Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/158

142 autograph some conclusions might be drawn as to the mental characteristics of the writer. It is doubtless true that temperament will in some degree affect handwriting, but the conditions to be taken into account are so numerous and variable that the attempt to infer the one from the other seems practically hopeless. Poe, in his ingenious "Chapter on Autography" (Works, Ed. Ingram, vol. iv.), speaks very strongly on this subject. He thinks that none but the unreflecting can deny "that a strong analogy does generally and naturally exist between every man's chirography and character," and to support his statement compares the signatures and mental characteristics of a large number of contemporary American writers. In many cases, however, he is obliged to confess that no inference whatever can be drawn, in some others the analogy is extremely forced, and in others, again, the knowledge of the writer's character has evidently furnished the key for the interpretation of the handwriting. The value placed by an amateur on any autograph will, of course, vary with the celebrity of its author and the scarcity of genuine specimens. The taste for collecting autographs is not confined to modern times; many large collections, e.g., those of Loménie de Brienne, of Lacroix du Maine, and others, were formed in the 16th century, and during the same period we know that albums used to be carried about for the purpose of obtaining the signatures of famous personages. One of these albums preserved in the British Museum is of date 1578. There are at present many valuable public and private collections, while state papers and archives, of course, contain a rich harvest of royal and noble signatures. Fac-similes of original manuscripts appear first to have been printed in Forbes's Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1740-41; and soon after, several were given in Fenn's Original Letters from the Archives of the Paston Family, 1787.

 AUTOLYCUS, in Æolis, was one of the earliest Greek writers on mathematics and astronomy. As he is said to have given instruction to Arcesilaus, he probably flourished about the middle of the 4th century B.C. His extant works consist of two treatises ; the one, epl /avou,u,V?7s ox^cupas, contains some simple propositions on the motion of the sphere, the other, Trepl eVtroAwv /cat Suo-ewv, in two books, discusses the rising and setting of the fixed stars. Neither treatise is of much scientific value. There are several Latin versions of Autolycus, and a French translation by Forcadel, 1572.

 AUTOMATON (from auro s, self, and /xaw, to seize), a self-moving machine, or one in which the principle of motion is contained within the mechanism itself. Accord ing to this description, clocks, watches, and all machines of a similar kind, are automata, but the word is generally applied to contrivances which simulate for a time the motions of animal life. If the human figure and actions be represented, the automaton has sometimes been called specially an androides. Ye have very early notices of the construction of automata, e.g., the tripods of Vulcan, and the moving figures of Daedalus. 400 years B. c., Archytas of Tarentumis said to have made a wooden pigeon that could fiy ; and during the Middle Ages numerour instances of the construction of automata are recorded. Regiomontanus is said to have made an iron fly, which would nutter round the room and return to his hand, and also an eagle, which flew before the Emperor Maximilian when he was entering Nuremberg. Roger Bacon is said to have forged a brazen head which spoke, and Albertus Magnus to have had an an droides, which acted as doorkeeper, and was broken to pieces by Aquinas. Of these, as of some later instances, e.g., the figure constructed by Descartes and the automata exhibited by Dr Camus, not much is accurately known. But in the 18th century, Vaucanson, the celebrated mechanician, exhibited three admirable figures, the flute-player, the tambourine-player, and the duck, which was capable of eating, drinking, and imitating exactly the natural voice of that fowl. The means by which these results had been produced were clearly seen, and a great impulse was given to the construction of similar figures. Knauss exhibited at Vienna an automaton which wrote ; a father and son named Droz constructed several ingenious mechanical figures which wrote and played music ; Kaufmann and Maelzel made automatic trumpeters who could play several marches. The Swiss have always been celebrated for their mechanical ingenuity, and they construct most of the curious toys, such as flying and singing birds, which are frequently met with in industrial exhibitions. The greatest difnculty has generally been experienced in devis ing any mechanism which shall successfully simulate the human voice. No attempt has been thoroughly suc cessful, though many have been made. The figure ex hibited by Fabermann of Vienna is, perhaps, as yet the best. No notice of automata can be complete without at least a reference to Kempelen s famous chess player, which for many years astonished and puzzled Europe. This figure, however, was no true automaton, although the mechanical contrivances for concealing the real performer and giving effect to his desired movements were exceedingly ingenious.

 AUTUN, the capital of an arrondissement of the same name in the department of Saone and Loire, in France, is picturesquely situated on the declivity of a hill, at the foot of which flows the Arroux. It is one of the most ancient towns of France ; and when Caesar invaded Gaul it was the most important of the yEdui. Its name was then Bibracte, but being afterwards much improved and embellished by Augustus it took that of Augustodunum. In the later days of the Roman empire it was a flourishing city, and consequently attracted the barbarian bands. It was successively plundered and burned by the Vandals in 406, the Burgundians in 414, the Huns in 451, the Franks in 534, the Saracens in 739, and the Normans in 895. It was burned by the English in 1379, and besieged in 1591 by D Aumont. Yet in spite of all these disastrous events, its former greatness is attested by many Roman and other remains, among which are large masses of its ancient walls, two gates in admirable preservation, called the Porte d Arroux and the Porte Saint-Andre, the walls of the so- called temple of Janus, and a pyramid in the neighbour- bouring village of Couard, in which some recognise a monu ment to Divitiacus. The cathedral is a structure of the llth and 12th centuries, and is surmounted by a remark able spire of the 15th. Autun is the seat of a bishopric, and has a college, a diocesan seminary, a museum, which is very rich in medals and other minor antiquities, a library, a theatre, &c., with tribunals of primary jurisdiction and commerce. It has manufactures of cotton goods, hosiery, carpets, leather, and paper, with a considerable trade in timber, hemp, and cattle. Population in 1872, 11,684.

 AUVERGNE, a district, and formerly a province, of France, corresponding to the departments of Cantal and Fuy-de-D6me, with the arrondissement of Brioude in Haute- Loirs. It is divided into Lower and Upper by the River 