Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/198

ASTI. Italy, and famous for its one hundred towers, of wliioh thirty still remain. It was burned by the Emperor Frederick I. in 1155, and after a series of vicissitudes came into the possession of the Visconti of Milan, by whom it was ceded to the French, who held it till the middle of the Sixteenth Century, when it passed into the possession of the Dukes of Savoy. The poet Alfieri was bora here in 174!). Population, in ISSl (commune), 32,23.3; in 1901, ,38.045.

ASTIE, as'tya'. (1822-94). A Protestant theologian. He was born at Nerae, France, and studied at Geneva, Halle, and Berlin. He was a clergyman in New York from 1S48 to 1853, when he removed to Paris. In 1S55 he settled at Lausanne, Switzerland, where, in the following vear, he was appointed professor of philosophy and theolog>'. The influence of Kant, Schleie'rmacher and Vinet is revealed in his numerous -writins is on theology. In 1868 he became the editor of the Remie de thiolopie ct de philosoplUe, which he conducted for many years.

ASTIG’MATISM (Ok., rt priv. + rtrlyfja, s/ii/niii, jirick of a pointed instrument; spot, mark). A defect in vision caused by the refrac- tion of light by the eye differently in ditVerent planes. To an"eye thiis affected, a pinhole in a paper may appear round, but when the paper is moved a little, the circular hole will seem to be an ellipse. Irregular astigmatism is that form in Avhich there is a dilTerence of refraction in various parts of the s.ime meridian, as after injuries of the cornea or congenital defects in the lens. Regular astigmatism is that variety in which the" degree of refraction of the tvo principal meridians dilTers. Astigmatism is usually due to difTerences in the curvature of the cornea : less frequently, of the lens. It is either simple, in which one meridian is normal and the other hyperopic ; compound, in which both meridians are unequally hyperopic or myopic; or mixed, in which one is hyperopic and the other mvopic. Astigmatism causes diminuticmof vision aiid asthenopia (q.v. ), with its usual symptoms. It is corrected by glasses ground as cylinders, gphero-cylinders, or a combination of a spherical and a cylindrical lens; or by crossed cylinders, which are a combination of two cylindrical lenses, with their axes at right-angles to each other years.

ASTLE, ils'l, Thomas (1735-1803). An English antiquary and paleographer. He wrote Tlw Oriyin and Progress of British (1784. reprinted 1S70), an important contribution to English writings on the subject of paleography.

ASTLEY, ast'II. Pitilti (1742-1814). A noted English equestrian performer and manager. He was born at Xewcastle-under-Lyme, and began work as a eabinetniaker, but enlisted as a cavalryman in the Seven Years' War, and after returning with an honorable discharge, gave exhibitions of horsemanship in Lambeth and elsewhere. At Lambeth he built, in 1770. a wooden circus, which grew, in course of pros- perity and rebuilding after successive tires, into Astley's Royal Amphitheatre. This was the sccni f a variety of exhibitions under his direction; but the special attraction was the equestrian performances, in which he himself excelled. He opened a similar establishment in Paris, which was seized for a barracks atthe time of the Revolution, but he afterwards recovered possession of his property. He died in Paris, and was buried in P6re-la-Chaise.

ASTOL'PO. An English noble in Charle- magne's train — a boastful but generous character. In Ariosto's Orlando Furlofso he cures Orlando's madness, by bringing back from the moon the great Paladin's wits in a vial. He is renowned for his fairy gifts of a magic-horn, throigh whose notes all livmg things are panie-atricken, and a book which tells everything.

ASTOL'PHUS. See Aistulf.

AS'TON, (1841&mdash;). An Irish philologist and diplomat, born near Londonderry in 1841. He was educated (1859-63) at Queen's College, Belfast; one of his professors was Dr. James McCosh. He was appointed in 1864 student interpreter to the British Legation in Japan. He mastered the theory of the Japanese verb, and in Tokio began, with E. M. Satow, those profound researches into the Japanese language which laid the foundations of critical study in the Mikado's Empire. He held various offices in Japan until 1883; was made consul-general in Korea in 1884, and secretary of legation in Tokio in 1886. He retired on a pension in 1889. His publications include grammars of the Japanese language (1868 and 1872); a translation of the Nihongi, or Annals of Ancient Japan (1896), which show acute scholarship; A History of Japanese Literature (1899); and a great number of papers for learned societies on Korean and Japanese subjects, many of them in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. His later work deals with rudimentary ethnic religions.

ASTON HALL. Supposedly the original of Irving's Bracebridge Hall. At any rate, before it was recently sold for a museum, it was in the possession of a Birmingham gentleman by the name of Charles Holt Bracebridge. It is an old hall in the Elizabethan style.

ASTON MAN'OR. A manufacturing town in Warwickshire, England, suburban to ../Birmingham/ (q.v.). Population, in 1891, 68,600; in 1901, 77,300.

John Jacob Astor (1763-1848). A German-born American merchant. He was born in Waldorf, a village near Heidelberg, Germany, the son of a butcher. He followed his elder brother, first to London and then to New York, whither he went in 1783. He soon invested his small capital in furs, and by economy and industry he so increased his means that after six years he had acquired a fortune of $200,000. He traded directly with the Indians, peddling gewgaws among them, and buying their furs at a ridiculously low rate. At first he prepared the furs with his own hands and took them to the London market. He also became the New York agent of his brother's house, which dealt in musical instruments. Although the increasing influence of the English fur companies in North America was unfavorable to his plans, he ventured to fit out two expeditions to the Oregon Territory—one by land and one by sea—the purpose of which was to open up regular commercial intercourse with the natives. After many mishaps, his object was achieved in 1811, and the fur-trading station of (q.v.) was established; but the War of 1812 stopped its prosperity for a time.