from his writings, the point which occupied his chief attention was the spiritual direction of virgins and widows. In one of these he recommends, in a passing remark, the invocation of angels, and is the earliest rater who makes any allusion to this practice. His zeal in the cause of celibacy is shown by the fact, that, within two years from his consecration, he wrote a work "On Virgins," which he dedicated to his sister Marcellina.
The age in which Ambrose lived was an age of childish credulity; the human mind was fast sinking into superstition. It would have been remarkable, indeed, if the archbishop had altogether escaped the infection. Accordingly we are told that he learned by a vision the spot where the bodies of some martyrs reposed, which were piously exhumed, and conveyed in solemn pomp to the Ambrosian church. By the virtue which went forth from these relics, a butcher, named Severus, recovered his eyesight, and other wonders were attributed to handkerchiefs and aprons which derived miraculous power from these sacred bones.
During the period of his open conflict with the empress, Ambrose introduced into the church at Milan the regular practice of antiphonal hymns, a usage which, though long adopted in the East, was unknown in the West. (The Ambrosian chant is not so much distinguished by the antiphonal manner in which it was performed—which is traceable to the practice of the early Jews, and to the chorus of the classic drama—as by the music thus performed, which was appropriated from the Greeks by Flavian of Antioch, being the simplest character of music included in their theory: it comprised the first four modes of the Greek diatonic genus, now known as the four authentic ecclesiastical modes, and it was in general use in the Western church, until, in the sixth century, Gregory modified the system by the addition of the four modes now known as the plagal modes; it remained still in use in Milan, until, in the sixteenth century, Carlo Boromeo first introduced the Gregorian system there, and there a single specimen of pure Ambrosian music is even now in constant employment—an introit, which forms the chief subject of Bird's anthem, "Bow thine ear." One of the Lutheran hymns, the oldest hymn in the protestant church, is also said to be of Ambrosian origin.—G. A. M.) Augustine refers, in striking language, to the intense effect which this responsive singing produced upon his mind, "bringing all heaven before his eyes." That noble hymn, "Te Deum laudamus," which has been as a well of living water springing up with devotional thoughts, feelings, and desires to the church universal, has been ascribed to Ambrose; but there is better reason for concluding that it is the production of a later age.—W. W.
AMBROSE the Camaldule, so called because he became general of the order, was a distinguished Italian theologian of the early part of the fifteenth century. He was made cardinal under Pope Eugene IV., and at the council of Florence drew up an "Unionis formula inter Ecclesiam Græcam et Latinam." He was the author of numerous works in Roman Catholic theology. Died in 1439.—A. M.
AMBROSE, Isaac, an English divine, born in Lancashire early in the seventeenth century. He took orders in the English church, but afterwards, in 1641, joined the Presbyterian party, and laboured first at Grastang, and then at Preston. We read of him, that it was his wont to spend a month every year in a lonely wood, in religious meditation. His best-remembered works are "Prima, Media, et Ultima," London, 1640 and 1650, and a popular practical treatise called "Looking unto Jesus," which has been often reprinted, and is distinguished by its homely fervour. He died at the age of seventy-two.—J. B.
AMBROSE, Theseus, or in the Italian form, AMBROGIO, Teseo, was descended of the noble family of the Conti d'Abbonese, and born at Pavia in 1469. He gave himself at an early period to Oriental studies, at the request of the Cardinal Santa Croce, was a regular canon of the Lateran, and afterwards a professor of Syriac and Chaldee in Bologna. He has the honour of being the first public teacher of these tongues in Italy. In 1539 he published at Pana an "Introductio in Chaldaicam Linguam," &c., at his own expense, and with his own types—typis authoris libri. Among his casual visitors was the Austrian chancellor Widmanstadt, whom he instructed in Syriac, and to this tuition we owe the first edition of the Syriac New Testament, which, under his learned patronage and the literary care of Moses of Marden, was printed and published at Vienna in 1555. The story is told at length in the preface.—J. E.
AMBROSINI, Bartolomeo, a physician of eminence, and professor of botany in the university of Bologna, was born towards the end of the sixteenth century. He had the direction of the botanic garden in his native city, one of the earliest botanical gardens in Europe, and celebrated for its plants. Ambrosini was also curator of the Natural History Museum. He published a work on the varieties of capsicum, illustrated by figures, superintended an edition of the works of Aldrovandi, and published also several medical works. During the plague of 1630, he rendered important services to the inhabitants of Bologna. He died in 1657.—J. H. B.
AMBROSINI, Hyacinth, was brother to the preceding, and succeeded him in the garden of Bologna. He published an account of the plants cultivated in the garden, and commenced a work on the plants then known, with their synonyms and etymologies. Only one volume of the work was published, in the year 1666. The name of these two brothers is presented in the genus Ambrosinia.—J. H. B.
AMBROSIUS, Aurelian, a king of Great Britain, who lived in the latter half of the fifth century, and about whose life and exploits the most contradictory traditions prevail. He appears to have been engaged in wars against the Saxon invaders, and the usurper Vortigern. Some of the chroniclers maintain that he died by poison, whilst others assert that he was defeated and slain by Cerdic, king of the West Saxons.—J. W. S.
AMBROSIUS, an archbishop of Moscow, whose Russian name was André Sertis Kamensky; born in 1708. He was a highly cultivated man, of great worth of character, yet met with a lamentable end. When the plague raged in Moscow in 1771, the people spread it more and more by assembling—the infected mingling with the healthy—in immense crowds around a chapel containing a certain image of the virgin. The archbishop, to prevent the crowding, withdrew this favourite image, in return for which benevolent act the mob tore him to pieces.—A. M.
AMBUCHL, Johann Ludwig, a Swiss poet, born at Wattweil, in St. Gall, in 1750, who wrote a number of historical dramas, &c., chiefly on national subjects. Died in 1800.
AMEIL, Augustus, Baron, a French general, who served with distinction under Napoleon, and being proscribed on the return of the Bourbons, died in prison in 1822.
AMEILHON, Hubert Pascal, a French academician, who saved upwards of 800,000 volumes from destruction during the fury of the first Revolution. He was born in 1730, and died in 1811, leaving a variety of archæological writings.
AMEIPSIAS, a Greek comic poet, lived about 419 b.c.
AMEL, Hans, of Antwerp, the architect of the façade and steeple of the Antwerp cathedral; flourished about 1422.
AMELESAGORAS, an ancient Greek historian of Chalcedon.
* AMELIE, Maria Frederika Augusta, a princess of Saxony, born in 1794, is well known in Germany as a successful dramatic authoress.
AMELINE, Claude, a French ecclesiastic and writer on ethics of the seventeenth century.
AMELIUS, a Greek philosopher of the Neoplatonic school, who lived about the end of the third century, but whose birthplace is unknown. He is said to have been the pupil of Plotinus, and the master of Porphyry. Of his numerous works nothing has reached us, except a fragment of a commentary upon the opening of John's gospel. His views were of the usual mystical character of the Alexandrian school.—J. W. S.
AMELIUS, Martin, a German jurist of the sixteenth century, who became regent of Baden, and contributed much to introduce protestantism into that country.
AMELOT DE LA HOUSSAYE, Abraham Nicholas, a political writer of France, who was born at Orleans in 1634, and died at Paris, 1706. Of his life very little is known. He published an account of the Venetian system of government, a history of the council of Trent, together with a variety of memoirs, essays, and translations.
AMELOTE or AMELOTTE, Denis, a French theologian, who flourished in the reign of Louis XIV., and entered with great vehemence into the controversy against the Jansenists. He wrote a translation of the New Testament.
AMELUNGHI, Geronimo, lived at Pisa in the sixteenth century, and obtained some celebrity as a comic poet.
AMENOPHIS I., one of the Egyptian kings of the eighteenth dynasty, and, according to the tablet of Abydos, the successor of Amon. The name signifies "one with Amun." He was a great and successful warrior, and is represented in stucco in various
