Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/336

AZA rewarded with various appointments in the royal household. "He was acquainted," according to Aubrey, "with all the wits of his time," especially Hobbes and Jonson. His Latin poems passed through two editions in his lifetime; but his English songs and lyrics, which alone are of much value, have come down to us only traditionally, and therefore maimed and altered.  AYTOUN,, was born at Edinburgh in 1813. He studied at the university of his native city, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1840. In 1845 he was appointed by the crown to the chair of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the university of Edinburgh. By the Derby administration, in 1852, he was made Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland; and shortly after obtained the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford. He married a daughter of the late Professor Wilson. Professor Aytoun's publications are all characterized by high merit. The "Lays of the Cavaliers" is the work by which he will be rememmembered. In addition, he wrote (in whole or in part) the "Bon Gaultier Ballads," "Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy," and "Bothwell," and was long one of the most brilliant contributors to Blackwood's Magazine. He died 4th August, 1865.—A. S.  AZAIS,, a French philosophical writer, born at Sorreze, 1766; died at Paris, 1845. In early life he was employed as secretary to the bishop of Oleron en Bearn, but the bishop was desirous that Azais should enter the priesthood, and he quitted the episcopal palace for an abbey in the Cevennes, where he officiated as organist. When the Revolution revealed the horrors of insurrection, he denounced its atrocities in a vehement pamphlet, which obtained for him a sentence of transportation, but he found refuge in the hospital of Tarbes. He there developed the theory of compensation with which his name has come to be associated, and which meant that, in the constitution of the world, happiness and unhappiness were proportionate to each other, and compensated each other. In 1806 he repaired to Paris, developed his doctrines before a brilliant audience, and obtained an appointment as inspector of the library at Nancy. In 1815 he wrote in favour of Napoleon, and in consequence was deprived of his office; but Madame de Stael interested herself on his behalf, and obtained for him a pension from the government. His garden then became the scene of philosophic instruction, and there he discoursed to his disciples with a grave eloquence which suited the simplicity of his life, and the elevated nature of his conceptions. His principal works are "Des Compensations dans les destinées humaines," 1809; "Système Universel," 1812; "Manuel du Philosophe," 1816; "Du Sort de l'homme," 1820; "Jugement impartial sur Napoleon;" and a "Course of Philosophy."—P. E. D.  AZALAIS or ADÉLAIDE DE PORCAIVAGUE, a French poetess, who died about 1160. Only one of her compositions has been preserved, a ballad or romance, in which she lovingly sings the praise of Guy, and charges Rambaud with infidelity.  AZAMBUJA,, cardinal-archbishop of Lisbon, raised to that dignity in 1402. In 1409 he was sent to the council of Pisa, and from Italy went to Jerusalem. On his return, Gregory XII. made him a cardinal. Died 1415.  AZAMBUZA, ', a Portuguese navigator of the latter part of the fifteenth century, charged by King John II. with the establishment of a colony on the west coast of Africa. The expedition consisted of twelve vessels, which sailed from Lisbon in 1481, and after twelve days of prosperous navigation arrived at the small port of Besequichi. There Azambuza notified his arrival to the negro monarch Casamense, who appointed a meeting for the morrow. The Portuguese landed in state, and celebrated mass on the shore. Azambuza was clad in a robe embroidered with gold, and, marshalling his men, awaited the approach of Casamense, who came accompanied by a large multitude of negroes armed with lances and spears. The Portuguese leader made two demands—that he should have leave to instruct the people in the Christian faith, and that he should have leave to erect a fort. The first was deferred for consideration; to the second, the negro chief, after some hesitation, gave consent. The Portuguese selected an eminence which seemed suitable for their purpose, and commenced work on the following day. In three weeks the fort was completed, though not till after the risk of a conflict with the natives, who had taken umbrage at the accidental appropriation of some materials which they held sacred. When the work was achieved, Azambuza sent a portion of his squadron to Portugal to inform the king of his success, and King John named the establishment Fort St. George El Mina, granting, at the same time, certain privileges to any subject who should repair to his newly-acquired dominion. He also added to his own titles that of lord of Guinea, and made Azambuza the first governor of the colony. The latter remained at the settlement for three years, and traded with the natives. He then returned to Portugal. He was a man of great ability, and one of the best of the early European adventurers who opened up the highways of the ocean to after generations.—P. E. D.  AZANZA,, a Spanish statesman, born 1746, died 1826. At the age of seventeen he went to the Havana, and afterwards to Mexico, where he became secretary to the marquis of Sonora. In 1769 he accompanied the marquis to New California, in search of gold mines, which were supposed to have been discovered in that country, and concealed by the jesuits. He then entered the military service, and in 1781 was present at the siege of Gibraltar. Shortly after, he joined the Spanish embassy to St. Petersburg, and from thence passed to Berlin, where he remained two years. In 1788 he was appointed corregidor of Salamanca, and in 1789, intendant of the army and kingdom of Valencia. In 1793, on the breaking out of the war with France, he became minister of war, which office he held till 1796, when, in consequence of a dispute with the prime minister, Godoy, he resigned, and took the post of viceroy of New Spain. Humboldt bears testimony to the favourable impressions he had made on the Mexicans by the uprightness of his rule. In 1799 he returned to Spain, and remained without public employment till the fall of Godoy in 1808. He was then appointed minister of finance, and a member of the supreme junta, which was to take charge of the national affairs in the absence of King Ferdinand. Murat having virtually suspended the powers of the junta, that body applied for instructions to Ferdinand, who was at Bayonne. The king sent two decrees by a courier, who was charged to deliver them to Azanza; but the latter suppressed the documents, and when Ferdinand abdicated in favour of a Buonaparte, destroyed them, and submitted to the French. Joseph Buonaparte received the throne from his imperial brother, and Azanza was summoned to Bayonne to lay before the emperor the financial state of the kingdom. He was there captivated by the apparent confidence of Napoleon, and became president of the junta which Napoleon had appointed to inaugurate a new constitution and a new king. Azanza, at the first meeting, made a speech in honour of the emperor, and prepared an address to Joseph. Several other sittings were devoted to minor discussions, and at the twelfth and last, on the 7th July, King Joseph swore to the constitution, and Azanza and the assembly took the oath of fidelity to the foreign monarch; after which they waited on Napoleon, to thank him for all he had done for Spain. The address so staggered Napoleon, that Southey says, "For the first and perhaps the only time in his public life, he was at a loss for a reply." Azanza was appointed minister of the Indies, but resigned that office to become minister of Justice. He was also appointed commissary-royal of the kingdom of Grenada, and in 1810 became duke of Santa-Fé, and was sent to congratulate Napoleon on his marriage with Maria Louisa. When the fortunes of the French began to wane, Azanza did not forsake his new master, but, after the battle of Vittoria, accompanied Joseph to France, and resided at Paris till 1820, when the decree of the central junta of Cadiz, declaring the ministers of Joseph "traitors," was annulled, and he returned to Spain with a view to service under King Ferdinand. His offers were declined, but he obtained a pension of 6250 francs, and took up his residence at Bordeaux, where he died in his eightieth year. In estimating the conduct of Azanza, and the other Spaniards who took service under the French, it must be remembered that the throne of Spain had been vacated, and that the appointment of a new government might hold out the hope—fallacious as it might be—that better principles of administration would be introduced. Azanza appears to have desired the political reformation of his country He governed Mexico well, and during his residence there, collected the reports of the expeditions to the north of California, under his predecessors. These manuscripts were consulted by Humboldt. In 1815, he and his colleague O'Farrill drew up a memoir in justification of their conduct—"Memoria de Don Miguel Jose de Azanza y Don Gonzalo O'Farrill sobre los Hechos que justifican su conducta politica desde Marzo, 1808, hasta Abril de 1814," Paris, 1815, 8vo; a work containing official documents which do not appear elsewhere.—P. E. D. 