James, which have not been reprinted in his collected works: the "Monarchicke Tragedies" are dedicated to His Majesty in a poem of fourteen stanzas, in which the king is told"The world long'd for thy birth three hundreth years." Honours and substantial offices were bestowed by James on the man whom he called "his philosophical poet." Alexander became gentleman usher, in 1613, to prince Charles; and in the same year was knighted, and made master of the Requests. The subsequent public career of Sir William Alexander is altogether very singular. In 1621, King James, by charter, granted to him the whole territory of Nova Scotia, coupled with the famous scheme of extending the order of baronets by granting purchased honours in connection with the new colony. The scheme was however laid aside during the last years of James's reign; but it was revived by Charles; and Sir William Alexander held out the greatest inducement to adventurers in his pamphlet, published in 1625, entitled "An Encouragement to Colonies." In the first year of his reign Charles created Sir William Alexander lieutenant general of New Scotland. In a few years after, he had the remarkable privilege granted him of coining small copper money. In 1626, he was appointed secretary of state for Scotland. In 1630 he was created Viscount Stirling, and in 1633, Earl of Stirling. In addition to his grant of Nova Scotia, he received a charter of the lordship of Canada in 1628, and obtained from the council of New England another grant of a large tract of country, including Long Island, then called the Island of Stirling. He applied himself with great energy, in concert with his eldest son, to colonise this island, and to found a settlement on the St. Lawrence. But he does not appear to have derived any permanent advantage from these projects, and the labours of his son brought on a disease which terminated in his death. Nova Scotia was sold by Sir William to the French, and its beguiled baronets lost the territorial grants which were to have been attached to the dignity. As might be suspected, a good deal of odium was attached to the schemes of Alexander. In a very extraordinary book written by Sir Thomas Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, and published in 1652, under the title of "The Discovery of a most excellent Jewel, &c. found in the Kennel of Worcester Streets," he is spoken of with great freedom, although the chief object of the book is the commendation of Scotsmen. The humour of the following passage is exquisite: "The purity of this gentleman's vein was quite spoiled by the corruptness of his courtiership; and so much the greater pity, for, by all appearance, had he been contented with that mediocrity of fortune he was born to, and not aspired to those grandeurs of the court which could not without pride be prosecuted nor maintained without covetousness, he might have made a far better account of himself. It did not satisfy his ambition to have a laurel from the Muses, and be esteemed a king among poets, but he must be king of some new-found land, and like another Alexander indeed, searching after new worlds, have the sovereignty of Nova Scotia!.... Had he stopped there, it had been well; but the flame of his honour must have some oil wherewith to nourish it : like another King Arthur, he must have his knights, though nothing limited to so small a number, for how many soever who could have looked out but for one day like gentlemen, and given him but one hundred and fifty pounds sterling (without any need of a key for opening the gate to enter through the temple of virtue which, in former times, was the only way to honour), they had a scale from him whereby to ascend unto the platforms of virtue.... Their king, nevertheless, not to stain his royal dignity or to seem to merit the imputation of selling honour to his subjects, did, for their money, give them land, and that in so ample a measure, that every one of his knight baronets had for his hundred and fifty pounds sterling, heritably disponed unto him six thousand good and sufficient acres of Nova Scotia ground, which, being but at the rate of sixpence an acre, could not be thought very dear, considering how prettily, in the respective parchments of disposition, they were bounded and designed: fruitful corn-lands, watered with pleasant rivers running along most excellent and spacious meadows; nor did there want abundance of oaken groves in the midst of very fertile plains, (for if they wanted anything, it was the scrivener or writer's fault, for he gave orders as soon as he received the three thousand Scots marks, that there should be no defect of quantity or quality, in measure or goodness of land,) and here and there most delicious gardens and orchards, with whatever else could, in matter of delightful ground, best content their fancies. ... But at last, when he had enrolled some two or three hundred knights, who, for their hundred and fifty pieces each, had purchased amongst them several millions of New Caledonian acres, confirmed to them and theirs for ever under the great seal, the affixing whereof was to cost each of them but thirty pieces more; finding that the society was not like to become any more numerous, and that the ancient gentry of Scotland esteemed of such a whimsical dignity as of a disparagement |