army into the naval service; and also intimates that Cromwell and his party were probably well pleased with his retirement, because, on the one hand, it might tend to render the parliament, which he was about to dissolve, unpopular, and likewise because he might, had he continued in the fleet, have opposed their contemplated measures. Whatever may have been the real cause of his retirement, his past services were acknowledged by a parliamentary grant of three hundred pounds in money, and of an estate in Ireland worth three hundred pounds per annum, in consequence of which he visited Ireland in 1655, where he appears to have had frequent conferences with Henry Cromwell, who was then governor of that country, and who appears, from a letter to secretary Thurloe, which is printed in the notes to the "Biographia Britannica," to have had a just appreciation of his merits. Upon his dismissal or resignation, Ayscue retired to his country-seat in the county of Surrey, where he led a quiet life, without interfering in public affairs. He appears to have lived in considerable splendour, and to have been visited by distinguished foreigners, as well as by his own countrymen, as one of the greatest naval captains of the age. He was drawn from his retirement after a few years by circumstances which arose out of Cromwell's jealousy of the Dutch, occasioned especially by their having espoused the cause of the King of Denmark, and shown a desire to destroy the power of Sweden. Wishing to oppose the Dutch without a renewal of open war with them, the Protector encouraged the Swedes to improve and extend their naval force, and promised to assist them with able and experienced officers. In pursuance of this policy the Swedish ambassador was introduced to Ayscue by the LordKeeper Whitelock, who has preserved in his "Memorials" (pp. 649, 650) an account of the conversation which took place on the subject of naval architecture during this interview, which was held in 1656, at Ayscue's country residence. Ayscue did not comply with the invitation offered to him during the life of Oliver Cromwell, but at length, towards the close of the year 1658, after seeing some other officers embark, he sailed for Sweden. Before he went, however, Simon Petkum, the Danish minister, wrote to Thurloe by way of remonstrance, endeavouring, but in vain, to induce the English government to interfere and prevent his voyage. On his arrival in Sweden, Ayscue was most honourably received by the king, Charles Gustavus; and a letter written by him to Sir John Williams, from Lanscrowne, or Landscroone, towards the close of 1659, and now preserved among the Lansdowne MSS., shows that he was well satisfied with the honours bestowed upon him. Charles Gustavus might probably have fulfilled a promise which he is said to have made, of raising him to the rank of high admiral of Sweden, had he not been himself carried off by unexpected death, on the 13th of February, 1660, shortly after which event Ayscue returned to England. He does not appear to have had any hand in the restoration of Charles II., which took place during his absence; but on his return he expressed his adhesion to the new government, and his readiness to serve under it; and he was admitted to kiss the king's hand. On the breaking out of a new war with the Dutch in 1664, Ayscue was again put in commission, under the Duke of York, who then held the chief command in the fleet. In the spring of the year 1665, he was rear-admiral of the blue, under the Earl of Sandwich; and in the great battle fought on the 3rd of June in that year, in which the Dutch were defeated with immense loss, his squadron had the honour to break through the centre of the Dutch fleet. When the English fleet was again in a position for service, in the month of July, Ayscue was vice-admiral of the red under the Earl of Sandwich, who took the chief command in consequence of the retirement of the Duke of York, and he took part in the continued aggressions upon the Dutch. In the spring of the following year, 1666, Ayscue was again at sea, with the rank of admiral of the blue (not of the white, as erroneously stated by Echard, Rapin, and other writers), in which capacity he served in the memorable action of the 1st of June in that year, when the Dutch fleet under Van Tromp and De Ruyter was attacked by the English under Monk, Duke of Albemarle. The fight was renewed with vigour on the next day, at the close of which the Duke of Albemarle determined to retire, and endeavour to join Prince Rupert, who was coming to his assistance. This retreat was performed in good order, the best English ships forming a rear-guard, but on the following day, June 3, Ayscue's vessel, the Royal Prince, which was one of the best in the fleet, if not absolutely the best, unfortunately struck upon the Gapper or Galloper sand-bank, where, being threatened by the Dutch fire-ships, and so situated that no assistance could reach him, Ayscue was compelled to surrender to the Dutch vice-admiral Sweers. The accounts of this affair vary in their details, and those afforded by the Dutch are fuller than the English. Granger says that Ayscue was compelled by his seamen to strike, which agrees with the statement of the French, that the crew gave up the vessel contrary to the desire of Ayscue, who had given orders for setting her on fire. The Dutch authorities attribute the loss of the vessel wholly to accident, and bear testimony to the gallant conduct of Ayscue during the action. According to the account in the Biographia Britannica," based upon the minute information respecting the engagement collected by the Dutch government, Ayscue made signals for assistance, but the English fleet continued its retreat, leaving him quite alone and without hope of succour; in which situation he was attacked by two fire-ships, by which he would have been burnt had not lieutenant-admiral Tromp, who was on board the vessel of Sweers, made a signal to call them off, seeing that Ayscue had already struck his flag, and made a signal for quarter. Sweers then went on board and brought off the officers and some of the men; after which, though the ship was got off the sands, the remainder of the crew were removed and the vessel was burnt, because, as Prince Rupert was bearing down upon the Dutch fleet, there was not time to take her away with security. Independent of the circumstance that the Royal Prince was one of the finest ships in the navy, carrying 92 brass guns and 620 men, and being in the best possible condition, the loss of this vessel was peculiarly vexatious to the English government, as it was the ship which had brought Charles II. to England at the Restoration. Ayscue was immediately sent off | to the Dutch coast, probably from an apprehension that he might be retaken in the expected battle. He is said to have been civilly treated on his arrival at the Hague; but the Dutch government paraded him in triumph through the principal towns of Holland, and afterwards imprisoned him in the fortress of Loevestein. A letter, of which a copy is preserved among the Harleian MSS., together with some details respecting the Royal Prince and the circumstances of her capture, is published in the " Biographia Britannica from the French Life of De Ruyter, which purports to have been written by Ayscue to Charles II. on his arrival at Loevestein, and which states that more than one hundred and fifty of his men had been killed before his ship was taken, and requests the king to see to the comfort of his family; but Dr. Campbell, the writer of the article "Ayscue" in the above-mentioned work, gives reasons of considerable weight for doubting its authenticity. A strange uncertainty is expressed by most writers respecting Ayscue's subsequent fate, the question of his ever having returned to England being left undecided. Dr. Campbell, however, in his "Lives of the British Admirals," states, on the authority of the "Annals of the Universe," that Ayscue returned to England in November (of what year is not stated), after an imprisonment of some months, when he was graciously received by the king, but that he spent the remainder of his days in quiet, and went no more to sea. Charnock says that he was not released from his confinement till the end of October, 1667; that he returned to London, where he was received most affectionately by the people, and that he was introduced to the king on the 12th of November. This authority adds, that after his misfortune he declined going again to sea, and lived very privately; but nevertheless states that, according to a manuscript list of the navy, of unquestionable authority, he was employed in 1668, in which year he hoisted his flag on board the Triumph, and again in 1671-2, when he was on board the St. Andrew. These appointments, it should be observed, were made in a time of profound peace. Of the time and place of Ayscue's death we can find no account. (Campbell, Lives of the British Admirals, ed. 1785, ii. 264 274, and article "Ayscue," in the Biographia Britannica; Charnock, Biographia Navalis, 1794, i. 89-93; Granger, Biographical History of England, fifth edition, 1824, v. 158, 159; Whitelock, Memorials of English Affairs, ed. 1732, passim ; Heath, Chronicle of the Intestine War in the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, ed. 1676, folio, pp. 306, 307, 322, 323; Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, Oxford edition of 1807, iii. 697, 698, &c.; La Vie et les Actions memorables du Sr. Michel de Ruyter, Amsterdam, 1677, part i. pp. 10-14, 345, 346, 348-350; The Life of Michael Adrian De Ruyter, London, 1677, pp. 20, 21; Lansdowne MSS., 821, fol. 20, and 1054, fol. 71.) J. T. S. AYTA or AYTTA, ULRIC VIGER VAN ZUICHM, a jurist and statesman of the sixteenth century. His family name was Ayta, but civilians will more readily recognise him as Viglius Zuichemus, the latter being Latinized from his patrimonial estate of Zuichm, close to the town of Leeuwarden in Friesland, where he was born on the 9th of October, 1507. He was the second of a family of six children. His uncle Bernard Buchon, who was dean of the Hague, adopted him when he was a child, and furnished him munificently with the means of education. Buchon appears to have carried to an extreme the educational system of the age, under which young men whose fortunes admitted of a considerable expenditure wandered from one university to another, and derived instruction successively from a number of celebrated teachers. His biographers supply a long list of the places in which, and the professors under whom Ayta studied. He acquired while a youth the friendship of Erasmus, who appears to have been on intimate terms with his uncle the dean. Erasmus mentions a present which he had received from the youth-a ring with astrological devices engraved on it; and he remarks, in reference to the dawning abilities of his young friend, that if his life were spared, he would some day be an ornament to Friesland. He was about twenty years old, and his plan of education was yet far from being completed, when he lost his kind AYTA. uncle. It is said that want of means to continue his studies would have made him at that time abandon the legal profession, if he had not found another patron in Gerard Mulert, counsellor to the Emperor Charles V. He gave private instruction in jurisprudence at Avignon, and being driven thence by the plague, continued his instruction at the university of Valence in Dauphiné, where he obtained a doctor's degree. Erasmus had introduced him to Andrea Alciati, to whom he seems to have attached himself as a disciple. He accompanied this celebrated jurist to Bourges in 1528. It is stated by Ayta's biographers that he held the chair of law at Bourges for two years as successor to Alciati, but this is impossible, as he left Bourges in the autumn of 1531, and Alciati did not leave it till 1532. It is probable that he taught as Alciati's assistant. On leaving Bourges he returned to his native country, and resolved to proceed through Germany to Italy. He had then acquired a wide reputation, and the various learned men in the towns and universities which lay between the Netherlands and Italy were desirous of making his acquaintance as he travelled. He left Bourges accompanied by a crowd of admirers, who attended him to the nearest town. In his journey he visited Leiden, Fribourg, Basle, Berne, Soleure, and Tübingen, and among other learned men he met with his friend Erasmus, Antony and Jerome Fugger, Ecolampadius, Reylinger, and Baumgartner. Arriving at Padua, he presented letters from Erasmus to Bembo, subsequently the celebrated cardinal, and other men of influence. He established himself at this university as a public teacher of law, and gave lectures on the Institutes. He had applied himself to the study of the Roman law with an ardour which had seldom been matched, and having made many researches through manuscript authorities, he possessed sources of information which did not come into the hands of the ordinary students of the civil law till the succeeding century. He is said to have possessed a wonderful facility in classifying his subjects and explaining his meaning to his hearers, so that uniting to the value of the matter a happy method of instruction, he became the most popular juridical teacher of his age, and is said to have excelled all his predecessors. It was while pursuing his researches at Padua that he discovered the Greek version of the Institutes generally attributed to Theophilus. To the principal MS. which he made use of he obtained access through the influence of Cardinal Bembo, and the MS. having afterwards passed into his own possession, was deposited in the college which he founded at Louvain. When he had completed his collation of the MSS., he published the Greek text of the Institutes, with the title "Institutiones D. Justiniani, in Græcam Linguam per Theo philum Antecessorem olim traductæ, ac nunc In 1549 he was made president of senator. the imperial council of the Netherlands, and received the Order of the Golden Fleece, of which he afterwards was chosen chancellor. He was much in the confidence of Cardinal Granville, and it was perhaps at the recommendation of that ambitious minister that he entered the ecclesiastical profession. He was first coadjutor and then successor of the abbot of St. Bavon at Ghent. He was in favour with the Spanish government, and thus at the outbreak of the disputes which ended in the securing of independence to Holland, he was unpopular with the Revolutionists. He showed himself, however, an opponent of the violent methods which were afterwards resorted to. When the Duke of Alba proposed heavy commercial taxes, he remonstrated with him in a state paper, which has been preserved, and which Le Clerc justly remarks contains advice suited to governors in all ages. He states that the Netherlands are a country of which the commerce forms the riches. That the existence of this commerce depends upon all imposts, whether on exports or imports, being light; and that no governor could more effectually injure the country, and by injuring it bring unpopularity on his own head, than by establishing heavy commercial duties. Ayta could not be called in any shape a partisan of the liberators of the United Provinces. From his family name, indeed, it may be inferred that he was of Spanish origin. He was to the last in the confidence of the Spanish court, and was detained a prisoner while Brussels was in possession of the Revolutionists. He was, however, one of those judicious and humane statesmen who anticipate the effects of harsh measures on a high-spirited people, and he was fully alive to the doubly invidious character of a tyranny exercised through officials who were aliens in the country where they governed. He prepared an account of his own life, which con gree of master of arts at St. Andrews, in 1588, and afterwards studied in France. Dempster says, that he left in that country dis speaks of his having written French and Greek poems, but none of these productions are known in this country, and Dempster is too fond of boasting of the eminence of his fellow - countrymen to be believed without confirmation. In 1603 he addressed an encomiastic Latin poem in hexameters to King James I., on his accession to the throne of England, with the title " De Felici, et semper Augusto, Jacobo VI. Scotia, Insularumque adjacentium Regis Imperio, nunc recens florentissimis Angliæ et Hiberniæ sceptris amplificato. Roberti Aytoni, Scoti, Panegyris." Ayton seems to have been an accomplished courtier. There were no surer means of securing the good opinion of James than by complimenting him on his learning in a classical language. Ayton has left several other poetical pieces addressed to the king or members of the royal family, as well as to the Duke of Buckingham, all breathing a strong spirit of adulation. He reaped his reward in being appointed to the offices of private secretary to the queen, gentleman of the bed-chamber, and master of requests. He was employed by King James to convey copies of one of his works to the emperor and the various princes of Germany. His latest biographer supposes, that because he is called 66 stituted the material of the memoir by Petrus, and is mentioned by Foppens as being in the archiepiscopal library at Mechlin. This book doubtless contains his views of the distinguished marks of his literary abilities, and pute between Spain and the Netherlands, and its publication would be an interesting addition to the literary and political history of the period. He appears to have left behind him some MSS. bearing expressly on the contest which he witnessed. About the year 1660 there was published a work called "Narratio tumultuum Belgicorum sub Ducissa Parmensi et Duce Albano," as the production of Ayta, but Foppens says this book contains internal evidence that it is by another and inferior writer. Ayta was dangerously ill in 1560, and his cure is attributed to his having frequented the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle. He died at Brussels, on the 8th of May, 1577, and was buried with great pomp in a mausoleum which he had constructed in the church of his abbey at Ghent. Through the exercise of his profession as a lawyer, his political appointments, and his ecclesiastical preferment, he had acquired a large fortune, which he spent sumptuously. He founded a college in the university of Louvain, partly with his own money, partly through a government subsidy of 2000 florins. The library of this institution contains some of his unpublished MSS. He added to the edifices of his abbey, and founded several charitable institutions. Besides his edition of the Greek text of the Institutes, he wrote a legal work, of paramount authority in its day, though now of course seldom referred to, which was first published in 1534, and afterwards in 1591, with the title "Commentaria ad decem titulos Institutionum juris civilis. Quibus omnia pene testamentorum jura eleganter ac dilucide explicantur." There are several other editions of this work. It is a commentary on titles 10 to 19 of the second book of the Institutes relating to wills. It is referred to with much respect by Heineccius and others who have gone over the same ground. It is generally accompanied by two small tracts of minor importance, the one on a title of the Code, the other on the title of the Pandects, " si certum petatur," lib. xii. tit. 2, regarding actions. (Petrus, De Scriptoribus Frisia, 182-218; Foppens, Bibliotheca Belgica; Panzirolus, De Claris Legum Interpretibus, 287, 288; Adamus, Vita Germanorum Jurisconsultorum, 102— 107; Taisand, Les Vies des plus célèbres Jurisconsultes; Le Clerc, Histoire des Provinces Unies, liv. i. ; Strada, De Bello Belgico, lib. iv. vi., &c.; Works referred to.) J. H. B. AYTON, SIR ROBERT, was born at Kinaldie in Fifeshire, an estate which had belonged to his family for several generations, in 1570. He was a younger son, and was incorporated a student at St. Leonard's College in the university of St. Andrews, with his elder brother, in 1584. He took the de Eques Auratus" he had received the decoration of the Golden Fleece, but the adjective was simply used to distinguish those who obtained knighthood as a mark of honour from the feudal rank incident to the possession of a knight's fee. He became the proprietor of a small mountainous estate called Over Durdie, in Perthshire. It was no unfit residence for a poet. It is situated on the brow of a steep bank rising abruptly to the height of seven or eight hundred feet above the level Carse of Gowrie. Beneath it lies what was then the most productive district of Scotland, full of fruit-trees and richly cultivated fields, through which the river Tay runs eastward to the sea. On the other side a range of broken rocks leads westward to the Grampian Mountains, and presents such a scene as he himself described when he says My courted secretaries In whom I do confide,- Whether his mountain - home had charms "Should old acquaintance be forgot, On old langsyne?" He indulges, though rarely, in satire. Thus, AYTTA. [AYTA.] he drew up his epistle dedicatory for his | Another of his poems at once associates translation of Thucydides." Jonson, in his itself with Burns: it beginsconversation with Drummond of Hawthornden, is found to make the remark that 66 Sir Robert Ayton loved him dearly." In his Latin poems there are some epitaphs and epigrams in which the names of other distinguished men of the day, who appear to have been his friends, are commemorated. The latest event to which any of these productions refers is the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, "In obitum ducis Buckingamii à Filtono cultro extincti, 1628," a poem in hexameters and pentameters. He died in the palace of Whitehall, in March, 1638. The vernacular poems of Ayton, for which alone his personal history is now an object of any curiosity, appear to have never been considered by him worthy of preservation, though many of his Latin poems were twice published during his lifetime. Vernacular composition of any kind was then unpopular with Scotsmen, who found it easier to use a dead language than to acquire a dialect so different from their own as the English, which was then becoming the literary language of Britain. With a trifling exception, such of his English poems as have reached us have come down almost traditionally, and have not retained their original orthography. Aubrey says, "Mr. John Dryden has seen verses of his, some of the best of that age, printed with some other verses;" but if this alludes to his English poems, it would appear that they must have been printed anonymously. During the last century some pieces of poetry which found their way into poetical selections were attributed on imperfect testimony to Sir Robert Ayton-a collection of these was printed in the miscellany of the Bannatyne Club. A student of St. Andrews lately accidentally purchased a MS. at a sale of books which bore the title "The Poems of that worthy gentleman Sir Robert Ayton, Knight, Secretary to Anna and Mary, Queens of Great Britain," &c.; but this version is also of comparatively late date, and in modern orthography. It contains some pieces which are not in the Bannatyne collection, and has been very creditably edited by the discoverer. Burns was a great admirer of some of the poems attributed to Ayton. One of them, which he rendered, without certainly improving it, into the modern Scottish dialect, begins with the following melodious and expressive lines:"I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair, And I might have gone near to love thee, I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find And since thou canst love more than one, AYYU'B IBN HABIB AL-LAKHMI', third governor of Mohammedan Spain under the khalifs, was a noble Arab of the tribe of Lakhm. Trained to arms from his youth, he served in all the African wars, and accompanied Músa Ibn Nosseyr, whose relative he was, to the conquest of Spain. He was present at the sieges of Merida and Saragossa, where he gained great renown by his courage and skill. In A.H. 95 (A.D. 713) Musa was summoned to Damascus by the khalif Suleyman, and Ayyub obtained the command of a division of troops stationed on the Ebro, with orders to prosecute the conquest. In concert with Mugheyth Ar-rumí, another Arabian officer, Ayyub made several incursions into the provinces beyond the Ebro, reduced many important fortresses, and defeated the Goths wherever they dared to show themselves. 'Abdu-l'-azíz, son of Músa, who commanded in Spain during his father's absence, seeing the success which attended his arms, supplied Ayyub with men and provisions, and enabled him to carry the Moslem banners to the foot of the Pyrenees. When Suleyman, who had in the meanwhile imprisoned and fined Músa, sent secret orders to Spain to have 'Abdu-l'-aziz deprived of the government of this country and put to death, Ayyub was consulted by the agents of the khalif as to the best means of carrying the royal mandate into execution. They addressed themselves to him, and, having exhibited the letters they had received from the khalif, proceeded to represent 'Abdu-l'-aziz as a traitor and an apostate who had secretly embraced the |