Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/291

I R E I R I 275 Bosphorus, the emperor was carried a captive back to the palace at Constantinople ; and there, by the orders of his inhuman mother, in the very porphyry chamber where he first saw the light, his eyes were stabbed out by fierce blows of a murderous dagger. An eclipse of the sun and an obscurity of seventeen days were attributed by the common superstition to the horror of heaven at this crime. Irene, having thus removed her rival, reigned in prosperity and splendour for five years. She is said to have endeavoured to negotiate a marriage between herself and Charlemagne ; but according to the Greek writers, who alone mention it, the scheme was frustrated by Aetius, one of her favourites. In 802 the patricians, upon whom she had lavished every honour and favour, conspired against her, and placed the avaricious Nicephorus on the throne. The haughty and unscrupulous princess, " who never lost sight of political power in the height of her religious zeal," who, hailed by the church as a second Helena, the mother of another great Constantine, had revealed herself to the world as a second Athaliah, was forced in her exile in Lesbos to support herself by the daily toil of her distaff. She died the following year. Her religious zeal has given her a place among the saints of the Greek Church. See V. Mignot s Histoire de V Imperatricc Irene, 1762; Gibbon s Decline and Fall ; Milman s Latin Christianity ; Le Beau s L as- Empire ; and Schlosser s Geschichte dcr lildcrsturmcnden Kaiser des ostroniischcn Eeiclis, 1812. IRETON, HENRY (1610-1651), Parliamentary general, was the eldest son of German Ireton of Attenton in Nottinghamshire, and was born in 1610. After graduating B.A. at Oxford, he entered the Middle Temple, London, as a student of law ; but on the outbreak of the civil war he joined the Parliamentary army, in which his technical mastery of the military art gave him rapid promotion and helped him to obtain the special favour of Cromwell. On the formation of the " new model" he was appointed captain in Sir Robert Pye s regiment. Shortly before the battle of Naseby, in June 1645, he was promoted to a colonelcy, and on the eve of the battle he was on the suggestion of Cromwell made commissary-general and appointed to the command of the left wing, Cromwell himself commanding the right. The wing under Ireton was completely broken by the impetuous charge of Rupert, and Ireton was taken prisoner, but after the rout of the enemy which ensued on the successful charge of Cromwell he regained his freedom. He was present at the siege of Bristol in the September following, and he took an active part in the subsequent victorious campaign which resulted in the overthrow of the royal cause. While occupied with the siege of Oxford he was, in June 15, 1646, married at Holton House, 5 miles distant from the city and at that time probably the headquarters of Fairfax to Bridget, daughter of Oliver Cromwell. In the negotiations of the army with the Parliament, and in the conferences with the king, he took a leading part, being the person chiefly entrusted with the drawing up of the army papers, including the heads of proposals from the army to the king, a task for which he possessed the special qualifications of "a subtle-working brain " and a complete legal training. He is said to have been one of the principal instigators of the trial of the king, and was one of the most zealous supporters of his execution. The regiment of Ireton having been chosen by lot to accompany Cromwell in his Irish campaign, Ireton was appointed major-general; and on the recall of his chief to take the command in Scotland he remained with the title and powers of lord-deputy to complete the work of reduction. This he proceeded to do with his usual energy, and as much by the severity of his methods of punishment as by his military skill was rapidly bringing his task to a close, when during the siege of Limerick he died, November 26,^1651, of an inflammatory fever, the result in all pro bability of exhaustion and exposure. His loss " struck a great sadness into Cromwell," and perhaps there was no one of the Parliamentary leaders who could have been less spared. He is said to have been of " melancholic, reserved, dark temperament;" and, while ho possessed very high abilities as a soldier and great political penetration and insight, he resembled in stern unflinchingness of purpose the Protector himself. 1RIARTE, or YRIARTE, TOMAS DE (1750-1791), Spanish poet of the age of Charles III., was born September 18, 1750, at Orotava in the island of Teneriffe, and received his literary education at Madrid under the care of his uncle, Juan de Iriarte, a scholar who for forty years was head of the royal library, and whose name as a collector of proverbs still finds a place in the literary annals of his country. In his eighteenth year the nephew began his literary career by translating French plays for the royal theatre, and in 1770, under the anagram of Tirso Imarete, he published an original comedy entitled Haccr qne /tacemos. In the following year he received an appointment as official translator in the foreign office, and in 1776 he became a keeper of the records in the war department. For a short time he now edited a journal entitled the Mercurio Politico, and during this period of his life he added to the number of his original dramas (the best of these being La Seilorita mat criadci), and also composed various minor poems. In 1780 appeared his didactic poem La Musica, the outcome of his proficiency in music, which attracted some attention in Italy and France as well as at home. It is composed in those masses of irregular lines known nationally as silvas, and consists of five books which severally treat of the elements of music, the various kinds of musical expression, the music of the theatre, of society, and of solitude. Its poetical merit is very small. In 1782 appeared the Fdbulas Literarias, with which his name is most intimately associated. The work is of interest to the student of Spanish literature as being the first original attempt at fable-writing in that language ; the stories, which numbered in the first edition about sixty and afterwards increased to eighty, are composed in a great variety of metres, and show in many cases considerable ingenuity (sometimes, it must be confessed, very far-fetched) and careful execution. As their name is intended to imply, they all relate to the follies and weaknesses of literary men. They have been translated into several European languages. An English version by Rockliffe reached a third edition in 1860. During his later years, partly hi consequence of the Fdbulas, he became involved in troubles with several of his literary contem poraries ; and in 1786 he was charged before the Inquisi tion with having manifested leanings towards the new French philosophy. He died September 17, 1791. The first collected edition of his works (Obrns), prepared by him self, appeared at Madrid in six volumes in 1787 ; another, more complete, in eight volumes, in 1805. They include, besides those already mentioned, translations of the Ars Poctiea of Horace and of the first four books of the ^Encid, and also some metrical epistles. IRIDIUM, one of the metals of the platinum group (see vol. v. p. 536), has recently acquired increased importance from its employment in alloy with platinum in the construc tion of the international standards of length and weight. Its separation from the associated metals is a matter of very considerable difficulty, and involves a long series of opera tions. : These have been fully described by Deville and Debray (Comptes Rendus, Ixxxi. 839) and by Mr G. Matthey (Roy. Soc. Proc., 1879, xxviii. 463). In practice, even when prepared with the utmost care, it still contains a minute though almost inappreciable amount of oxygen, rhodium, ruthenium, and possibly iron (Matthey). Seubert has redetermined the atomic weight of indium