dore Martin, and in association with him wrote a series of light humorous papers on the tastes and follies of the day, in which were interspersed the verses which afterwards became popular as the Bon Gualtier Ballads. The work on which his reputation as a poet chiefly rests is the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. The first of these appeared in Blackwood s Magazine in April 1843, and the whole were published in a collected edition in 1848. They became very popular, and have passed through nineteen editions, the last of which has spirited and beautiful illustrations by Sir J. Noel Paton and W. H. Paton. Meanwhile, he obtained, in 1845, the chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at Edinburgh University, which he filled honourably and successfully till 1864. He devoted himself conscientiously to the duties of the office, and his pupils increased in number from 30 to 150. In 1849 he married the youngest daughter of Professor John Wilson (Christopher North), whose death, in 1859, was the great calamity of his life. His services in support of the Tory party, especially during the Anti-Corn-Law struggle, received official recognition in his appointment (1852) as sheriff of Orkney and Zetland. In 1854 appeared Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy, in which he attacked and parodied the writings of Bailey, Sydney Dobell, and Alexander Smith ; and two years later he published his Bothwell, a Poem. Among his other literary works are a Collection of the Ballads of Scotland, a translation of the Poems and Ballads of Goethe, executed in co-operation with his friend Theodore Martin, a small volume on the Life and Times of Richard /., written for the Family Library, and a novel entitled Norman Sinclair, many of the details in which arc taken from incidents in his own experience. In 1860 Aytoun was elected honorary president of the Associated Societies of Edinburgh Uni versity. The death of his mother took place in November 1861, and his own health was failing. In December 1863 he married Miss Kinnear, and health and happiness for a time revived ; but his malady recurred, and he died at Blackhills, near Elgin, 4th August 1865. His remains were interred at Edinburgh. A memoir of Aytoun by Theodore Martin, with an appendix containing some of his prose essays, was published in 1867. (W. L. R. C.)
AZAIS, PIERRE HYACINTHS, a brilliant French writer
on philosophy, was born at Sorreze in 1766, and died at
Paris in 1845. He was educated at the college in his
native town ; and at the age of 17 joined a religious body
with the view of afterwards entering the church. He
remained only a year in this society, and then accepted an
appointment as teacher in the college at Tarbes. The
duties of this office proved most uncongenial to him, and
lie gladly entered the service of the bishop of Oleron, to
whom he acted as secretary. With this, too, he quickly
became dissatisfied, either on account of the bishop s
reiterated desire that he should take orders, or from the
many petty annoyances incident to his post. He with
drew to the little village of Villemagne, near Beziers,
where he supported himself by performing the duties of
organist in the church. He afterwards acted as tutor to
the Count de Bosc s sons, with whom he remained till the
outbreak of the Revolution. Azais, at first an ardent
admirer of that great movement, was struck with dismay
at the atrocities that were perpetrated, and published a
vehement pamphlet on the subject. He was denounced,
and had to seek safety in flight. For eighteen months he
found refuge in the hospital of the Sisters of Charity at
Tarbes ; and it was not till 1806 that he was able to settle
in Paris. There, three years later, he published his treatise
Des Compensations dans les Destinees Humaines, in which
he sought to show that happiness and misery were fairly
balanced in this world, and that consequently it was the
duty of citizens to submit quietly to a fixed government.
This doctrine was not displeasing to Napoleon, who mr.de
its author professor at St Cyr. After the removal of that
college, he obtained, in 1811, the post of inspector of the
public library at Avignon, and from 1812 to 1815 he held
a similar office at Nancy. His preference for the Bonaparte
dynasty naturally operated in his disfavour at the Restora
tion ; but after suffering considerable privation for some
years, he obtained a government pension, which placed
him beyond the reach of want. He employed the remain
ing years of his life in oral and published expositions of
his system of philosophy.
According to Azais, the whole of existence, the universe, whose cause is God, may be regarded as the product of two factors, Matter and Force. Matter in its primitive state consists of homogeneous elements or atoms. All force is in its nature expansive, and is, therefore, subject to one supreme law, that of equilibrium, or equivalence of action and reaction ; for evidently expansive force emanat ing from each body is repressive force acting on all other bodies. The whole of the phenomena of the universe are successive stages in the development caused by the action of this one force under its one law on the primitive atoms ; and in tracing this development we must group facts into three distinct orders, first, the physical; second, the physiological ; third, the intellectual, moral, and political. In the sphere of physical phenomena, distinct development can be traced from the simplest mechanical motion up through the more complex forces of light, heat, and elec tricity to the power of magnetic attraction, by means of which the second great order of facts is produced out of the first. For magnetic force acting on elastic bodies, which as reactive have potential life, creates the primitive living globule, which is shaped like a tube open at both ends. From this first vital element a gradual ascent can be traced, culminating in man, who is differentiated from the other animals by the possession of intellect, or consciousness of the ideas with which external things impress him. These ideas, however, are in themselves corporeal ; what is immaterial in man, or his soul, is the expansive force inherent in him. Moral and political phenomena are the results of two primitive instincts, progress and self-con servation, corresponding to the two forces, expansion and repression. From the reciprocal relations of these instincts may be deduced the necessary conditions of social and political life. The ultimate goal of humanity is the perfect fulfilment of the law of equilibrium, the establishment of universal harmony. When that is accomplished, the destiny of man has been achieved, and he will vanish from this earth. Such a consummation may be looked for in about 7000 years. During an additional period of 5000 years the great cosmical forces will be gradually tending towards the establishment of complete equilibrium ; and, when this is attained, the present system of things is at an end.
The chief works of Azais, besides the Compensations, are- -Systeme Universel, 8 vols. 1812 ; Du Sort de I homme, 3 vols. 1820 ; Cours de Philosophic, 8 vols. 1824 ; Explication Universelle, 3 vols. 1826-8 ; Jeunesse, Maturite, Religion, Philosophic, 1837 ; De la Phrenolocjie, du Maynetisme, ct de la Folie, 1843.
