Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/56

ADE several years, was resumed in German. He wrote also various treatises, both mathematical and meteorological. Died 1779.  ADELER,, an illustrious naval officer, born in Norway in 1672. After being trained under Tromp and Regers, he obtained a command in the Venetian fleet, and during fifteen years rendered Venice immense service, and acquired a great renown, by a series of the most heroic achievements. In 1662 he quitted the Venetian service; and after spending some time in Amsterdam, where he married, returned to Denmark in 1663, was appointed by the king, Christian V., naval commander-in-chief, and ennobled. He died at Copenhagen in 1673, when on the point of sailing to encounter the Swedish fleet.—E. M.  ADELGAR or ADELHER, canon of Liege and monk of Cluny; a scholastic philosopher and theologian of the twelfth century. Adelgar's great work, "De libero arbitrio," develops a conception regarding the divine prescience, which goes to the root of the mystery of the co-existence of supreme fore-ordination and a free-will in man. He denies the appropriateness of the term fore-sight, as applied to God. Past and present, he avers, do not exist in reference to the eternal mind,—all is immediate vision. Hence the fallacy of many of our arguments concerning necessity. This very conception is farther and very finely wrought out by the late Bishop Coplestone.—J. P. N.  ADELGISUS or ADELCHIS, only son of Desiderius, king of the Longobards, was defeated with his father by Charlemagne in the battle of La Chiusa,. 773. He escaped to Constantinople, and in 788 was furnished by the Emperor Constantine with a body of troops, with which he landed in Calabria, expecting to be joined by his nephew Grimwald, prince of Beneventum. But Grimwald, having previously made peace with Charlemagne, united his troops with those of Hildebrand, duke of Spoletum, and defeated Adelgisus. His fate is uncertain. According to Sigonius he was taken and put to a cruel death; while others say that he escaped to Constantinople, and lived there on a pension from the Byzantine court.—J. B.  ADELGISUS, a prince of Beneventum, of the Longobard dynasty, who succeeded to the government in 854. During his reign the principality of Beneventum was invaded by the Saracens. He called to his aid Louis II., emperor of Italy, and the Saracens were defeated. While the emperor was in Beneventum, Adelgisus conspired against him, and made him a prisoner. He was only released on swearing a solemn oath never to take any revenge for the outrage, Adelgisus keeping possession of his treasures. Adelgisus was murdered by members of his own family, after a reign of thirty-four years.—J. B.  ADELGREIFF,, a learned visionary, burned for heresy at Konigsberg, 11th Oct., 1636.  ADELMAN, an ecclesiastic of Liege, who was made bishop of Brescia in 1048. He obtained some celebrity by an epistle he addressed to Berenger, in reply to that writer's treatise against transubstantiation. The work of Berenger had produced a great sensation, and Adelman, who had been his fellow-student under Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, proposed by his epistle, to show his zeal for orthodoxy, to reclaim an old acquaintance from error. He also wrote a Latin poem in celebration of the illustrious men of the age. Died in 1061.—E. M.  ADELUNG,, nephew of Joh. Christ. Adelung, was born at Stettin, 13th February, 1768. He held various high offices in the Russian court, and was a councillor of state. Like his uncle he was fond of comparative philology, and has published several treatises on Sanscrit and its affinities. His "Bibliotheca Sanscrita," a second edition of his previous Essai, was published in 1837. He died January, 1843.—J. E. <section end="56H" /> <section begin="56I" />ADELUNG,, a teacher of languages and music in the gymnasium of Erfurt, near which town he was born in 1699. He was also a maker of harpsichords, and wrote several good works on the theory of music. Died in 1762. <section end="56I" /> <section begin="56J" />ADELUNG, ., the distinguished philologist and lexicographer, was born at Spantekow in Pomerania, on the 8th of August, 1743. After receiving elementary education at Anclam and Closterbergen, he finished his academic course at Halle. In 1759 he was nominated a professor in the protestant gymnasium of Erfurt, and held the situation about two years, when he resigned in consequence of some misunderstandings with the government, which was catholic. He retired to Leipzig, and commenced those prodigious literary labours which have immortalized his name, and were of signal service to the dawning science of comparative philology. In 1787 he became librarian to the elector of Saxony at Dresden, and had also the honorary title of Aulic counsellor. This situation he held till his death in 1806. The industry of Adelung was untiring. He plodded and persevered beyond most men even in his own country, proverbial for the incessant toils and bulky achievements of its scholars. He had not the cares of a family to distract him, and his robust constitution bore him through years of unremitting labours, at the rate of fourteen hours a-day. His earlier publications treated of political affairs, diplomacy, and general history, some of them extending to several quarto volumes. In 1772 he published an excellent compend of Du Gauge's great dictionary, to which, however, he added many new terms. The publication of his "Versuch eines Grammatisch-kritischen Wörterbuch," "Grammatico-critical Dictionary," was begun in 1774, and completed in 1786, in five quarto volumes. The merits of this book have been often and deservedly commended, but it has without good reason been set above the similar achievement of Samuel Johnson, on which it is plainly modelled. The conservative nature of Adelung's dictionary has been frequently animadverted on, but without just ground. Amidst conflicting dialects, produced or perpetuated by so many rival principalities, where there was no central bar or senate, and no literary metropolis, it was necessary to choose a standard and abide by it. Adelung wisely preferred the dialect of Misnia in Upper Saxony, for it had been early cultivated, and had obtained a wide currency through the writings of Luther and the Reformers. Where all had been so fluctuating both in the coinage and pronunciation of words, these needed a firm decision, though it might sometimes degenerate into obstinacy. Better keep out some terms whose inherent worth might ultimately gain admission for them, than stamp authority on others of hybrid form or provincial origin and use. Adelung published many other works bearing on the grammar, history, formation, and development of the Teutonic language. He added also four volumes of continuation to Jöcher's general biography of learned men. Comparative philology owes not a little to his last work, his "Mithridates oder Allgemeine Sprachenkunde," "Mithridates, or the general study of languages," a work which contains the Lord's prayer in nigh five hundred dialects. He did not live to finish it, the task devolving on his nephew, along with Professor Vater. Adelung's works amount to forty-three separate publications, many of them comprising several volumes. But though he spent his days in literary seclusion, he was a man of cheerful habits, liked good living, and paid special attention to his cellar, which he jocularly called his Bibliotheca Selectissima. He was a man, too, of great amiability and pure morals.—J. E. <section end="56J" /> <section begin="56K" />ADELWALT governed for a short time the province or kingdom of Deira, in the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. At his death his kingdom was again united with Bernicia. <section end="56K" /> <section begin="56L" />ADEMAR or AIMAR DE CHABANAIS, an ecclesiastic of St. Cibar in Angoulême, son of Count Raimond, flourished in the eleventh century, and was author of a chronicle of Aquitaine down to 1029, a work still consulted with interest by inquirers into the early history of France. <section end="56L" /> <section begin="56M" />ADENEZ or ADANS, a celebrated French poet of the thirteenth century, court minstrel to Henry III., duke of Flanders and Brabant, after whose death, in 1260, he was patronised by the duke's daughter Marie, queen of France. He was author of five well-known romances. The most celebrated is the romance of "Cléomadès," written by desire of Queen Marie, and with her assistance and that of Blanche of Artois, sister of Robert II. <section end="56M" /> <section begin="56N" />ADEODATUS, a pope who sat from 14th March, 672, to 18th May, 677, and known for a letter addressed "Ad Universes Episcopos Galliæ." <section end="56N" /> <section begin="56O" />ADEODATUS, the well-known son of Augustine, born before his conversion, and baptized in his 15th year along with his father. He died early. <section end="56O" /> <section begin="56P" />ADER,, a learned physician of Toulouse, author of two interesting medical works, the one on the diseases mentioned in the New Testament, and the other on the symptoms, prevention, and cure of the plague. Died about 1630. <section end="56P" /> <section begin="56Qnop" />ADET,, a French chemist and statesman, born at Paris in 1763. After holding various administrative offices, he was sent to Geneva, and, in 1795, to the United States, as French minister. He was a senator under Napoleon, and, in 1814, a member of the chamber of deputies. Author of "Lessons on Chemistry," and a contributor to "Annales de Chimie et de Physique." Died in 1832. <section end="56Qnop" />