in Piedmont. A series of minor actions thus completely destroyed | which was not without military significance, and in a manner the great concentration. The allies separated, Maillebois preluded the great invasions of 1813-1814 and 1815. The covering Liguria, the Spaniards marching against Browne. The general peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) was signed on the latter was promptly and heavily reinforced, and all that the 18th of October 1748. Spaniards could do was to entrench themselves at Piacenza; the Spanish Infant as supreme commander calling up Maillebois to his aid. The French, skilfully conducted and marching rapidly, joined forces once more, but their situation was critical, for only two marches behind them the army of the king of Sardinia was in pursuit, and before them lay the principal army of the Austrians. The pitched battle of Piacenza (June 16) was hard fought, and Maillebois had nearly achieved a victory when orders from the Infant compelled him to retire. That the army escaped at all was in the highest degree creditable to Maillebois and to his son and chief of staff, under whose leadership it cluded both the Austrians and the Sardinians, defeated an Austrian corps in the battle of Rottofreddo (August 12), and made good its retreat on Genoa. It was, however, a mere remnant of the allied army which returned, and the Austrians were soon masters of north Italy, including Genoa (September). But they met with no success in their forays towards the Alps. Soon Genoa revolted from the oppressive rule of the victors, rose and drove out the Austrians (December 5-11), and the French, now commanded by Belleisle, took the offensive (1747). Genoa held out against a second Austrian siege, and after the plan of❘ campaign had as usual been referred to Paris and Madrid, it was relieved, though a picked corps of the French army under the chevalier de Belleisle, brother of the marshal, was defeated in the almost impossible attempt (July 19) to storm the entrenched pass of Exiles (Col di Assietta), the chevalier, and with him the élite of the French nobility, being killed at the barricades. Before the steady advance of Marshal Belleisle the Austrians retired into Lombardy, and a desultory campaign was waged up to the conclusion of peace.

In North America the most remarkable incident of what has been called "King George's War" was the capture of the French Canadian fortress of Louisburg by a British expedition (April 29-June 16, 1745), of which the military portion was furnished by the colonial militia under Colonel (afterwards Lieutenant-General Sir William) Pepperell (1696-1759) of Maine. Louisburg was then regarded merely as a nest of privateers, and at the peace it was given up, but in the Seven Years' War it came within the domain of grand strategy, and its second capture was the preliminary step to the British conquest of Canada. For the war in India, see INDIA: History,

10. Later Campaigns.-The last three campaigns of the war in the Netherlands were illustrated by the now fully developed genius of Marshal Saxe. After Fontenoy the French carried all before them. The withdrawal of most of the English to aid in suppressing the 'Forty-Five rebellion at home left their allies in a helpless position. In 1746 the Dutch and the Austrians were driven back towards the line of the Meuse, and most of the important fortresses were taken by the French. The battle of Roucoux (or Raucourt) near Liége, fought on the 11th of October between the allies under Prince Charles of Lorraine and the French under Saxe, resulted in a victory for the latter. Holland itself was now in danger, and when in April 1747 Saxe's army, which had now conquered the Austrian Netherlands up to the Meuse, turned its attention to the United Provinces, the old fortresses on the frontier offered but slight resistance. The prince of Orange and the duke of Cumberland underwent a severe deicat at Lauffeld (Lawfeld, &c., also called Val) on the 2nd of July 1747, and Saxe, after his victory, promptly and secretly despatched a corps under (Marshal) Löwendahl to besiege Bergenop-Zoom. On the 18th of September Bergen-op-Zoom was stormed by the French, and in the last year of the war Maestricht, attacked by the entire forces of Saxe and Löwendahl, surrendered on the 7th of May 1748. A large Russian army arrived on the Meuse to join the allies, but too late to be of use. The quarrel of Russia and Sweden had been settled by the peace of Abo in 1743, and in 1746 Russia had allied herself with Austria. Eventually a large army marched from Moscow to the Rhine, an event

11. General Character of the War.-Little need be said of the military features of the war. The intervention of Prussia as a military power was indeed a striking phenomenon, but her triumph was in a great measure due to her fuller application of principles of tactics and discipline universally recognized though less universally enforced. The other powers reorganized their forces after the war, not so much on the Prussian model as on the basis of a stricter application of known general principles. Prussia, moreover, was far ahead of all the other continental powers in administration, and over Austria, in particular, her advantage in this matter was almost decisive of the struggle. Added to this was the personal ascendancy of Frederick, not yet a great general, but energetic and resolute, and, further, opposed to generals who were responsible for their men to their individual sovereigns. These advantages have been decisive in many wars, almost in all. The special feature of the war of 1740 to 1748, and of other wars of the time, is the extraordinary disparity between the end and the means. The political schemes to be executed by the French and other armies were as grandiose as any of modern times; their execution, under the then conditions of time and space, invariably fell short of expectation, and the history of the war proves, as that of the Seven Years' War was to prove, that the small standing army of the 18th century could conquer by degrees, but could not deliver a decisive blow. Frederick alone, with a definite end and proportionate means wherewith to achieve it, succeeded completely. The French, in spite of their later victories, obtained so little of what they fought for that Parisians could say to each other, when they met in the streets, "You are as stupid as the Peace." And if, when fighting for their own hand, the governments of Europe could so fail of their purpose, even less was to be expected when the armies were composed of allied contingents, sent to the war each for a different object. The allied national armies of 1813 co-operated loyally, for they had much at stake and worked for a common object; those of 1741 represented the divergent private interests of the several dynasties, and achieved nothing. BIBLIOGRAPHY-Besides general works on Frederick's life and reign, of which Carlyle, Preuss and v. Taysen are of particular importance, and Frederick's own works, see the Prussian official Die Kriege der Kaiserin Maria Theresia; Gesch. des österr. Erbfolge1. und II. schlesischen Kriege (Berlin, 1890-1895); Austrian official krieges (Vienna, from 1895); Jomini, Traité des grandes opérations militaires, introduction to vol. i. (Paris, 4th edition, 1851); C. von B.-K., Geist und Stoff im Kriege (Vienna, 1895); v. Arneth, Maria Teresias ersten Regierungsjahre (1863); v. Schöning, Die 5 erste Jahre Grosse als Feldherr (Berlin, 1881); v. Canitz, Nachrichten, &c., über der Regierung Friedrichs des Grossen; Bernhardi, Friedrich der die Taten und Schicksale der Reilerei, &c. (Berlin, 1861); Grünhagen, Gesch. des I. schlesischen Krieges (Gotha, 1881-1882); Orlich, Gesch. der schlesischen Kriege; Deroy, Beiträge zur Gesch. des österr. dans les provinces belgiques (Paris, 1885); Duncker, Militärische, &c., Erbfolgekrieges (Munich, 1883); Crousse, La Guerre de la succession Aktenstücke zur Gesch. des I. schles. Krieges; Militär-Wochenblatt supplements 1875, 1877, 1878, 1883, 1891, 1901, &c. (Berlin); MitDie Litteratur, &c., aber Friedrich d. Gr. (Berlin, 1886); Fortescue, teilungen des k.k. Kriegsarchivs, from 1887 (Vienna); Baumgart, History of the British Army, vol. ii.; F. H. Skrine, Fontenoy and the War of the Austrian Succession (London, 1906); Francis Parkman, A Half-Century of Conflict (1892). (C. F. A.)

Naval Operations:

The naval operations of this war were languid and confused. They are complicated by the fact that they were entangled with the Spanish war, which broke out in 1739 in consequence of the long disputes between England and Spain over their conflicting claims in America. Until the closing years they were conducted with small intelligence or spirit. The Spanish government was nerveless, and sacrificed its true interest to the family ambition of the king Philip V., who wished to establish his younger sons as ruling princes in Italy. French administration was corrupt, and the government was chiefly concerned in its political interests in Germany. The British navy was at its lowest point of energy

and efficiency after the long administration of Sir Robert Walpole. | by arousing deep anger among the people, led to a drastic reform Therefore, although the war contained passages of vigour, it was neither interesting nor decisive on the sea.

War on Spain was declared by Great Britain on the 23rd of October 1739. It was universally believed that the Spanish colonies would fall at once before attack. A plan was laid for combined operations against them from east and west. One force, military and naval, was to assault them from the West Indies under Admiral Edward Vernon. Another, to becommanded by Commodore George Anson, afterwards Lord Anson, was to round Cape Horn and to fall upon the Pacific coast. Delays, bad preparations, dockyard corruption, and the unpatriotic squabbles of the naval and military officers concerned caused the failure of a hopeful scheme. On the 21st of November 1739 Admiral Vernon did indeed succeed in capturing the ill-defended Spanish harbour of Porto Bello (in the present republic of Panama)-a trifling success to boast of. But he did nothing to prevent the Spanish convoys from reaching Europe. The Spanish | privateers cruised with destructive effect against British trade, both in the West Indies and in European waters. When Vernon had been joined by Sir Chaloner Ogle with naval reinforcements and a strong body of troops, an attack was made on Cartagena in what is now Colombia (March 9-April 24, 1741). The delay had given the Spanish admiral, Don Blas de Leso, time to prepare, and the siege failed with a dreadful loss of life to the assailants. Want of success was largely due to the incompetence of the military officers and the brutal insolence of the admiral. The war in the West Indies, after two other unsuccessful attacks had been made on Spanish territory, died down and did not revive till 1748: The expedition under Anson sailed late, was very ill provided, and less strong than had been intended. It consisted of six ships and left England on the 18th of September 1740. Anson returned alone with his flagship the " Centurion " on the 15th of June 1744. The other vessels had either failed to round the Horn or had been lost. But Anson had harried the coast of Chile and Peru and had captured a Spanish galleon of immense value near the Philippines. His cruise was a great feat of resolution and endurance.

While Anson was pursuing his voyage round the world, Spain was mainly intent on the Italian policy of the king. A squadron was fitted out at Cadiz to convey troops to Italy. It was watched by the British admiral Nicholas Haddock. When the blockading squadron was forced off by want of provisions, the Spanish admiral Don José Navarro put to sea. He was followed, but when the British force came in sight of him Navarro had been joined by a French squadron under M. de Court (December 1741). The French admiral announced that he would support the Spaniards if they were attacked and Haddock retired. France and Great Britain were not yet openly at war, but both were engaged in the struggle in Germany-Great Britain as the ally of the queen of Hungary, Maria Theresa; France as the supporter of the Bavarian claimant of the empire. Navarro and M. de Court went on to Toulon, where they remained till February 1744. A British fleet watched them, under the command of admiral Richard Lestock, till Sir Thomas Mathews was sent out as commander-in-chief, and as minister to the court of Turin. Partial manifestations of hostility between the French and British took place in different seas, but avowed war did not begin till the French government issued its declaration of the 30th of March, to which Great Britain replied on the 31st. This formality had been preceded by French preparations for the invasion of England, and by a collision between the allies and Mathews in the Mediterranean (see TOULON, BATTLE OF). On the 11th of February a most confused battle was fought, in which the van and centre of the British fleet was engaged with the rear and centre of the allies. Lestock, who was on the worst possible terms with his superior, took no part in the action. He endeavoured to excuse himself by alleging that the orders of Mathews were contradictory. Mathews, a puzzle-headed and hot-tempered man, fought with spirit but in a disorderly way, breaking the formation of his fleet, and showing no power of direction. The mismanagement of the British fleet in the battle,

of the British navy which bore its first fruits before the war ended. The French invasion scheme was arranged in combination with the Jacobite leaders, and soldiers were to be transported from Dunkirk. But though the British government showed itself wholly wanting in foresight, the plan broke down. In February 1744, a French fleet of twenty sail of the line entered the Channel under Jacques Aymar, comte de Roquefeuil, before the British force under admiral John Norris was ready to oppose him. But the French force was ill equipped, the admiral was nervous, his mind dwelt on all the misfortunes which might possibly happen, and the weather was bad. M. de Roquefeuil came up almost as far as the Downs, where he learnt that Sir John Norris was at hand with twenty-five sail of the line, and thereupon precipitately retreated. The military expedition prepared at Dunkirk to cross under cover of Roquefeuil's fleet naturally did not start. The utter weakness of the French at sea, due to long neglect of the fleet and the bankrupt state of the treasury, was shown during the Jacobite rising of 1745, when France made no attempt to profit by the distress of the British government. The Dutch having by this time joined Great Britain, made a serious addition to the naval power opposed to France, though Holland was compelled by the necessity for maintaining an army in Flanders to play a very subordinate part at sea. Not being stimulated by formidable attack, and having immediate interests both at home and in Germany, the British government was slow to make use of its latest naval strength. Spain, which could do nothing of an offensive character, was almost neglected. During 1745 the New England expedition which took Louisburg (April 30-June 16) was covered by a British naval force, but the operations were in a general way sporadic, subordinated to the supply of convoy, or to unimportant particular ends. In the East Indies, Mahé de la Bourdonnais made a vigorous use of a small squadron to which no effectual resistance was offered by the British naval forces. He captured Madras (July 24-September 9, 1746), a set-off for Louisburg, for which it was exchanged at the close of the war. In the same year a British combined naval and military expedition to the coast of France-the first of a long series of similar ventures which in the end were derided as 'breaking windows with guineas "-was carried out during August and October. The aim was the capture of the French East India company's dockyard at L'Orient, but it was not attained.

From 1747 till the close of the war in October 1748 the naval policy of the British government, without reaching a high level, was yet more energetic and coherent. A closer watch was kept on the French coast, and effectual means were taken to intercept communication between France and her American possessions. In the spring information was obtained that an important convoy for the East and West Indies was to sail from L'Orient. In the previous year the British government had allowed a French expedition under M. d'Anville to fail mainly by its own weakness. In 1747 a more creditable line was taken. An overwhelming force was employed under the command of Anson to intercept the convoy in the Channel. It was met, crushed and captured, or driven back, on the 3rd of May. On the 14th of October another French convoy, protected by a strong squadron, was intercepted by a well-appointed and well-directed squadron of superior numbers-the squadrons were respectively eight French and fourteen British-in the Bay of Biscay. The French admiral Desherbiers de l'Etenduère made a very gallant resistance, and the fine quality of his ships enabled him to counteract to some extent the superior numbers of Sir Edward Hawke, the British admiral. While the war-ships were engaged, the merchant vessels, with the small protection which Desherbiers could spare them, continued on their way to the West Indies. Most of them were, however, intercepted and captured in those waters. This disaster convinced the French government of its helplessness at sea, and it made no further effort.

The last naval operations took place in the West Indies, where the Spaniards, who had for a time been treated as a negli gible quantity, were attacked on the coast of Cuba by a British

squadron under Sir Charles Knowles. They had a naval force | contents may be stirred, and renewable linings are provided in under Admiral Regio at Havana. Each side was at once cases where the substances under treatment exert a corrosive anxious to cover its own trade, and to intercept that of the other. action on metal. Capture was rendered particularly desirable to the British by the fact that the Spanish homeward-bound convoy would be laden with the bullion sent from the American mines. In the course of the movement of each to protect its trade, the two squadrons met on the 1st of October 1748 in the Bahama Channel. The action was indecisive when compared with the successes of British fleets in later days, but the advantage lay with Sir Charles Knowles. He was prevented from following it up by the speedy receipt of the news that peace had been made in Europe by the powers, who were all in various degrees exhausted. That it was arranged on the terms of a mutual restoration of conquests shows that none of the combatants could claim to have established a final superiority. The conquests of the French in the Bay of Bengal, and their military successes in Flanders, enabled them to treat on equal terms, and nothing had been taken from Spain. The war was remarkable for the prominence of privateering on both sides. It was carried on by the Spaniards in the West Indies with great success, and actively at home. The French were no less active in all seas. Mahé de la Bourdonnais's attack on Madras partook largely of the nature of a privateering venture. The British retaliated with vigour. The total number of captures by French and Spanish corsairs was in all probability larger than the list of British-partly for the reason given by Voltaire, namely, that more British merchants were taken because there were many more British merchant ships to take, but partly also because the British government had not yet begun to enforce the use of convoy so strictly as it did in later times.

See Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs (London, 1804);
La Marine militaire de la France sous le règne de Louis XV, by
G. Lacour-Gayet (Paris, 1902); The Royal Navy, by Sir W. L.
Clowes and others (London, 1891, &c.).,
(D. H.)

AUTHENTIC (from Gr. av0évrns, one who does a thing himself), genuine, as opposed to counterfeit, true or original. In music it is one of the terms used for the ecclesiastical modes. The title of Authentics was also used for Justinian's Novells. AUTOCEPHALOUS (from Gr. aúrós, self, and kepaλý, head), of independent headship, a term used of certain ecclesiastical functionaries and organizations.

AUTOCHTHONES (Gr. abrós, and xov, earth, i.e. people sprung from earth itself; Lat. terrigenae; see also under ABORIGINES), the original inhabitants of a country as opposed to settlers, and those of their descendants who kept themselves free from an admixture of foreign peoples. The practice in ancient Greece of describing legendary heroes and men of ancient lineage as "earthborn" greatly strengthened the doctrine of autochthony; for instance, the Athenians wore golden grasshoppers in their hair in token that they were born from the soil and had always lived in Attica (Thucydides i. 6; Plato, Menexenus, 245). In Thebes, the race of Sparti were believed to have sprung from a field sown with dragons' teeth. The Phrygian Corybantes had been forced out of the hill-side like trees by Rhea, the great mother, and hence were called devôpodveîs. It is clear from Aeschylus (Prometheus, 447) that primitive men were supposed to have at first lived like animals în caves and woods, till by the help of the gods and heroes they were raised to a stage of civilization.

AUTOCRACY (Gr. avтoкpáтeα, absolute power), a term applied to that form of government which is absolute or irresponsible, and vested in one single person. It is a type of government usually found amongst eastern peoples; amongst more civilized nations the only example is that of Russia, where the sovereign assumes as a title "the autocrat of all the Russias." AUTO-DA-FÉ, more correctly AUTO-DE-FÉ (act of faith), the name of the ceremony during the course of which the sentences of the Spanish inquisition were read and executed. The autoda-fé was almost identical with the sermo generalis of the medieval inquisition. It never took place on a feast day of the church, but on some famous anniversary: the accession of a Spanish monarch, his marriage, the birth of an infant, &c. It was public: the king, the royal family, the grand councils of the kingdom, the court and the people being present. The ceremony comprised a procession in which the members of the Holy Office, with its familiars and agents, the condemned persons and the penitents took part; a solemn mass; an oath of obedience to the inquisition, taken by the king and all the lay functionaries; a sermon by the Grand Inquisitor; and the reading of the sentences, either of condemnation or acquittal, delivered by the Holy Office. The handing over of impenitent persons, and those who had relapsed, to the secular power, and their punishment, did not usually take place on the occasion of an auto-da-fé, properly so called. Sometimes those who were condemned to the flames were burned on the night following the ceremony. The first great auto-da-fés were celebrated when Thomas de Torquemada was at the head of the Spanish inquisition (Seville 1482, Toledo 1486, &c.). The last, subsequent to the time of Charles III., were held in secret; moreover, they dealt with only a very small number of sentences, of which hardly any were capital. The isolated cases of the torturing of a revolutionary priest in Mexico in 1816, and of a relapsed Jew and of a Quaker in Spain during 1826, cannot really be considered as auto-da-fés. (P. A.) AUTOGAMY (from Gr. aúrós, self, and yauia, marriage), a botanical term for self-fertilization. (See ANGIOSPERMS.) AUTOGENY, AUTOGENOUS (Gr. avroyevs), spontaneous generation, self-produced. Haeckel distinguished autogeny and plasmogeny, applying the former term when the formative fluid in which the first living matter was supposed to arise was inorganic and the latter when it was organic, i.e. contained the requisite fundamental substances dissolved in the form of complicated and fluid combinations of carbon. In " autogenous soldering" two pieces of metal are united by the melting of the opposing surfaces, without the use of a separate fusible alloy or solder as a cementing material.

AUTOGRAPHS. Autograph (Gr. avrós, self, ypadav, to write) is a term applied by common usage either to a document signed by the person from whom it emanates, or to one written entirely by the hand of such person (which, however, is also more technically described as holograph, from oλos, entire, ypaper, to write), or simply to an independent signature.

The existence of autographs must necessarily have been coeval with the invention of letters. Documents in the handwriting of their composers may possibly exist among the early papyri of Egypt and the clay tablets of Babylonia and Assyria, AUTOCLAVE, a strong closed vessel of metal in which liquids and among the early examples of writing in the East. But the can be heated above their boiling points under pressure. Ety- oriental practice of employing professional scribes in writing mologically the word indicates a self-closing vessel (abrós, self, and the body of documents and of using seals for the purpose of deris, key, or dovus, nail), in which the tightness of the joints" signing" (the "signum" originally meaning the impression is maintained by the internal pressure, but this characteristic of the seal) almost precludes the idea. When we are told (1 Kings is frequently wanting in the actual apparatus to which the name xxi. 8) that Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed is applied. The prototype of the autoclave was the digester of them with his seal, we are, of course, to understand that the Denis Papin, invented in 1681, which is still used in cooking, letters were written by the professional scribes and that but the appliance finds a much wider range of employment in the impression of the king's seal was the authentication, chemical industry, where it is utilized in various forms in the equivalent to the signature of western nations; and again, manufacture of candles, coal-tar colours, &c. Frequently an when King Darius "signed " the writing and the decree (Dan. agitator, passing through a stuffing-box, is fitted so that the vi. 9), he did so with his seal. To find documents which we ca

recognize with certainty to be autographs, we must descend their names being invariably written by the official scribes. to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history, which After the Norman conquest, the sign manual, usually a cross, are represented by an abundance of papyrus documents of all which sometimes accompanied the name of the sovereign, may kinds, chiefly in Greek. Among them are not a few original in some instances be autograph; but no royal signature is to be letters and personal documents, in which we may see the hand- found earlier than the reign of Richard II. of the signatures writing of many lettered and unlettered individuals who lived of this king there are two examples, of the years 1386 and 1389, during the 3rd century B.C. and in succeeding times, and which in the Public Record Office; and there is one, of 1397, in the prove how very widespread was the practice of writing in those British Museum. Of his father, the Black Prince, there is in the days. We owe it to the dry and even atmosphere of Egypt that Record Office a motto-signature, De por Homont (high courage), these written documents have been preserved in such numbers. Ich dene, subscribed to a writ of privy seal of 1370. The kings On the other hand, in Italy and Greece ancient writings have of the Lancastrian line were apparently ready writers. Of the perished, save the few charred papyrus rolls and waxen tablets handwriting of both Henry IV. and Henry V. there are specimens which have been recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum and both in the Record Office and in the British Museum. But by Pompeii. These tablets, however, have a special value, for many their time writing had become an ordinary accomplishment. of them contain autograph signatures of principals and witnesses Apart from the autographs of sovereigns, those of famous to legal deeds to which they were attached, together with im- men of the early middle ages can hardly be said to exist, or, if they pressions of seals, in compliance with the Roman law which do exist, they are difficult to identify. For example, there is required the actual subscriptions, or attested marks, of the a charter at Canterbury bearing the statement that it was written persons concerned.

by Dunstan; but, as there is a duplicate in the British Museum But, when we now speak of autographs and autograph collec- with the same statement, it is probable that both the one and tions, we use such terms in a restricted sense and imply documents the other are copies. The autograph MSS. of the chronicles of or signatures written by persons of some degree of eminence or Ordericus Vitalis, of Robert de Monte, and of Sigebert of notoriety in the various ranks and professions of life;, and Gembloux are in existence; and among the Cottonian MSS. naturally the only early autographs in this sense which could there are undoubtedly autograph writings of Matthew of Paris, be expected to survive are the subscriptions and signatures of the English chronicler of Henry III.'s reign. There are certain royal personages and great officials attached to important public documents in the British Museum in the hand of William of deeds, which from their nature have been more jealously cared Wykeham; and among French archives there are autograph for than mere private documents.

writings of the historian Joinville. These are a few instances. Following the Roman practice, subscriptions and signatures When we come to such a collection as the famous Paston Letters, were required in legal documents in the early centuries of our the correspondence of the Norfolk family of. Paston of the 15th era. Hence we find them in the few Latin deeds on papyrus century, we find therein numerous autographs of historical which have come to light in Egypt; we find them on the well- personages of the time. known Dacian waxen tablets of the 2nd century; and we find From the 16th century onward, we enter the period of modern them in the series of papyrus deeds from Ravenna and other history, and autograph documents of all kinds become plentiful. places in Italy between the sth and 10th centuries. The same And yet in the midst of this plenty, by a perverse fate, there is practice obtained in the Frankish empire. The Merovingian in certain instances a remarkable dearth. The instance of kings, or at least those of them who knew how to write, sub- Shakespeare is the most famous. But for three signatures to scribed their diplomas and great charters with their own hands; the three sheets of his will, and two signatures to the conveyances and their great officers of state, chancellors and others, counter- of property in Blackfriars, we should be without a vestige of signed in autograph. The unlettered Merovingian kings made his handwriting. For certain other signatures, professing to use of monograms composed of the letters of their names; and, be his, inscribed in books, may be dismissed as imitations. curiously, the illiterate monogram was destined to supersede Such forgeries come up from time to time, as might be expected, the literate subscriptions. For the monogram was adopted by and are placed upon the market. The Shakespearean forgeries, Charlemagne and his successors as a recognized symbol of their however, of W. H. Ireland were perpetrated rather with a subscription. It was their signum manuale, their sign manual. literary intent than as an autographic venture. In courtly imitation of the royal practice, monograms and other Had autograph collecting been the fashion in Shakespeare's marks were adopted by official personages, even though they days, we should not have had to deplore the loss of his and of could write. The notarial marks of modern times are a survival other great writers' autographs. But the taste had not then of the practice. By the illiterate other signs, besides the mono- come into vogue, at least not in England. The series of auto. gram, came to be employed, such as the cross, &c., as signs graph documents which were gathered in such a library as that manual. The monogram was used by French monarchs from of Sir Robert Cotton, now in the British Museum, found their the reign of Charlemagne to that of Philip the Fair, who died in way thither on account of their literary or historic interest, and 1314. It is very doubtful, however, whether in any instance this not merely as specimens of the handwriting of distinguished sign manual was actually traced by the monarch's own hand. men. Such a series also as that formed by Philippe de Béthune, At the most, the earlier sovereigns appear to have drawn une Comte de Selles et Charost, and his son, in the reign of Louis XIV., or two strokes in their monograms, which, so far, may be called consisting for the most part of original letters and papers, now their autographs. But in the later period not even this was in the Bibliothèque Nationale, might have been regarded as the done; the monogram was entirely the work of the scribe. result of autograph collecting did we not know that it was (See DIPLOMATIC.)

brought together for historical purposes. It was in Germany The employment of marks or signs manual went out of general and the Low Countries

that the practice appears to have origi use after the 12th century, in the course of which the affixing nated, chiefly among students and other members of the or appending of seals became the common method of executing universities, of collecting autograph inscriptions and signatures deeds. But, as education became more general and the practice of one's friends in albums, alba amicorum, little oblong pocket of writing more widely diffused, the usage grew up in the course volumes of which a considerable number have survived, a very of the 14th century of signing the name-signature as well as of fair collection being in the British Museum. The earliest affixing the seal; and by the 15th century it had become estab- album in the latter series is the Egerton MS. 1178, beginning lished, and it remains to the present time. Thus the signum with an entry of the year 1954. Once the taste was established, manuale had disappeared, except among notaries; but the term the collecting of autographs of living persons was naturally survived, and by a natural process it was transferred to the extended to those of former times; and many collections, signature. In the present

day it is used to designate the " sign famous in their day, have been formed, but in most instances manual" or autograph signature of the sovereign.

only to be dispersed again as the owners tired of their fancy or The Anglo-Saxon kings of England did not sign their charters, l as their heirs failed to inherit their tastes along with their

had, x 267: Odyssey, xix. 395: Ovid, Metam. xi. 313: Apollodorus i. 9: Hyginus, Fab. 201. AUTOLYCUS OF PITANE, Greek mathematician and astro-distinct handwritings. Occasionally imitations are produced of nomer, probably flourished in the second half of the 4th century B.C., since he is said to have instructed Arcesilaus. His extant works consist of two treatises; the one, Пlepi Kivovμevns opalpas, contains some simple propositions on the motion of the sphere, the other, Пepl éxitoλŵv kal dúoewv, in two books, discusses the rising and setting of the fixed stars. The former treatise is historically interesting for the light it throws on the development which the geometry of the sphere had already reached even before Autolycus and Euclid (see THEODOSIUS OF TRIPOLIS).