Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/779

Rh A M E A M E 735 every scavenger. During the war, when the Lowell fac tory girls were writing verses, the &quot;Biglow Papers&quot; were being recited in every smithy, The consequence is, that (setting aside the newspapers) there is little that is sec tional in the popular religion or literature; it exalts and despises no class, and almost wholly ignores the lines that in other countries divide the upper ten thousand and the lower ten million. Where manners make men the people are proud of their peerage, but they blush for their boors. In the New World there are no &quot; Grand Seigniors,&quot; and no human vegetables; and if there are fewer giants, there are also fewer mannikins. American poets recognise no essential distinction between the &quot; Village Blacksmith&quot; and the &quot;caste of Vere de Vere.&quot; Burns speaks for the one; Byron and Tennyson for the other; Longfellow, to the extent of his genius, for both. The same spirit which glorifies labour denounces every form of despotism but that of the multitude. American slavery, being an anachron ism based on the antipathies of race, was worse than Athenian slavery. But there is no song of an Athenian slave. When the ancients were unjust to their inferiors, they were so without moral disquietude : the lie had got into the soul. Christianity, which substituted the word &quot; brother &quot; for &quot; barbarian,&quot; first gave meaning to the word &quot;humanity.&quot; But the feudalism of the Middle Ages long contended successfully against the higher precepts of the church : the teaching of Froissart held its ground against that of Langland. The hero-worship of our greatest living author is apt to degenerate into a reassertion of the feudal spirit. The aspirations of our descendants in the West point, on the other hand, to a freedom which is in danger of being corrupted by licence. But if the vulgarism of demagogic excess is restrained and overcome by the good taste and culture of her nobler minds, we may anticipate for the literature of America, under the mellowing influ ences of time an illustrious future. (j. N.) AMERIGO VESPUCCI. See VESPUCCI. AMERSFOORT, a town of Holland, in the province of Utrecht, situated 12 miles E.N.E. of the city of that name, on the Eem, Avhich here is navigable. It contains a town- house, several churches -Protestant and Roman Catholic a court of primary jurisdiction, a Jansenist college, an industrial and several other schools. Woollen goods, cotton, silk, glass, and brandy are the chief manufactures, and there is a large trade in corn, tobacco, and dried herrings. Amersfoort received its municipal privileges in 1249. It was taken by the Archduke Maximilian in 1483, and by the French in 1672 and in 1795. Popula tion, 13,200. AMERSHAM, or AGMONDESHAH, an old market town in Buckinghamshire, pleasantly situated in the valley o f the Misbourn, a small tributary of the Colne, 32 miles from Buckingham, and 2G from London. It consists chiefly of a main street crossed by a smaller one - t and possesses a handsome church, containing some beautiful monuments, several dissenting places of worship, a town- hall, built in 1642 by Sir William Drake, and a grammar school. It has manufactures of black lace, cotton, straw- plait, wooden chairs, flour, and beer. Edmund Waller, the poet, was born near Amersham, and sat for the borough, which sent two members to parliament until 1832. Population of parish in 1871, 3259, AMES, FISHER, an eminent American statesman and political writer, son of Nathaniel Ames, a physician, was born at Dedham, in Massachusetts, on 9th April 1758. He studied at Harvard college, where he graduated in 1774. After practising the law for some little time, he abandoned that profession for the more congenial pursuit of politics, and in 1788 became a member of the Massa chusetts convention for ratifying the constitution. In this assembly he bore a conspicuous part, and in the next year, having passed to the house of representatives in the state legislature, he distinguished himself greatly by his elo quence and sprightliness and readiness in debate. Dur ing the eight years of Washington s administration he took a prominent part in the national councils ; and on Washington s retirement, he returned to his residence at Dedham to resume the practice of the law, which the state of his health after a few years obliged him to relinquish. He still continued his literary labours, and published numerous essays, chiefly in relation to the contest between Great Britain and revolutionary France, as it might affect the liberty and prosperity of America. Four years before his death he was chosen president of Harvard college, an honour which his broken state of health obliged him to decline. He died on the 4th July 1808, admired and respected by his countrymen from the brilliancy of his talents and his private virtues. His writings, which abound in sparkling passages, displaying great fertility of imagina tion, were collected and published, with a memoir of the author, in 1809, by the Rev. Dr Kirkland, in one large octavo volume. A more complete edition in two volumes was published by his son, Seth Ames, in 1854. AMES, JOSEPH, author of a valuable work on the pro gress of printing in England, called Typographical Anti quities (1749), which is often quoted by bibliographers. He was born in 1689, and died in 1759. The best editions of his work are those published with the additions of Herbert (1785-90), and of Dibdin (1810-16). These both include a life of Ames written by Mr Gough. AMES, WILLIAM, D.D. In the Latinised form of Amesius this distinguished English theologian is now better known on the Continent than in our own country, through works that were a power in their day, and are not yet spent of their force. He was born at Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1576. He received an excellent education at the grammar school of Ipswich ; and proceeded next to the university of Cambridge, where he was entered of Christ s college. From the outset, as to the latest, he was an omnivorous student. Entering half-carelessly into the church where the great Master William Perkins was the preacher, he was, under the sermon, roused and alarmed in such fashion as was not rare under so burning and intense an orator as Perkins. Like another Nicodemus he visited the vener able preacher, and was taught and comforted so as never through life to forget his interviews with the &quot; old man eloquent.&quot; Perkins having died at a ripe old age, was succeeded by one of kindred intellect and fervour, Paul Bayne, and his friendship also was gained by Ames. He proceeded B.A. and M.A. in due course, and was chosen to a fellowship in Christ s college. He was universally beloved in the university. His own college (Christ s) would have chosen him for the mastership ; but a party-opposi tion led to the election of a Dr Carey, who at once sought a quarrel by arraigning Ames for disapproving of the sur plice and other outward symbols. Not succeeding by threats of expulsion, which were illegal and powerless, the master resorted to transparent flattery. Ames stood firm, was led to re-examine former opinions, and the result was that more absolutely than ever he decided against con formity. Nevertheless, he preached in season and out of season, and always with profound impression. One ser mon became historical in the Puritan controversies. It was delivered on St Thomas clay, before the feast of Christ s