Spaniards; three small islands of the West Indies, situated to the south-east of Guadaloupe. The most westerly of them is Terra de Bas, or the Low Island, and the most easterly Terra de Haut, or the High Island. They are about six miles distant from Guadaloupe, and fifteen from Mariegalante. Long. 61° 32′ W., lat. 15° 56 N

XALAPA, a considerable town of Mexico, in the intendancy of Vera Cruz, formerly famous for the fair held on the arrival of the stated fleets from Europe; and, ever since the commerce was declared free, a considerable mart for European commodities. From the convent of St. Francis there is a magnificent view of the colossal summit of the Coffre and the Pic d'Orizaba, of the declivity of the Cordillera, of the river of L'Antigua, and even of the ocean. Whenever the north wind blows at Vera Cruz, the inhabitants of Xalapa are enveloped in a thick fog. The thermometer then descends to 63° and 66° of Fahrenheit, and during this period the sun and stars are frequently invisible for two or three weeks together. The land rises towards the interior by a gentle ascent, until it reaches an elevation of about 8000 feet, when it spreads out into extensive plains. Xalapa is situated about half way up this ascent, being 4264 feet above the level of the sea. It is estimated to contain 13,000 inhabitants, and is about fifty miles north-west of Vera Cruz, and eighty east of Mexico. XANTHICA, a festival observed by the Macedonians in the month Xanthicus, when a lustration was made of the army, by cutting a bitch in two parts, laying them separate, and marching the soldiers between them, after which they concluded with a mock fight.

XANTHIPPUS, a brave Spartan general, who was sent with a body of Greeks to assist the Carthaginians in the first Punic war; which he did so effectually, by introducing proper discipline into their army, that they appointed him commander in chief, and he completely defeated the whole Roman army, taking the celebrated general Regulus himself prisoner; while the Carthaginians lost only 800 men. See CARTHAGE. It is said that they ungratefully drowned him by sending him home in a leaky ship.

XANTHIUM, in botany, a genus of plants of the class monœcia or pentandria, and arranged in the natural classification under the forty-ninth order, compositæ. The male flowers are composite, common calyx imbricated; corollæ monopetalous, tubular, quinquefid. Female: calyx involucrum of two leaves, containing two flowers; no corolla; drupa dry, prickly; nucleus bilocular. There are five species, only one of which is a native of Britain, viz. X. strumaria, lesser burdock. The stem of this plant is a foot and a half high, thick, often spotted; leaves heart-shaped, lobed, on long footstalks.

XANTHOXYLUM. See ZANTHOXYLUM. XANTHUS, a historian of Sardis, under Darius. XANTHUS, a Greek historian of Lydia.

XANTHUS, a philosopher of Samos, called by others Iadmon, who purchased Æsop, the fabulist for his wit, and afterwards gave him his liberty. See Æsop.

XANTHUS, in fabulous history, one of the horses of Achilles, who, when chid with severity, spoke to his master, and told him he would soon be killed. Hom. II. 19.

XANTHUS, king of Boeotia. See ATTICA.

XANTHUS, in geography, a river of Troas. Sec SCAMANDER.

XANTHUS, a river of Lycia, sacred to Apollo, running into the sea near Patara. Hom. Il. 6, 172. XANTHUS, a town of Lycia, on the above river, fifteen miles from the coast. It was besieged by Brutus, who wished to spare the Xanthians; but they were so zealous for their independence that they set fire to their city; and Brutus's troops, by their utmost exertions, could only get 150 of them saved. Appian 4. Plut.

XANTICLES, one of the leaders of the 10,000 Greeks in their famous retreat out of Persia, after the battle of Cunaxa.

XANTIPPE, the wife of Socrates, proverbially famous as a scold. But, while this foible is often repeated, her virtues are forgot. No wife ever showed more affectionate grief than she did at her husband's death. See SOCRATES.

XANTIPPE, the celebrated Roman daughter, who preserved her father's life by suckling him in jail. See FILIAL PIETY.

XANTIPPE, the daughter of Dorus, wife of Pleuron, and mother of Agenor, &c.

XANTIPPUS, or XANTHIPPUS, a celebrated Athenian general and admiral, who defeated_the Persian fleet at Mycale, in conjunction with Leotychides, king of Sparta; and was appointed along with Aristides to judge of Themistocles' secret proposal. See ATTICA, and MYCALE. He married Agariste, the niece of Clisthenes, who expelled the Pisistratidæ ; by whom he had the celebrated Pericles. He also conquered the Thracians. A statue was erected to his honor in the citadel of Athens.

XAVIER (St. Francis), the apostle of the Indies, was born at Xavier in 1506, and educated at Paris, where he formed an intimacy with Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Seized with a similar zeal, he bound himself with some others to attempt to convert the heathens. In 1541 he embarked at Lisbon for Goa, and labored with great zeal in Japan and various parts of India. He was even preparing for a voyage to China, when he died at Goa in 1552. Pope Gregory XV. enrolled him among the saints in 1622. His works are, 1. Five Books of Epistles, Paris, 8vo., 1631. 2. A Catechism. 3. Opuscula.

XAUXA, or Jauxa, a province of Peru, bounded north and north-east by the province of Tarma, east by the mountain of the Indians, south-east by the province of Huanta, south by that of Angaraes, south-west by that of Yauyos, and west by that of Guarochiri. It is twelve leagues long from north to south, and fifteen broad from east to west. This province is a ravine or valley of delightful temperature, although on the heights of either side of it a considerable degree of cold is felt.

XAUXA, the capital of a district of the same name, situated near the river Xauxa. It has some woollen manufactures.

XAUXA, a large and abundant river of Peru, which has its source in lake Chinchaicocha, in the province of Tarma.

XEBEC, or ZEBEC, a small three-masted vessel, navigated in the Mediterranean Sea, and on the coasts of Spain, Portugal, and Barbary.

XENAGORAS; 1. An ancient historian.-Dion. Hal. 2. A philosopher who measured the height of mount Olympus.

XENARCHUS; 1. An ancient comic poet. 2.

A peripatetic philosopher, who taught philosophy at Alexandria and Rome, and was intimate with Augustus. Strab. 14. 3. A prætor of the Achæan league, who favored Perseus.

XENEUS, a native of Chios, who wrote a Ilistory of Chios.

XENIADES, a Corinthian, who went to buy Diogenes, the Cynic, when sold as a slave. Upon asking him what he could do? he replied, Command freemen; on which he gave him his freedom, and made him tutor to his children. Gellius, ii. c. 18. XENIUS, a surname of Jupiter, as the god of Hospitality.

XENOCLES, a tragic writer, who obtained a prize four times in competition with the celebrated Euripides. His grandson Xenocles also excelled in tragedy. Ælian. ii. c. 8.

XENOCRATES, a celebrated ancient Grecian philosopher, born at Chalcedon in the ninety-fifth Olympiad. At first he attached himself to Eschines, but afterwards became a disciple of Plato, who took much pains in cultivating his genius, which was naturally dull. His temper was gloomy, his aspect severe, and his manners little tinctured with urbanity. These material defects Plato took great pains to correct, advising him to sacrifice to the graces; Xenocrates was patient of instruction, and, as long as Plato lived, was one of his most esteemed disciples; after his death he adhered to his doctrine; and, in the second year of the 110th Olympiad, he took the chair in the academy, as the successor of Speusippus. Xenocrates was celebrated among the Athenians, not only for his wisdom but for his virtues. So eminent was his reputation for integrity, that when he was called upon to give evidence in a judicial transaction, in which an oath was usually required, the judges agreed that his simple asseveration should be taken, as a public testimony to his merit. Even Philip II. of Macedon found it impossible to corrupt him. So abstemious was he, with respect to food, that his provision was often spoiled before it was used. His chastity was invincible. Phryne, the celebrated Athenian courtezan, attempted without success to seduce him. Of his humanity, even to brutes, he gave a proof, by protecting a sparrow pursued by a hawk, which flew into his bosom. He was economic of his time, and allotted a certain portion of each day to its proper business. One of these he employed in meditation. He was an admirer of the mathematical sciences. He lived to the first year of the 116th Olympiad, or the eighty-second of his age, when he lost his life by falling in the dark into a reservoir of water.

XENOPHANES, the founder of the eleatic sect of philosophy among the Greeks, was born at Colophon about the sixty-fifth Olympiad. From some cause or other he left his country early, and took refuge in Sicily, where he supported himself by reciting in the court of Hiero elegiac and iambic verses, which he had written in reprehension of the theogonies of Hesiod and Homer. From Sicily he passed over- into Magna Græcia, where he took up the profession of philosophy, and became a celebrated preceptor in the Pythagorean school. Indulging, however, a greater freedom of thought than was usual among the disciples of Pythagoras, he ventured to introduce new opinions of his own, and in many particulars to oppose the doctrines of Epimenides, Thales, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes possessed the Pythagorean chair of

philosophy about seventy years, and lived to the extreme age of 10 years, that is, according to Eusebius, till the eighty-first Olympiad. The doctrine of Xenophanes concerning nature is so imperfectly preserved, and obscurely expressed, that it is no wonder that it has been differently represented by different writers. Perhaps the truth is, that he held the universe to be one in nature and substance, but distinguished in his conception between the matter of which all things consist, and tnat latent divine force, which, though not a distinct substance but an attribute, is necessarily inherent in the universe, and is the cause of all its perfection.

XENOPHILUS; 1. A Pythagorean philosopher, who lived till he was 170, and enjoyed all his faculties to the last.-Val. Max. 8, c. 13. 2. One of Alexander's generals.

XENOPHON, the son of Gryllus, an illustrious philosopher, general, and historian, was born at Athens in the third year of the eighty-second Olym piad. He became a disciple of Socrates, and made a rapid progress in that moral wisdom for which his master was so eminent. Xenophon accompanied Socrates in the Peloponnesian war, and fought courageously in defence of his country. He afterwards entered into the army of Cyrus as a private volunteer in his expedition against his brother. This enterprise proving unfortunate, Xenophon, after the death of Cyrus, advised his fellow soldiers to attempt a retreat into their own country. They listened to his advice; and, having had many proofs of his wisdom as well as courage, they gave him the command of the army in the room of Clearchus and Proxenus, who had fallen in battle. See PERSIA. In this command he acquired great glory by the prudence and firmness with which he conducted them back, through the midst of innumerable dangers, during a period of fifteen months, and through a tract of 1155 leagues into their own country. The particulars of this memorable adventure are related by Xenophon himself in his Retreat of the Ten Thousand. After his return into Greece, he joined Agesilaus, king of Sparta, and fought with him against the Thebans in the celebrated battle of Charonea. The Athenians, displeased at this alliance, brought a public accusation against him for his former conduct in engaging in the service of Cyrus, and condemned him to exile. The Spartans, upon this, took Xenophon, as an injured man, under their protection, and provided him a comfortable retreat at Scillus in Elea. Here, with his wife and two children, he remained several years, and passed his time in the society of his friends, and in writing those historical works which have rendered his name immortal. A war at length arose between the Spartans and Eleans, and Xenophon was obliged to retire to Lepreus, where his eldest son had settled. He afterwards removed with his whole family to Corinth, where, in the first year of the 105th Olympiad, he died.

XENOPHON, a physician and favorite of the emperor Claudius, born in the island of Cos, and descended from Esculapius. For his sake Claudios exempted the people of Cos from all taxes. Yet the monster was so ungrateful as to poison bis benefactor to please the parricide Agrippina. Tac. 12.

XENOPHON THE YOUNGER, a Greek writer, so called to distinguish him from the historian, was born at Ephesus, and lived before Heliodorus

V., confirmed that nomination. The cardinal immediately made a reform of the officers of the supreme council and of the court, and put a stop to the oppression of the grandees. He vindicated the rights of the people against the nobility; and as by the feudal constitution the military power was lodged in the hands of the nobles, and men of inferior condition were called into the field only as their vassals, a king with scanty revenues depended on them in all his operations. From this state Ximenes resolved to deliver the crown; and issued a proclamation, commanding every city in Castile to enrol a certain mumber of its burgesses, and teach them military discipline; he himself engaging to provide officers to command them at the public expense. This was vigorously opposed by the nobles; but by his intrepidity and superior address he carried his point. He then endeavoured to diminish the possessions of the nobility, by reclaiming all the crown lands, and putting a stop to the pensions granted by the late king Ferdinand. This addition made to the revenues enabled him to discharge all the debts of Ferdinand, and to establish magazines of warlike stores. The nobles, alarmed at these repeated attacks, uttered loud complaints; but, before they proceeded to extremities, appointed some grandees of the first rank to examine the powers in consequence of which he exercised acts of such high authority. Ximenes received them with cold civility; produced the testament of Ferdinand, by which he was appointed regent, together with the ratification of that deed by Charles. To both these they objected; and he endeavoured to establish their validity. As the conversation grew warm, he led them insensibly to a balcony, from which they had a view of a large body of troops under arms, and of a formidable train of artillery. 'Behold,' says he, pointing to these, and raising his voice, the powers which I have received from his Catholic majesty. With these I govern Castile; and with these I will govern it, till the king, your master and mine, takes possession of his kingdom!' A declaration so bold and haughty silenced them and astonished their associates. They saw that he was prepared for his defence, and laid aside all thoughts of a general confederacy against his administration. At length, from the repeated intreaties of Ximenes, and the impatient murmurs of the Spanish ministry, Charles V. embarked, and landed in Spain, accompanied by his favorites. Ximenes was advancing to the coast to meet him, but at Bos Equillus was seized with a violent disorder, which his followers considered as the effects of poison. This accident obliging Ximenes to stop, he wrote to the king, and with his usual boldness advised him to dismiss all the strangers in his train, whose number and credit already gave offence to the Spaniards, and earnestly desired to have an interview with him, that he might inform him of the state of the nation and the temper of his subjects. To prevent this, not only the Flemings but the Spanish grandees employed all their address to keep Charles at a distance from Aranda, the place to which the cardinal had removed. His advice was now slighted and despised. Ximenes, conscious of his own integrity and merit, expected a more grateful return from a prince to whom he delivered a kingdom more flourishing than it had been at any former age, and a more extensive authority than the most illustrious of his ancestors had ever

possessed; and lamented the fate of his country about to be ruined by the rapaciousness and insolence of foreign favorites. While his mind was agitated by these passions, he received a letter from the king; in which, after a few cold and formal expressions of regard, he was allowed to retire to his diocese; and he expired a few hours after reading it, in 1517, in the eighty-first year of his age.

XIMENES (Father), a learned priest of the seventeenth century, who wrote a curious work in Italian, entitled Del Vecchio e nuovo Gnomone Florentino; printed at Florence in 1757, 4to. In this work he describes the grand gnomon erected by Paul Toscanella, in 1470, in the cathedral of Florence, which is reckoned the greatest of the kind in Europe.

XIMENES (Roderic), archbishop of Toledo, in the thirteenth century, who wrote a History of Spain in nine books.

XIMENIA, in botany, a genus of plants in the class of octandria, and order of monogynia. These plants bear hermaphrodite flowers, with eight stamina, and only one style. See ASTRONOMY,

XIPHIAS, in astronomy.

Index.

XIPHIAS, in ichthyology, the sword fish, a genus of fishes belonging to the order of apodes. The upper jaw terminates in a long sword shaped rostrum, from which it is called the sword fish; there are no teeth in the mouth; the gill membrane has eight rays; and the body is somewhat cylindrical. There is but one species, viz. :—X. gladius, found in the European Ocean.

XULLA ISLANDS, four islands in the Eastern Seas, situated to the south-east of the Molucca passage. Xulia Bessey, which is the most considerable of them, is about eleven leagues in length, in good cultivation and well inhabited. The Dutch fort is near a village adjacent to the south-east point, where ships may procure refreshments. XUTH. See XUTHUS.

XUTHUS, or XUTH, in the fabulous history of Chaldæa, a name of Noah. See DELUGE.

XUTHUS, in the fabulous history of Greece, a son of Hellen, and grandson of Deucalion. Being expelled from Thessaly by his brothers, he came to Athens, and married Creusa, the daughter of king Erechtheus, by whom he had Achæus and Ion, who gave name to Achaia and Jonia.

XYLANDER (William), a learned critic, born at Augsburgh in 1532. In 1558 he became professor of Greek at Heidelbergh. He had previously published a Latin version of Dion Cassius at Basil. In 1559 he published a Latin translation of Marcus Aurelius, and in 1568 another exceedingly correct. He also printed an accurate edition of Strabo in Greek and Latin. He died at Heidelbergh in 1576.

XYLANTHRAX, or bovey coal, in mineralogy. See COAL. Its laminæ are frequently flexible when first dug, though they generally harden when exposed to the air. It consists of wood penetrated with petrol or bitumen, and frequently contains pyrites, alum, sulphuric acid, &c. By distillation it yields a fetid liquor, mixed with a volatile alkali and oil; part of which is soluble in spirit of wine, and part of a mineral nature, and insoluble.

XYLO ALOES, or aloe wood, in the materia medica, is the product of a tree growing in China and some of the Indian Islands. See ExcоECARIA

This drug is distinguished into the calambac or tambac, the common lignum aloes, and calambour. The calambac or finest aloes wood, called by authors lignum aloes præstantissimum, and by the Chinese sukhiang, is the most resinous of all the woods we are acquainted with; it is of a light spongy texture, very porous, and its pores so filled up with a soft and fragrant resin, that the whole may be pressed and dented by the fingers like wax, or moulded about by chewing in the mouth in the manner of mastich. This kind, laid on the fire, melts in great parts like resin, and burns away in a few moments with a bright flame and perfumed smell. Its scent, while in the mass, is very fragrant and agreeable; and its taste acrid and bitterish, but very aromatic and agreeable. It is so variable in its color, that some have divided it into three kinds; the one variegated with black and purple; the second with the same black but with yellowish instead of purple; and the third yellow alone like the yolk of an egg; this last is the least scented of the three. The variation, however, is owing to the trunk of the tree being itself of three different colors; and the heart of it is the valuable sort first described. The two following are supposed to be the other parts of the trunk; though this seems doubtful, especially in regard to the last sort, from the circumstance mentioned of its being found in large logs entire, and sometimes only the heart, which, as above noticed, constitutes the calambac. The lignum aloes vulgare is the second in value. This is of a more dense and compact texture, and consequently less resinous than the other; there is some of it, however, that is spongy, and has the holes filled up with the right resinous matter; and all of it, when good, has veins of the same resin in it. We meet with it in small fragments, which have been cut and split from larger; these are of a tolerably dense texture in the more solid pieces, and of a dusky brown color, variegated with resinous black veins. It is in this state very heavy, and less fragrant than in those pieces which show a multitude of little holes, filled up with the same blackish matter that forms the veins in others. The woody part of these last pieces is somewhat darker than the other, and is not unfrequently purplish, or even blackish. The smell of the common aloe wood is very agreeable, but not so strongly perfumed as the former. Its taste is somewhat bitter and acrid, but very aromatic. The calambour, called also agallochum sylvestre, and lignum aloes mexicanum, is light and friable, of a dusky and often mottled color, between a dusky green black and a deep brown. Its smell is fragrant and agreeable, but much less sweet than that of either of the others; and its taste bitterish, but not so much acrid or aromatic as either of the two former. This is said to be met with very frequently, and in large logs; and these sometimes entire, sometimes only the heart of the tree. This is the aloe wood

used by the cabinet makers and inlayers. This drug is esteemed a cordial taken inwardly; and is sometimes given in disorders of the stomach and bowels, and to destroy worms. A very fragrant oil may be procured from it by distillation; which is recommended in paralytic cases from five to fifteen drops. It is at present, however, but little used; and would scarcely be met with any where in the shops, but that it is an ingredient in some of the old compositions.

XYLOPHYLLA, in botany, a genus of plants, in the class of pentandria, and order of trigynia. These plants bear hermaphrodite flowers, furnished with five stamina and three styles.

XYLOPIA, in botany, a genus of plants, in the class gynandria, and order of polyandria; natural order fifty-second, coadunatæ. All the flowers of this genus have a monstrous appearance, owing to the uncommon structure of the parts of fructification. They have the stamina growing either upon the style itself or upon a receptacle, that stretches out into the form of a style, and supports both the stamina and the pistillum; and they have all many stamina.

XYLOPOLIS, an ancient town of Macedonia.Plin. 4. c. 10.

XYNOECIA, or XYNOICHIA, in Grecian antiquity, an anniversary feast observed by the Athenians in honor of Minerva, upon the sixteenth of Hecatombæon, to commemorate their leaving, by the persuasion of Theseus, their country seats, in which they lay dispersed here and there in Attica, and uniting together in one body.

XYPHILIN (John), a learned Greek prelate, born in Trebisond, who became patriarch of Constantinople in 1064. He wrote a sermon, preserved in the Bibl. Patrium; and an abridgment of the History of Dion Cassius, which was printed in 1592, in folio. He died in 1075.

XYRIS, in botany, a genus of plants in the class of tetrandria, and order of monogynia; natural order sixth, ensatæ. These plants bear hermaphrodite flowers, furnished with one style, and four stamina, all of equal length. In this particular they differ from the plants of the class didynamia, which have also four stamina, but of which two are longer than the other two.

XYSTARCHA, in antiquity, the master or director of the xystus. In the Greek gymnasium, the xystarcha was the second officer, and the gymnasiarcha the first; the former was his lieutenant, and presided over the two xysti, and all exercises of the athlete therein.

XYSTUS, among the Greeks, was a long portico, open or covered at the top, where the athlete practised wrestling and running: the gladiators, who practised therein, were called xystici. Among the Romans, the xystus was only an alley, or double row of trees, meeting like an arbor, and forming a shade to walk under.