Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/113

Rh acquisitions in the, iole domain of practical medicine. The numerous diseases affecting the lungs can now be recognised and- discriminated from each other with a precision which, but for auscultation and the stethoscope, would have been altogether unattainable, a point which bears most intimately upon the treatment of this great and common class of ailments. The same holds good in the case of the heart, whose varied and often complex forms of disease can, by auscultation, be identified with striking accuracy. But in addition to these its main uses, auscul tation is found to render great assistance in the investiga tion of many obscure internal affections, such as aneurisms and certain diseases of the oesophagus and stomach. To the accoucheur the stethoscope yields valuable aid in the detection of some forms of uterine tumours, and especially in the diagnosis of pregnancy, the auscultatory evidence afforded at a particular stage by the sounds of the foetal heart being by far the most reliable of the many signs of that condition. (j. o. A.)

 AUSONIUS, DECIMTJS MAGNUS, a Koman poet of the 4th century, was the son of an eminent physician, and born at Burdigala (Bordeaux} about 310 A.D. His education was conducted with unusual care, either because his genius was very promising, or because the scheme of his nativity, which had been cast by his maternal grandfather, was found to promise great fame and advancement. He made extraordinary progress in classical learning ; and, after completing his studies at Toulouse, he practised for a time at the bar in his- native place. At the age of thirty he became a teacher of grammar, and soon afterwards was promoted to the professorship of rhetoric. In this office he acquired so great a reputation that he was appointed pre ceptor to Gratian, the Emperor Valentinian s son. The rewards and honours conferred on him for the faithful discharge of his duties, prove the truth of Juvenal s maxim that when Fortune pleases she can raise a man from the humble rank of rhetorician to the dignity of consul. He was appointed consul by the Emperor Gratian in the year 379, after having filled other important offices ; for besides the dignity of quaestor, to which he had been nominated by Valentinian, he was made prefect of Latium, of Libya, and of Gaul, after that prince s death. His speech, returning thanks to Gratian on his promotion to the consulship, is a good specimen of high-flown rhetorical flattery. The time of his death is uncertain, but he was alive in 388, and probably survived till about 394. From references in his works he appears to have been a convert to Christianity. Of his prose writings, there are extant the Actio ad Gratianum, the Periochce (or summaries) in Iliadem et Odysseam, and one or two of the Epistolce. The principal pieces in verse are the Epigrammata, some of which are extremely felicitous ; the Parentalia and Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium, which give interesting details concerning his relations and literary friends; the Epistolce; and, finally, the Idyllia, a collection of twenty small poems, the most famous of which are the Cento Nuptialis, an obscene selection of lines from Virgil, and the Mosella, a descriptive poem on the river Moselle, containing some good passages. Ausonius was rather a man of letters than a poet ; his wide reading supplied him with materials for verse, but his works exhibit no traces of a true poetic spirit; even his versification, though ingenious, is frequently defective. The best editions of his works are those of Tollius (Amsterdam, 1669), and Souchay (Paris, 1730), and the Bipontine (1785). The Mosella has been edited separately by Bocking (1828, 1842).

 . See.

 AUSSIG,, or , a town of Austria, in Bohemia, situated in a mountainous district, at the con fluence of the Bila and the Elbe. It carries on a large manufacture of woollen wares, linen, paper, &c. Its chemical works alone give employment to 500 operatives, and about 600 boats are annually built in its yards. Besides a considerable trade in grain, fruit, mineral-waters, and wood, there is a large export of coal from the neighbouring mines. Aussig, once strongly fortified, was destroyed by the Hussites in 1426, burned down in 1583, and captured by the Swedes in 1639. Population, 10,933.

 AUSTEN,, one of the most distinguished modern. British novelists, was born December 16, 1775, at the parsonage of Steventon, in Hampshire, of which place her father was for many years rector. Her life was singularly tranquil and void of incident, so that but few facts are known concerning her from which an idea of her character can be formed. She was tall and attractive in person, and of an extremely kind and gentle disposition. Under her father s care she received a sound education, though she had few of the modern accomplishments. She had a fair acquaintance with English literature, her favourite authors being Richardson, Johnson, Cowper, and Crabbe ; she knew French well and Italian slightly, had some taste for music, and was noted for her skill in needlework. She was a particular favourite with all her younger relatives, especially on account of her wonderful power of extemporising long and circumstantial narratives. At a very early age she seems to have begun to exercise her faculty for composition, and wrote several short tales and fragments of larger works, some of which have been found among her papers. These first essays are written in a remarkably pure and vigorous style, and are not unworthy of her later reputation. In 1796 her first large work, Pride and Prejudice, was begun and completed in about ten months ; Sense and Sensibility and Fort hanger Abbey were written soon after, during 1797 and 1798. Many years elapsed before these works were published, for the first attempts to introduce them to the public were badly received. Pride and Prejudice was summarily rejected by Mr Cadell; Northanger Abbey was sold for 10 to a Bath publisher, but was never printed, and, many years after, was bought back by the author. From 1801 to 1805 the Austen family resided in Bath, they then removed to Southampton, and finally, in 1809, settled at Chawton. There Miss Austen, who for some years had written nothing, resumed her pen, and began to prepare for publication her early novels. Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811, Pride and Prejudice in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814, Emma in 1816. These four were anonymous. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion appeared together under Miss Austen s name in 1818, after her death. Early in 1816 her health had begun to give way; her strength gradually declined, and on the 18th July 1817, she died at Winchester, whither she had removed for change of air and scenery. She was buried in the cathedral of that town. Miss Austen s works at the time of their appearance were on the whole well received, and brought her considerable reputation, more, indeed, than she had herself anticipated; but their full merits were not then so generally recognised as they have since been. The novels most popular at that time belonged to the class of which Mrs Radcliffe's Udolpho, Godwin's St Leon or Caleb Williams, and Lewis's Monk are the best known representatives. Against thus style of fiction Miss Austen from the first set her face ; she had a remarkably keen sense of humour, and the ludicrous aspect of these thrilling incidents, mysterious situations, and unnatural characters, presented itself very strongly to her mind. Northanger Abbey, one of her earliest productions, is a clever and well-sustained parody on romances of this type. She did not, however, confine herself to mere negative criticism, but resolved to show that the interest of readers could be roused and sustained by a story absolutely free from the whole machinery of romance and exaggerated sentiment, but presenting an accurately-drawn picture of quiet, natural life. This task she accomplished with complete success; she was the first 