Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/826

Rh 82 A M U A M Y cess iu the battle of Varna, Nov. 10, 1444, when the king of Hungary, Ladislaus, fell. Having saved his country, he again gave up the reins to his son, and returned to Magnesia. But the janissaries revolted, and his presence was demanded. Again on his throne, he invaded Albania and Peloponnesus, but was repulsed by George Castriot or Scanderbeg. He retreated, however, only to gain a great victory over his former adversary Hmmiades at Cassova (Oct. 17, 1448), the battle lasting three days. He died at Adrianople, Feb. 11, 1451, from a stroke of apoplexy, according to the most probable account. His Mussulman biographers tell that whenever he took a town he was careful to build in it ajami (or cathedral), a mosque, an imaret, a medresseh (or ecclesiastical school), and a Man. The mosque of Adrianople is especially remarkable. He was the first Ottoman emperor who caused bridges of great length to be built ; and during his reign, poetry, juris prudence, and theology began to flourish with promise of the Augustan luxuriance which they attained under his son and successor, Sultan Mohammed-Elfatyh. AMURATH III., sultan of the Turks, born about 1545, succeeded in 1574 his father Selim II. The first words he addressed to his courtiers were &quot; I am hungry : give me something to eat;&quot; and the evil omen was fulfilled in the famines and disasters that marked his reign. In 1579 Queen Elizabeth of England managed to gain his friend ship, and obtained a favourable commercial treaty for Great Britain. It was under him that the janissaries began to feel their power, and to hasten the ruin of the state by their revolt. He was superstitious, feeble, and irritable, as well as extremely addicted to the pleasures of the harem. He was fond of dancing and music, and has left a few literary trifles. He died Jan. 16, 1595. AMURATH IV. was born about 1611, and succeeded his uncle Mustapha in 1623. The chief event of his reign was the recovery in 1638, after thirty days of unremitting assault, of the city of Baghdad which had fallen into the hands of the Persians. He disgraced his victory by re volting cruelties, slaughtering 30,000 Persians in cold blood. So numerous and horrible are the atrocities recorded of him, that he stands pre-eminent even among Turkish Neroes. Some historians ascribe this feature of his cha racter to his almost perpetual inebriation. Be this as it may, he soon enfeebled his constitution, and falling at the same time under a superstitious anticipation of death, he died in 1640, at the early age of twenty-nine. AMWELL, a village of Hertfordshire, in the parish of Great Amwell, on a hill overlooking the Lea, 3 miles from Hertford and 20 from London. Near it are the sources of the New River, formed between 1606 and 1612 in order to supply London with water ; and on a small island in the stream there is a monument to Sir Hugh Myddleton, through whose exertions this work was carried out. Haileybury college, formerly the property of the East India Company, is also in this parish, which has a population of 2245. AMYMONE ( ! A[jivfj.wvrj), in Greek Legend, a daughter of Danaiis, by whom, with her sisters, she had been sent to look for water, the district of Argus being then parched through the anger of Neptune. Amymone having thrown her spear at a stag, missed it, but hit a satyr asleep in the brake. The satyr pursued her, and she called on Neptune for help, who appeared, and for love of her beauty caused a spring to well up, which received her name. By Neptune she became the mother of Nauplius, the wrecker. Amymone at the spring is represented on ancient engraved gems. AMYOT, JACQUES, a famous French writer, was born, of poor parents, at Melun, October 30, 1513; found his way a pale-faced, bare-footed, ill-clad boy to the &quot; Col lege de France&quot; in Paris, and there picked up a know ledge of the classical languages, serving some of the richer students as valet and composer of Latin, to enable him to continue his studies. He became M.A. at Paris, and doctor of civil law at Bourges ; obtained, through Jacques Colure (or Colin), abbot of St Ambrose in the latter city, a tutorship in the family of a secretary of state ; by tha secretary was recommended to the duchess of Berry, only sister of Francis I. ; and, through her influence, was made professor of Greek and Latin at Bourges. Here he trans lated the Theagenes and CJiaridca of Heliodorus (1547, fol.), for which he was rewarded by Francis I. with the abbey of Bellozane, and thereby enabled to go to Italy to study the Vatican text of Plutarch, on whose Lives he had been some time engaged. On the way he turned aside on a mission to the council of Trent. Returning home, he was selected as tutor to the sons of Henry II., by one of whom (Charles IX.) he was afterwards made grand almoner, and by the other (Henry III.) was ap pointed commander of the order of the Holy Ghost. Pius I. promoted him to the bishopric of Auxerre, and here he continued to live in comparative quiet, repairing his cathedral and perfecting his translations, for the rest of his days, though troubled towards the close by the insub ordination and revolts of his clergy. He died February 6, 1593, bequeathing, it is said, 1200 crowns to the hospital at Orleans for the twelve &quot; deniers &quot; he received there when &quot; poor and naked &quot; on his way to Paris. His fame resta on his vigorous and idiomatic version of Plutarch s Lives (1559, 2 vols.), which was translated into English by North, and supplied Shakespeare with materials for his Roman plays. His style was greatly admired by Racine and Rousseau, and Montaigne said of him, &quot; I give the palm, and rightly, methinks, to Jacques Amyot over all our French writers.&quot; AMYRAUT, MOSES, a pre-eminent French Protestant theologian and metaphysician, was born at Bourgueil, in the valley of Anjou, in 1596. His family was an ancient and illustrious one from Hagenau, Alsace. They migrated to Orleans in the 13th or 14th century. His father was a lawyer of local note, and designing Moses for his own pro fession, on the completion of his studies at Orleans of humanity and philosophy, he sent him to the university of Poictiers. It is recorded that there the youth studied fourteen hours a day, and made such swift progress that he was able to maintain theses and disputations, and to take the degree of licentiate (B.A.) of laws. On his way home from the university he passed through Saumur, and having visited Mons. Bonchereau, pastor of the Protestant church there, he introduced him to the renowned lord of Plessis-Mornay, governor of the city. Both were struck with young Amyraut s ability and culture, and both urged him to change from law to theology. Plessis-Mornay, who was chary of laudations, pronounced that &quot; there was nothing above the grasp of his great parts.&quot; Returned home, his father, after considerable hesitation, gave consent to the change from law to divinity, with a proviso that he should revise his philological and philosophical studies, and read over Mons. Calvin s Institutions, before finally deter mining. He did so, and, as might have been anticipated, decided for theology. He thereupon removed to Saumur destined to be for ever associated with his name and &quot;sat at the feet of the great Cameron,&quot; who ultimately regarded him as his greatest scholar. He had a brilliant course, and was in due time licensed as a minister of the French Protestant Church. The contemporary civil wars and excitements hindered his advancement. His first church was in St Aignau, in the province of Maine. There he remained two years. The celebrated Daille, being then removed to Paris, advised the church at Saumur to secure Amyraut as his successor, praising him &quot; as above himself.&quot;