much skill; yet his attempt to make it the unique source of aesthetic pleasure fails completely. Francis Jeffrey's Essays on Beauty (in the Edinburgh Review, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th edition) are little more than a modification of Alison's theory. Dugald Stewart. D. Stewart's chief contribution to aesthetic discussion in his Philosophical Essays consists in pointing out the unwarranted assumption lurking in the doctrine of a single quality running through all varieties of beautiful object. He seeks to show how the successive changes in the meaning of the term "beautiful "have arisen. He suggests that it originally connoted the pleasure of colour. The value of his discussion resides more in the criticism of his predecessors than in the contribution of new ideas. His conception of the sublime, suggested by the etymology of the word, emphasizes the element of height in objects. Bain. former corresponds to the element of variety in a beautiful object, | the working of the principle of association at great length, and with that of the latter with its unity. He explicitly excludes all other kinds of pleasure, such as the sensuous, from the proper gratification of beauty. He denies that the attribute of beauty belongs to fitness. John Ruskin's well-known speculations on the nature of beauty in Modern Painters (" Of ideas of beauty "), though sadly wanting in scientific precision, have a certain value in the history of Ruskin. aesthetics. For him beauty is spiritual and typical of divine attributes. Its true nature is appreciated by the theoretic faculty which is concerned in the moral conception and appreciation of ideas of beauty, and must be distinguished from the imaginative or artistic faculty, which is employed in regarding in a certain way and combining the ideas received from external nature. He distinguishes between typical and vital beauty. The former is the external quality of bodies which typifies some divine attribute. The latter consists in the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of function in living things.' The forms of typical beauty are:-(1) infinity, the type of the divine incomprehensibility; (2) unity, the type of the divine comprehensiveness; (3) repose, the type of the divine permanence; (4) symmetry, the type of the divine justice; (5) purity, the type of the divine energy; and (6) moderation, the type of government by law. Vital beauty, again, is regarded as relative when the degree of exaltation of the function is estimated, or generic if only the degree of conformity of an individual to the appointed functions of the species is taken into account. Ruskin's writings illustrate the extreme tendency to identify aesthetic with moral perception. Addison's " Essays on the Imagination," contributed to the Spectator, though they belong to popular literature, contain the germ of scientific analysis in the statement that the pleasures analytical of imagination (which arise originally from sight) fall into two classes: (1) primary pleasures, which entirely proceed from objects before our eyes; and (2) secondary pleasures, flowing from the ideas of visible objects. The latter are greatly extended by the addition of the proper enjoyment of resemblance, which is at the basis of all mimicry and wit. Addison recognizes, too, to some extent, the influence of association upon our aesthetic preferences. The theorists. Addison. In the Elements of Criticism of Home (Lord Kames) another attempt is made to resolve the pleasure of beauty into its elements. Home. Beauty and ugliness are simply the pleasant and unpleasant in the higher senses of sight and hearing, He appears to admit no general characteristic of beautiful objects beyond this power of yielding pleasure. Like Hutcheson, he divides beauty into intrinsic and relative, but understands by the latter the appearance of fitness and utility, which is excluded from the beautiful by Hutcheson. Passing by the name of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose theory of beauty closely resembles that of Père Buffier, we come to the speculations of another artist and painter, William Hogarth. Hogarth. He discusses, in his Analysis of Beauty, all the elements of visual beauty. He finds in this the following elements:-(1) fitness of the parts to some design; (2) variety in as many ways as possible; (3) uniformity, regularity or symmetry, which is only beautiful when it helps to preserve the character of fitness; (4) simplicity or distinctness, which gives pleasure not in itself, but through its enabling the eye to enjoy variety with ease; (5) intricacy, which provides employment for our active energies, leading the eye "a wanton kind of chase "; (6) quantity or magnitude, which draws our attention and produces admiration and awe. The beauty of proportion he resolves into the needs of fitness. Hogarth applies these principles to the determination of the degrees of beauty in lines, figures and groups of forms. Among lines he singles out for special honour the serpentine (formed by drawing a line once round from the base to the apex of a long slender cone). Burke's speculations, in his Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, illustrate the tendency of English writers to treat the problem as a psychological one and to introBurke. duce physiological considerations. He finds the elements of beauty to be:-(1) smallness; (2) smoothness; (3) gradual variation of direction in gentle curves; (4) delicacy, or the appearance of fragility: (5) brightness, purity and softness of colour. The sublime is rather crudely resolved into astonishment, which he thinks always contains an element of terror. Thus " infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with a delightful horror." Burke seeks what he calls "efficient causes" for these aesthetic impressions in certain affections of the nerves of sight analogous to those of other senses, namely, the soothing effect of a relaxation of the nerve fibres. The arbitrariness and narrowness of this theory cannot well escape the reader's attention. Alison, in his well-known Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, proceeds by a method exactly the opposite to that of Hogarth and Burke. He seeks to analyse the mental process when Alison. we experience the emotion of beauty or sublimity. He finds that this consists in a peculiar operation of the imagination, namely, the flow of a train of ideas through the mind, which ideas always correspond to some simple affection or emotion (e.g. cheerfulness, sadness, awe) awakened by the object. He thus makes association the sole source of aesthetic delight, and denies the existence of a primary source in sensations themselves. He illustrates Of the association psychologists James Mill did little more towards the analysis of the sentiments of beauty than re-state Alison's doctrine. Álexander Bain, in his treatise, The Emotions and the Will ("Aesthetic Emotions "), carries this examination considerably further. He seeks to differentiate aesthetic from other varieties of pleasurable emotion by three characteristics: (1) their freedom from life-serving uses, being gratifications sought for their own sakes; (2) their purity from all disagreeable concomitants; (3) their eminently sympathetic or shareable nature. He takes a comprehensive view of the constituents of aesthetic enjoyment, including the pleasures of sensation and of its revived or its "ideal" form; of revived emotional states; and lastly the satisfaction of those wide-ranging susceptibilities which we call the love of novelty, of contrast and of harmony. The effect of sublimity is connected with the manifestation of superior power in its highest degrees, which manifestation excites a sympathetic elation in the beholder. The ludicrous, again, is defined by Bain, improving on Aristotle and Hobbes, as the degradation of something possessing dignity in circumstances that excite no other strong emotion. Herbert Herbert Spencer, in his First Principles, Principles of Psychology and Essays, has given an interesting turn to the psychology of aesthetics by the application of his doctrine of evolution. Adopting Schiller's idea of a connexion between aesthetic activity and play, he seeks to make it the starting-point in tracing the evolution of aesthetic activity. Play is defined as the outcome of the superfluous energies of the organism: as the activity of organs and faculties which, owing to a prolonged period of inactivity, have become specially ready to discharge their function, and as a consequence vent themselves in simulated actions. Aesthetic activities supply a similar mode of self-relieving discharge to the higher organs of perception and emotion; and they further agree with play in not directly subserving any processes conducive to life; in being gratifications sought for their own sake only. Spencer seeks to construct a hierarchy of aesthetic pleasures according to the degree of complexity of the faculty exercised: from those of sensation up to the revived emotional experiences which constitute the aesthetic sentiment proper. Among the more vaguely revived emotions Spencer includes more permanent feelings of the race transmitted by heredity; as when he refers the deep and indefinable emotion excited by music to associations with vocal tones expressive of feeling built up during the past history of our species. His biological treatment of aesthetic activity has had a wide influence, some (e.g. Grant Allen) being content to develop his evolutional method. Yet, as suggested above, his theory is now recognized as taking us only a little way towards an adequate understanding of our aesthetic experience. 44 BIBLIOGRAPHY.-(a) Works on General Aesthetics. English and American.-There are no important recent works which deal with the whole subject. The following will be found helpful: Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, pt. viii. c. 9, Aesthetic Sentiments," and the papers on "Use and Beauty,' Origin and Function of Music" and others in the Essays; A. Bain, Emotions and Will, "Aesthetic Emotions"; J. Sully, Human Mind, ii. "Aesthetic Sentiment "; Grant Allen, en, Physiological Aesthetics (Meth., Pl., Senses, Play); Rutgers Marshall, Pain, Pleasure and Aesthetics, and Aesthetic Principles (Meth., Pl., Play). French and Italian Works.-M. Guyau, Les Problèmes de l'esthétique contemporaine (1884) (Pl., Play); E. Véron, L'Esthétique (1890) (slight Pl.); L. Bray, Du Beau (1902). (Pl., Play); P. Sauriau, Li Beauté rationnelle (1904) (Meth., Pl., Senses, Einf.); M. Pilo, Estetica (Pl., Senses); A. Rolla, Storia delle idee estetiche in Italia (1905) (full account of ideas of Dante and other medieval writers, as well as of modern systems). German Works.-K. Köstlin, Prolegomena zur Ästhetik (1889) 1 Only recent works are included. Important points in each are indicated by abbreviations, namely:Einf., for Einfühlung (expres- Pl., for theory of pleasure. sional element in form). Play, for Play and aesthetic Evol., for bearings of evolution. enjoyment. Ill., for aesthetic illusion. Judg., for aesthetic judgment. Meth., for method of aesthetics. Norm., for normative function of aesthetics. Senses, for aesthetic value of (good introduction to subject); K. Groos, Der ästhetische Genuss (J. S.) AESTIVATION (from Lat. aestivare, to spend the aestas, or summer; the word is sometimes spelled "estivation"), literally 66 summer residence," a term used in zoology for the condition of torpor into which certain animals pass during the hottest season in hot and dry countries, contrasted with the similar winter condition known as hibernation (q.v.). In botany the word is used of the praefloration or folded arrangement of the petals in a flower before expansion in the summer, contrasted with vernation" of leaves which unfold in the spring. Christ Church was consecrated in 603. He also made grants to ÆTHELBERHT, king of the West Saxons, succeeded to the sub-kingdom of Kent during the lifetime of his father Æthelwulf, and retained it until the death of his elder brother Æthelbald in 860, when he became sole king of Wessex and Kent, the younger brothers Æthelred and Alfred renouncing their claim. He ruled these kingdoms for five years and died in 865. His reign was marked by two serious attacks on the part of the Danes, who destroyed Winchester in 860, in spite of the resistance of the ealdormen Osric and Ethelwulf with the levies of Hampshire and Berkshire, while in 865 they treacherously ravaged Kent. See Saxon Chronicle (Earle and Plummer), s.a. 860, 865; King Alfred's Will; W. de G. Birch, Cartul. Saxon. 553. ÆTHELBALD, king of Mercia, succeeded Ceolred A.D. 716. ÆTHELFLAED (ETHELFLEDA), the "Lady of the Mercians," According to Felix, Life of St Guthlac, he visited the saint at the eldest child of Alfred the Great, was educated with her Crowland, when exiled by Ceolred and pursued by his emissaries brother Edward at her father's court. As soon as she was of before his accession, and was cheered by predictions of his future marriageable age (probably about A.D. 886), she was married to greatness. According to Bede, the whole of Britain as far north Ethelred, earl of Mercia, to whom Alfred entrusted the control as the Humber was included within the sphere of his authority. of Mercia. On the accession of her brother Edward, Æthelflaed His energy in preserving his influence is shown by several entries and her husband continued to hold Mercia. In 907 they fortified in the Chronicle. He made an expedition against Wessex in Chester, and in 909 and 910 either Æthelflaed or her husband 733, in which year he took the royal vill of Somerton. In 740 must have led the Mercian host at the battles of Tettenhall and he took advantage of the absence of Eadberht of Northumbria Wednesfield (or Tettenhall-Wednesfield, if these battles are one in a campaign against the Picts to invade his kingdom. In 743 and the same). It was probably about this time that Æthelred he fought with Cuthred, king of Wessex, against the Welsh, but fell ill, and the Norwegians and Danes from Ireland unsuccessfully the alliance did not last long, as in 752 Cuthred took up arms besieged Chester. Æthelflaed won the support of the Danes against him. In 757 Ethelbald was slain by his guards at against the Norwegians, and seems also to have entered into an Seckington (Warwickshire) and buried at Repton. He seems to alliance with the Scots and the Welsh against the pagans. In have been the most powerful and energetic king of Mercia be911 Æthelred died and Edward took over Middlesex and Oxfordtween Penda and Offa. A letter of St Boniface is preserved, shire. Except for this Æthelflaed's authority remained unin which he rebukes this king for his immoralities and encroach-impaired. In 912 she fortified "Scergeat" and Bridgenorth, ments on church property, while recognizing his merits as a monarch. By a charter of 749 he freed ecclesiastical lands from all obligations except the trinoda necessitas. See Bede, Hist. Ecc. (ed. Plummer), v. 23 and Continuatio s.a. 740, 750, 757; Saxon Chronicle (Earle and Plummer), s.a. 716, 733, 737, 740, 741, 743, 755; Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum, ii. pp. 264, 275, 276, 279, 283-284; P. Jaffé, Monumenta Moguntiaca, iii. pp. 168-177; W. de G. Birch, Cartul. Saxon. 178 (1885-1893). (F. G. M. B.) ÆTHELBALD, king of Wessex, was the son of Ethelwulf, with whom he led the West Saxons to victory against the Danes at Aclea, 851. According to Asser he rebelled against his father on the latter's return from Rome in 856, and deprived him of Wessex, which he ruled until his death in 860. On his father's death in 858 he married his widow, Judith. See Asser, Life of Alfred (W. H. Stevenson, 1904), 12; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 851, 855, 860. ÆTHELBERHT, king of Kent, son of Eormenric, probably came to the throne in A.D. 560. The first recorded event of his reign was a serious reverse at the hands of Ceawlin of Wessex in the year 568 (Chronicle) at a place called Wibbandune. Æthelberht married Berhta, daughter of Charibert, king of Paris, who brought over Bishop Liudhard as her private confessor. According to Bede, Ethelberht's supremacy in 597 stretched over all the English kingdoms as far as the Humber. The nature of this supremacy has been much disputed, but it was at any rate sufficient to guarantee the safety of Augustine in his conference with the British bishops. Æthelberht exercised a stricter sway over Essex, where his nephew Saberht was king. In 597 the mission of Augustine landed in Thanet and was received at first with some hesitation by the king. He seems to have acted with prudence and moderation during the conversion of his kingdom and did not countenance compulsory proselytism. Æthelberht gave Augustine a dwelling-place in Canterbury, and I. 10 Tamworth and Stafford in 913, Eddisbury and Warwick in 914, Cherbury, " Weardbyrig" and Runcorn in 915. In 916 she sent an expedition against the Welsh, which advanced as far as Brecknock. In 917 Derby was captured from the Danes, and in the next year Leicester and York both submitted to her. She died in the same year at Tamworth (June 12), and was buried in St Peter's church at Gloucester. This noble queen, whose career was as distinguished as that of her father and brother, left one daughter, Ælfwyn. For some eighteen months Elfwyn seems to have wielded her mother's authority, and then, just before the Christmas of 919, Edward took Mercia into his own hands, and Ælfwyn was "led away" into Wessex. Æthelflaed and her husband wielded almost kingly authority, and the royal title is often given them by the chroniclers. See The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann. (especially the Mercian register in MSS. B, C and D); Florence of Worcester; Fragments of Irish Annals (ed. O'Conor), pp. 227-237; D.N.B., s.v. (A. Mw.) ÆTHELFRITH, king of Northumbria, is said to have come to the throne in A.D. 593, being the son of Ethelric (probably reigned 568-572). He married Acha, daughter of Ella (Elle), king of Deira, whom he succeeded probably in 605, expelling his son Edwin. In 603 he repelled the attack of Aidan, king of the Dalriad Scots, at Daegsastan, defeating him with great loss. The appearance of Hering, son of Hussa, Æthelfrith's predecessor, on the side of the invaders seems to indicate family quarrels in the royal house of Bernicia. Later in his reign, probably in 614, he defeated the Welsh in a great battle at Chester and massacred the monks of Bangor who were assembled to aid them by their prayers. This war may have been due partly to Æthelfrith's persecution of Edwin, but it had a strategic importance in the separation of the North Welsh from the Strathclyde Britons. In 617 Æthelfrith was defeated and slain at the river Idle by Redwald of East Anglia, whom Edwin had | A fortnight later they were defeated at Basing, but partially persuaded to take up his cause. retrieved their fortune by a victory at Mæretun (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire), though the Danes held the field. In the Easter of this year Æthelred died, perhaps of wounds received in the wars against the Danes, and was buried at Wimborne. He left a son, Æthelwold, who gave some trouble to his cousin Ethelweard the historian was also a descendant of this king. Edward the Elder, when the latter succeeded to the kingdom. See Bede, Chronica Majora, § 531; Hist. Ecc. (Plummer) i. 34, ii. 2; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 593, 603, 605, 616; Hist. Brittonum, §§ 57, 63; Annales Cambriae, s.a. 613. (F. G. M. B.) ÆETHELING, an Anglo-Saxon word compounded of athele, or ethel, meaning noble, and ing, belonging to, and akin to the modern German words Adel, nobility, and adelig, noble. During the earliest years of the Anglo-Saxon rule in England the word was probably used to denote any person of noble birth. Its use was, however, soon restricted to members of a royal family, and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is used almost exclusively for members of the royal house of Wessex. It was occasionally used after the Norman Conquest to designate members of the royal family. The earlier part of the word formed part of the name of several Anglo-Saxon kings, e.g. Æthelbert, Ethelwulf, Æthelred, and was used obviously to indicate their noble birth. According to a document which probably dates from the 10th century, the wergild of an ætheling was fixed at 15,000 thrymsas, or 11,250 shillings. This wergild is equal to that of an archbishop and one-half of that of a king. ÆTHELNOTH (d. 1038), archbishop of Canterbury, known also as EGELNODUS or EDNODUS, was a son of the ealdorman Æthelmaer, and a member of the royal family of Wessex. He became a monk at Glastonbury, then dean of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, and chaplain to King Canute, and on the 13th of November 1020 was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. In 1022 he went to Rome to obtain the pallium, and was received with great respect by Pope Benedict VIII. Returning from Rome he purchased at Pavia a relic said to be an arm of St Augustine of Hippo, for a hundred talents of silver and one of gold, and presented it to the abbey of Coventry. He appears to have exercised considerable influence over Canute, largely by whose aid he restored his cathedral at Canterbury. A story of doubtful authenticity tells how he refused to crown King Harold I., as he had promised Canute to crown none but a son of the king by his wife, Emma. Æthelnoth, who was called the "Good," died on the 29th of October 1038, and his name appears in the lists of saints. ÆTHELRED, king of Mercia, succeeded his brother Wulfhere in A.D. 675. In 676 he ravaged Kent with fire and sword, destroying the monasteries and churches and taking Rochester. Æthelred married Osthryth, the sister of Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria, but in spite of this connexion a quarrel arose between the two kings, presumably over the possession of the province of Lindsey, which Ecgfrith had won back at the close of the reign of Wulfhere. In a battle on the banks of the Trent in 679, the king of Mercia was victorious and regained the province. Elfwine, the brother of Ecgfrith, was slain on this occasion, but at the intervention of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelred agreed to pay a wergild for the Northumbrian prince and so prevented further hostilities. Osthryth was murdered in 697 and Æthelred abdicated in 704, choosing Coenred as his successor. He then became abbot of Bardney, and, according to Eddius, recommended Wilfrid to Coenred on his return from Rome. Æthelred died at Bardney in 716. (See WILFRID.) AUTHORITIES.-The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann.; Birch, Cartul. 218-234. Saxon. vol. ii. Nos. 516-526; D.N.B., s.v.; Eng. Hist. Review, i. (A. Mw.) ÆTHELRED II. (or ETHELRED) (c. 968–1016), king of the English (surnamed THE UNREADY, i.e. without rede or counsel), son of King Edgar by his second wife Elfthryth, was born in 968 or 969 and succeeded to the throne on the murder of his step-brother Edward (the Martyr) in 979. His reign was disDanish invasions, long unintermitted under Edgar the Peaceful, astrous from the beginning. The year after his accession the recommenced; though as yet their object was plunder only, not conquest, and the attacks were repeated in 981, 982 and 988. In 991 the Danes burned Ipswich, and defeated and slew the East Saxon ealdorman Brihtnoth at Maldon. After this, peace The Danes were to desist from their ravages, but were allowed was purchased by a payment of £10,000-a disastrous expedient. by an attack on the Danish ships. Despite the treachery of to stay in England. Next year Æthelred himself broke the peace Elfric, the English were victorious; and the Danes sailed off to ravage Lindsey and Northumbria. In 994 Olaf Tryggvason, king of Norway, and Sweyn, king of Denmark, united in a great invasion and attacked London. Foiled by the valour of the citizens, they sailed away and harried the coast from Essex to Hampshire. Ethelred now resorted to the old experiment and bought them off for £16,000 and a promise of supplies. Olaf also visited Æthelred at the latter's request and, receiving a most honourable welcome, was induced to promise that he would never again come to England with hostile intent, an engagement which he faithfully kept. The Danish attacks were repeated in 997, 998, 999, and in 1000 Ethelred availed himself Cumberland, at that time a Viking stronghold. Next year, of the temporary absence of the Danes in Normandy to invade however, the Northmen returned and inflicted worse evil than ever. The national defence seemed to have broken down alto gether. In despair Æthelred again offered them money, which they again accepted, the sum paid on this occasion being £24,000. But soon afterwards the king, suspecting treachery, resolved to get rid of his enemies once and for all. Orders were issued commanding the slaughter on St Brice's day (December 2) of "all the Danish men who were in England." Such a decree could obviously not be carried out literally; but we cannot doubt that the slaughter was great. This violence, however, only made matters worse. hostility fanned by the desire for revenge. For two years he Next year Sweyn returned, his ravaged and slew; in 1003 Exeter was destroyed; Norwich and Thetford in 1004. No effectual resistance was offered, despite a gallant effort here and there; the disorganization of the country was complete. In 1005 the Danes were absent in Denmark, but came back next year, and emboldened by the utter lack of resistance, they ranged far inland. In 1007 Ethelred bought them off for a larger sum than ever (£36,000), and for ÆTHELRED I., king of Wessex and Kent (866-871), was two years the land enjoyed peace. In 1009, however, in accordthe fourth son of Ethelwulf of Wessex, and should, by his ance with a resolution made by the witan in the preceding year, father's will, have succeeded to Wessex on the death of his eldest Æthelred collected such a fleet as never before had been in brother Æthelbald. He seems, however, to have stood aside in England in any king's day"; but owing to a miserable court favour of his brother Æthelberht, king of Kent, to whose joint quarrel the effort came to nothing. The king then summoned kingdoms he succeeded in 866. Ethelred's reign was one long a general levy of the nation, with no better result. Just as he struggle against the Danes. In the year of his succession a was about to attack, the traitor Edric prevented him from doing large Danish force landed in East Anglia, and in the year 868 so, and the opportunity was lost. In 1010 the Danes returned, Ethelred and his brother Alfred went to help Burgred, or to find the kingdom more utterly disorganized than ever. "There Burhred, of Mercia, against this host, but the Mercians soon was not a chief man in the kingdom who could gather a force, made peace with their foes. In 871 the Danes encamped at but each fled as he best might; nor even at last would any there Reading, where they defeated Ethelred and his brother, but resist another." Incapable of offering resistance, the king again later in the year the English won a great victory at " Æscesdun." I offered money, this time no less than £48,000. While it was being SOURCES.-Eddius, Vita Wilfridi (Raine), 23. 40, 43, 45-48, 57; Bede, Hist. Ecc. (ed. Plummer), iii. 11, iv. 12, 21; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 676, 679, 704, 716. (F. G. M. B.) collected, the Danes sacked Canterbury and barbarously slew | Guthfrith, destroyed the Danish fortress at York, received the the archbishop Alphege. The tribute was paid soon afterwards; submission of the Welsh at Hereford, fixing their boundary along and about the same time the Danish leader Thurkill entered the the line of the Wye, and drove the Cornishmen west of the Tamar, English service. From 1013 an important change is discernible fortifying Exeter as an English city. in the character of the Danish attacks, which now became definitely political in their aim. In this year Sweyn sailed up the Trent and received the submission of northern England, and then marching south, he attacked London. Failing to take it, he hastened west and at Bath received the submission of Wessex. Then he returned northwards, and after that "all the nation considered him as full king." London soon acknowledged him, and Æthelred, after taking refuge for a while with Thurkill's fleet, escaped to Normandy. Sweyn died in February 1014, and Æthelred was recalled by the witan, on giving a promise to reign better in future. At once he hastened north against Canute, Sweyn's son, who claimed to succeed his father, but Canute sailed away, only to return next year, when the traitor Edric joined him and Wessex submitted. Together Canute and Edric harried Mercia, and were preparing to reduce London, when Æthelred died there on the 23rd of April 1016. 、 Weak, self-indulgent, improvident, he had pursued a policy of opportunism to a fatal conclusion. Æthelred's wife was Emma, or Ælfgifu, daughter of Richard I. the Fearless, duke of the Normans, whom he married in 1002. After the king's death Emma became the wife of Canute the Great, and after his death in 1035 she struggled hard to secure England for her son, Hardicanute. In 1037, however, when Harold Harefoot became sole king, she was banished; she went to Flanders, returning to England with Hardicanute in 1040. In 1043, after Edward the Confessor had become king he seized the greater part of Emma's great wealth, and the queen lived in retirement at Winchester until her death on the 6th of March 1052. By Æthelred Emma had two sons, Edward the Confessor and the ætheling Ælfred (d. 1036), and by Canute she was the mother of Hardicanute. Emma's marriage with Æthelred was an important step in the history of the relations between England and Normandy, and J. R. Green says "it suddenly opened for its rulers a distinct policy, a distinct course of action, which led to the Norman conquest of England. From the moment of Emma's marriage Normandy became a chief factor in English politics." AUTHORITIES.-The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (edition by C. Plummer, 2 vols. Oxford, 1892-1899); Florence of Worcester (ed. B. Thorpe, London, 1848–1849); Encomium Emmae (ed. by G. H. Pertz in the Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, Band xix., Hanover, 1866) for the latter part of the reign. See also J. M. Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus aevi Saxonici (London, 1839-1848); and B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws (London, 1840). (Č. S. P.*) son ETHELSTAN (c. 894-940), Saxon king, was the (probably illegitimate) of Edward the elder. He had been the favourite of his grandfather Alfred, and was brought up in the household of his aunt Æthelflaed, the "Lady of the Mercians." On the death of his father in 924, at some date after the 12th of November, Æthelstan succeeded him and was crowned at Kingston shortly after. The succession did not, however, take place without opposition. One Ælfred, probably a descendant of Ethelred I., formed a plot to seize the king at Winchester; the plot was discovered and Ælfred was sent to Rome to defend himself, but died shortly after. The king's own legitimate brother Edwin made no attempt on the throne, but in 933 he was drowned at sea under somewhat mysterious circumstances; the later chroniclers ascribe his death to foul play on the part of the king, but this seems more than doubtful. One of Æthelstan's first public acts was to hold a conference at Tamworth with Sihtric, the Scandinavian king of Northumbria, and as a result Sihtric received Æthelstan's sister in marriage. In the next year Sihtric died and Æthelstan took over the Northumbrian kingdom. He now received, at Dacre in Cumberland, the submission of all the kings of the island, viz. Howel Dda, king of West Wales, Owen, king of Cumbria, Constantine, king of the Scots, and Ealdred of Bamburgh, and henceforth he calls himself " rex totius Britanniae." About this time (the exact chronology is uncertain) Æthelstan expelled Sihtric's brother In 934 he invaded Scotland by land and sea, perhaps owing to an alliance between Constantine and Anlaf Sihtricsson. The army advanced as far north as Dunottar, in Kincardineshire, while the navy sailed to Caithness. Simeon of Durham speaks of a submission of Scotland as a result; if it ever took place it was a mere form, for three years later we find a great confederacy formed in Scotland against Æthelstan. This confederacy of 937 was joined by Constantine, king of Scotland, the Welsh of Strathclyde, and the Norwegian chieftains Anlaf Sihtricsson and Anlaf Godfredsson, who, though they came from Ireland, had powerful English connexions. A great battle was fought at Brunanburh (perhaps Brunswark or Birrenswark hill in S.E. Dumfriesshire), in which Æthelstan and his brother Edmund were completely victorious. England had been freed from its greatest danger since the days of the struggle of Alfred against Guthrum. Æthelstan was the first Saxon king who could claim in any real sense to be lord paramount of Britain. In his charters he is continually called rex totius Britanniae," and he adopts for the first time the Greek title basileus. This was not merely an idle flourish, for some of his charters are signed by Welsh and Scottish kings as subreguli. Further, Æthelstan was the first king to bring England into close touch with continental Europe. By the marriage of his half-sisters he was brought into connexion with the chief royal and princely houses of France and Germany. His sister Eadgifu married Charles the Simple, Eadhild became the wife of Hugh the Great, duke of France, Eadgyth was married to the emperor Otto the Great, and her sister Ælfgifu to a petty German-prince. Embassies passed between Æthelstan and Harold Fairhair, first king of Norway, with the result that Harold's son Haakon was brought up in England and is known in Scandinavian history as Haakon Adalsteinsfóstri. Æthelstan died at Gloucester in 940, and was buried at Malmesbury, an abbey which he had munificently endowed during his lifetime. Apparently he was never married, and he certainly had no issue. A considerable body of law has come down to us in Æthelstan's name. The chief collections are those issued at Grately in Hampshire, at Exeter, at Thunresfeld, and the Judicia civitatis Lundonie. In the last-named one personal touch is found when the king tells the archbishop how grievous it is to put to death persons of twelve winters for stealing. The king secured the raising of the age limit to fifteen. AUTHORITIES.-Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann.; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, i. 141-157, Rolls Series, containlxvii.); Birch, Cartul. Saxon. vol. ii. Nos. 641-747; A.S. Laws, ing valuable original information (v. Stubbs' Introduction, II. lx.(ed. Liebermann), i. 146-183; Ethelweard, Florence of Worcester. Secondary: Saxon Chronicle (ed. Plummer), vol. ii. pp. 132-142; D.N.B., s.v. (A. Mw.) ÆTHELWEARD (ETHELWARD), Anglo-Saxon historian, was the great-grandson of Ethelred, the brother of Alfred, and ealdorman or earl of the western provinces (i.e. probably of the whole of Wessex). He first signs as dux or ealdorman in 973, and continues to sign until 998, about which time his death must have taken place. In the year 991 he was associated with archbishop Sigeric in the conclusion of a peace with the victorious Danes from Maldon, and in 994 he was sent with Bishop Ælfheah (Alphege) of Winchester to make peace with Olaf at Andover. Æthelweard was the author of a Latin Chronicle extending to the year 975. Up to the year 892 he is largely dependent on the Saxon Chronicle, with a few details of his own; later he is largely independent of it. Ethelweard gave himself the bombastic title "Patricius Consul Quaestor Ethelwerdus," and unfortunately this title is only too characteristic of the man. His narrative is highly rhetorical, and as he at the same time attempts more than Tacitean brevity his narrative is often very obscure. Ethelweard was the friend and patron of Ælfric the grammarian. AUTHORITIES.-Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, 994 E; Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum; A.S. Laws (ed. Liebermann), pp. 220-224; | evidence for the existence of the luminiferous aether has accumu Fabii Ethelwerdi Chron., Mon. Hist. Brit. 449-454. Secondary: lated as additional phenomena of light and other radiations Plummer, Saxon Chronicle, vol. ii. p. ci.; Napier and Stevenson, have been discovered; and the properties of this medium, as Crawford Charters, pp. 118-120; D.N.B., s.v. (A. Mw.) ÆTHELWULF, king of the West Saxons, succeeded his father deduced from the phenomena of light, have been found to be Ecgberht in A.D. 839. It is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle for precisely those required to explain electromagnetic phenomena." 823 that he was sent with Eahlstan, bishop of Sherborne, and This description, quoted from James Clerk Maxwell's article the ealdorman Wulfheard to drive out Baldred, king of Kent, in the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, represents the which was successfully accomplished. On the accession of historical position of the subject up till about 1860, when Maxwell Æthelwulf, Æthelstan, his son or brother, was made sub-king of began those constructive speculations in electrical theory, based Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex. Æthelwulf's reign was chiefly on the influence of the physical views of Faraday and Lord Kelvin, occupied with struggles against the Danes. After the king's which have in their subsequent development largely transformed defeat 843-844, the Somerset and Dorset levies won a victory at theoretical physics into the science of the aether. the mouth of the Parret, c. 850. In 851 Ceorl, with the men of Devon, defeated the Danes at Wigganburg, and Æthelstan of Kent was victorious at Sandwich, in spite of which they wintered in England that year for the first time. In 851 also Æthelwulf and Æthelbald won their great victory at Aclea, probably the modern Ockley. In 853 Æthelwulf subdued the North Welsh, in answer to the appeal of Burgred of Mercia, and gave him his daughter Æthelswith in marriage. 855 is the year of the Donation of Æthelwulf and of his journey to Rome with Alfred. On his way home he married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald. According to Asser he was compelled to give up Wessex to his son Æthelbald on his return, and content himself with the eastern sub-kingdom. He died in 858. See Asser, Life of Alfred (W. H. Stevenson, 1904), 1-16; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 823, 836, 840, 851, 853, 855. (F. G. M. B.) AETHER, or ETHER (Gr. alonp, probably from aïow, I burn, though Plato in his Cratylus (410 B) derives the name from its perpetual motion-orɩ åeì Oεî teρì тòv åéрa péwv, àelenp dikaiws av kaλoîтo), a material substance of a more subtle kind than visible bodies, supposed to exist in those parts of space which are apparently empty. "The hypothesis of an aether has been maintained by different speculators for very different reasons. To those who maintained the existence of a plenum as a philosophical principle, nature's abhorrence of a vacuum was a sufficient reason for imagining an all-surrounding aether, even though every other argument should be against it. To Descartes, who made extension the sole essential property of matter, and matter a necessary condition of extension, the bare existence of bodies apparently at a distance was a proof of the existence of a continuous medium between them. But besides these high metaphysical necessities for a medium, there were more mundane uses to be fulfilled by aethers. Aethers were invented for the planets to swim in, to constitute electric atmospheres and magnetic effluvia, to convey sensations from one part of our bodies to another, and so on, till all space had been filled three or four times over with aethers. It is only when we remember the extensive and mischievous influence on science which hypotheses about aethers used formerly to exercise, that we can appreciate the horror of aethers which sober-minded men had during the 18th century, and which, probably as a sort of hereditary prejudice, descended even to John Stuart Mill. The disciples of Newton maintained that in the fact of the mutual gravitation of the heavenly bodies, according to Newton's law, they had a complete quantitative account of their motions; and they endeavoured to follow out the path which Newton had opened up by investigating and measuring the attractions and repulsions of electrified and magnetic bodies, and the cohesive forces in the interior of bodies, without attempting to account for these forces. Newton himself, however, endeavoured to account for gravitation by differences of pressure in an aether; but he did not publish his theory, because he was not able from experiment and observation to give a satisfactory account of this medium, and the manner of its operation in producing the chief phenomena of nature.' On the other hand, those who imagined aethers in order to explain phenomena could not specify the nature of the motion of these media, and could not prove that the media, as imagined by them, would produce the effects they were meant to explain. The only aether which has survived is that which was invented by Huygens to explain the propagation of light. The In the remainder of the article referred to, Maxwell reviews the evidence for the necessity of an aether, from the fact that light takes time to travel, while it cannot travel as a substance, for if so two interfering lights could not mask each other in the dark fringes (see INTERference of LIGHT). Light is therefore an influence propagated as wave-motion, and moreover by transverse undulations, for the reasons brought out by Thomas Young and Augustin Fresnel; so that the aether is a medium which possesses elasticity of a type analogous to rigidity. It must be very different from ordinary matter as we know it, for waves travelling in matter constitute sound, which is propagated hundreds of thousands of times slower than light. If we suppose that the aether differs from ordinary matter in degree but not in kind, we can obtain some idea of its quality from a knowledge of the velocity of radiation and of its possible intensity near the sun, in a manner applied long ago by Lord Kelvin (Trans. R. S. Edin. xxi. 1854). According to modern measurements the solar radiation imparts almost 3 grammecalories of energy per minute per square centimetre at the distance of the earth, which is about 1.3X106 ergs per sec. per cm.2 The energy in sunlight per cubic cm. just outside the earth's atmosphere is therefore about 4X 10-5 ergs; applying the law of inverse squares the value near the sun's surface would be 1.8 ergs. Let E be the effective elasticity of the aether; then E=pc2, where p is its density, and c the velocity of light which is 3X10 10 cm./sec. If A cos" (t-x/c) is the linear vibration, the stress is E d¿/dx; and the total energy, which is twice the kinetic energy p(d§/dt)2dx, is 1⁄2pn2Ã2 per cm., which is thus equal to 1.8 ergs as above. Now λ= 27c/n, so that if A/λ=k, we have p(2πck)2=1.8, giving p=10-22k and E-10-1k-2. Lord Kelvin assumed as a superior limit of k, the ratio of amplitude to wave-length, the value 102, which is a very safe limit. It follows that the density of the aether must exceed 10-18, and its elastic modulus must exceed 103, which is only about 10% of the modulus of rigidity of glass. It thus appears that if the amplitude of vibration could be as much as 10-2 of the wave-length, the aether would be an excessively rare medium with very slight elasticity; and yet it would be capable of transmitting the supply of solar energy on which all terrestrial activity depends. But on the modern theory, which includes the play of electrical phenomena as a function of the aether, there are other considerations which show that this number 10-2 is really an enormous overestimate; and it is not impossible that the co-efficient of ultimate inertia of the aether is greater than the co-efficient of inertia (of different kind) of any existing material substance. = The question of whether the aether is carried along by the earth's motion has been considered from the early days of the undulatory theory of light. In reviving that theory at the be ginning of the 19th century, Thomas Young stated his conviction that material media offered an open structure to the substance called aether, which passed through them without hindrance "like the wind through a grove of trees." Any convection of that medium could be tested by the change of effective velocity of light, which would be revealed by a prism as was suggested by F. J. D. Arago. Before 1868 Maxwell conducted the experiment by sending light from the illuminated cross-wires of an observing telescope forward through the object-glass, and through a train of prisms, and then reflecting it back along the same path; any influence of convection would conspire in |