by Orleans. Meanwhile, Theodoric and Aëtius, the Roman | the river is the village of Khairábád, with a fort, also general, had collected and united their forces, and marching erected by Akbar according to some, or by Nádir Sháh with all speed, arrived in time to raise the siege of Orleans. according to others. Attila retreated to a position in the plain of Chalons, and there concentrated his forces for a great engagement. A tremendous battle ensued-one of the most gigantic as well as most important contests recorded in history. The Romans, who formed one wing, were driven back, and although they kept together, and at nightfall retired to the camp of the Visigoths, Aëtius had given up the day as lost. The Visigoths, who were on the other wing, had also been repulsed, and were discouraged by the fall of their leader Theodoric. But the fortune of the day was changed by the impetuous bravery of Thorismund, Theodoric's son, who, burning to avenge his father's fall, led on the infuriated Visigoths, and drove Attila back to his camp. He even penetrated into the fortifications, but was wounded and thrown from his horse, and his followers with difficulty carried him off. Next day, Attila remained in his camp in expectation of an attack, and having thrown all his baggage into a gigantic pile in the centre of the camp to be burned in case of defeat, resolved to sell his life dearly. But no attack was made; for Thorismund was persuaded by Aëtius to march to Toulouse in order to obtain his father's kingdom. Attila was thus enabled to retire in perfect security. Next year he poured his forces through the defiles of the Alps, and laid waste the whole north of Italy. Rome itself seemed likely to fall before the invader, when his course was arrested by an embassy headed by Pope Leo. Attila at once withdrew from Italy, but the motive which led him to act thus is not known. At the time his retreat was ascribed to a miraculous interposition of Providence, Peter and Paul having appeared in the camp of the Huns along with the embassy. The whole matter is rather obscure; and scarcely more credible is the story told by Jornandes that Attila invaded Gaul a second time and was completely defeated by Thorismund. No other historian mentions this circumstance. In the year 453, Attila died from the bursting of a blood-vessel on the night of his marriage with a beautiful Gothic maiden, called Ildiko, or Hilda. He was buried by his followers with great pomp and lamentation. The vast empire over which he had ruled broke up immediately after his death, no one chief being powerful enough to seize the supremacy. In person Attila is described as having been of true Hunnish type, short, but strongly made, with a large head, flat, widespread nostrils, and small glittering eyes. His presence was majestic and imposing, and he excelled all his followers in military exercises. ATTOCK, a town and fort of British India, in the Panjab, situated on the eastern bank of the Indus, in 33° 54' N. lat., and 72° 20′ E. long. The place is both of political and commercial importance, as the Indus is here crossed by the military and trade route through the Khaibar Pass into Afghánistán. Alexander the Great, Tamerlane, and Nádir Sháh, are believed to have successively crossed the Indus at or about this spot in their respective invasions of India. The river runs past Attock in a deep rapid channel about 200 yards broad, but is easily crossed in boats or on inflated skins of oxen. A bridge of boats is maintained for a considerable part of the year, but withdrawn in the summer as soon as the melting of the snows in the northern mountains endangers ATTORNEY, in English Law, signifies, in its widest sense, any substitute or agent appointed to act in "the turn, stead, or place of another." The term is now commonly confined to a class of qualified agents who undertake the conduct of legal proceedings for their clients. By the common law the actual presence of the parties to a suit was considered indispensable, but the privilege of appearing by attorney was conceded in certain cases by special dispensation, until the statute of Merton and subsequent enactments made it competent for both parties in all judicial proceedings to appear by attorney. Solicitors appear to have been at first distinguished from attorneys, as not having the attorney's power to bind their principals, but latterly the distinction has been between attorneys as the agents formally appointed in actions at law, and solicitors who take care of proceedings in Parliament, Chancery, Privy Council, &c. In practice, however, and in ordinary language, the terms are synonymous. Regulations regarding the qualification of attorneys are found as far back as the 20 Edward I., which required the judges to select in each county the most learned and able attorneys and apprentices to do service in the courts. By the 6 and 7 Vict. c. 73, and other statutes, the qualifications necessary for admission on the rolls of attorneys and solicitors are :--1st, The due execution of a proper contract in writing with some practising attorney or solicitor for the term of five years, or of three years if the clerk be a graduate of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, London, or Durham, or of the Queen's University, Ireland, or if he have been a member of the bar, a writer to the signet, a solicitor before the supreme courts in Scotland, or for ten years bona fide managing clerk to an attorney; 2d, The payment of the stamp duty on such contract, amounting to £80; 3d, The registry or enrolment of the contract within six calendar months; 4th, Actual service for the prescribed period in the proper business of an attorney and solicitor; but one year may be served with the London agent, and, where the service is for five years, another year with a barrister or certificated special pleader; 5th, Due notices of the application to be admitted; 6th, Fitness and capacity ascertained upon examination, and certified by the examiners; 7th, Taking the prescribed oaths, and being admitted and enrolled; 8th, The certificate of the registrar of attorneys that he is duly enrolled, and the stamped certificate of the annual payment of the duty. Attorneys duly admitted in any of the superior courts have a right to be admitted and to practise in any of the courts in the kingdom, and this right may be enforced by mandamus. They may act as advocates in certain of the inferior courts. Conveyancing, formerly considered the exclusive business of the bar, is now often performed by attorneys. Barristers are understood to require the intervention of an attorney in all cases that come before them professionally, although in criminal cases the prisoner not unfrequently engages a counsel directly by giving him a fee in open court. The relation of attorney and client disqualifies the former from dealing with his client on his own behalf, while it gives him a lien, on professional services, over the deeds, &c., of the client in his possession. An attorney may be struck off the rolls for professional or other misconduct, on application by counsel at the instance of an injured party, or, as the case generally is, of the Incorporated Law Society as representing the profession. A letter or power of Attorney is an authority under hand and seal, empowering the person named therein to do some act on behalf of the principal, which otherwise could only be done by the principal himself. It expires with death of the | about a ten thousandth of a millimetre. If, in order to get rid of the idea of action at a distance, we imagine a material medium through which the action is transmitted, all that we have done is to substitute for a single action at a great distance a series of actions at smaller distances between the parts of the medium, so that we cannot even thus get rid of action at a distance. principal, and is revocable at his will, unless it has been given for a valuable consideration. A warrant of Attorney is an authority to one or more attorneys to appear for the party executing it, in a court of record, at the suit of the person for whose benefit it is given, and to suffer judgment summarily to pass in his favour. It is usually given as a security to creditors for the summary recovery of money lent, or sums certain, but may be used in other cases also. The study of the mutual action between the parts of a ATTORNEY-GENERAL, the chief law officer ap- material system has, in modern times, been greatly simplified pointed to manage all the legal affairs and suits in which by the introduction of the idea of the energy of the system. the Crown is interested. He is appointed by patent, The energy of the system is measured by the amount of authorising him to hold office during the Queen's pleasure. work which it can do in overcoming external resistances. He is ex officio the leader of the bar, and only counsel of It depends on the present configuration and motion of the the highest eminence are appointed to the office. The system, and not on the manner in which the system has royal mandate of 14th December 1814 gives him precedence acquired that configuration and motion. A complete in all the courts, and it is now settled that in the House knowledge of the manner in which the energy of the system of Lords he has precedence of the Lord Advocate, even in depends on its configuration and motion, is sufficient to Scotch appeals. He is a necessary party to all proceedings determine all the forces acting between the parts of the affecting the Crown, and has extensive powers of control in system. For instance, if the system consists of two bodies, matters relating to charities, lunatics' estates, criminal pro- and if the energy depends on the distance between them, secutions, &c. His assistant, also appointed by patent, is then if the energy increases when the distance increases, the Solicitor-General, who has full power to act in the there must be attraction between the bodies, and if the absence of his principal, and by almost invariable usage, energy diminishes when the distance increases, there must succeeds to his office when it becomes vacant. The income be repulsion between them. In the case of two gravitating attached to these offices has hitherto been derived in great masses m and m'at a distance r, the part of the energy part from fees on patents for inventions, but by a recent mm' which depends on r is We may therefore express arrangement the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General receive a salary of £7000 and £6000 respectively, exclusive of such fees as they may receive for any litigious business they may conduct on behalf of the Crown. ATTRACTION. That the different parts of a material system influence each other's motions is a matter of daily observation. In some cases we cannot discover any material connection extending from the one body to the other. We call these cases of action at a distance, to distinguish them from those in which we can trace a continuous material bond of union between the bodies. The The mutual action between two bodies is called stress. When the mutual action tends to bring the bodies nearer, or to prevent them from separating, it is called tension or attraction. When it tends to separate the bodies, or to prevent them from approaching, it is called pressure or repulsion. The names tension and pressure are used when the action is seen to take place through a medium. Attraction and repulsion are reserved for cases of action at a distance. The configuration of a material system can always be defined in terms of the mutual distances of the parts of the system. Any change of configuration must alter one or more of these distances. Hence the force which produces or resists such a change may be resolved into attractions or repulsions between those parts of the system whose distance is altered. There has been a great deal of speculation as to the cause of such forces, one of them, namely, the pressure between bodies in contact, being supposed to be more easily conceived than any other kind of stress. Many attempts have therefore been made to resolve cases of apparent attraction and repulsion at a distance into cases of pressure. At one time the possibility of attraction at a distance was supposed to be refuted by asserting that a body cannot act where it is not, and that therefore all action between different portions of matter must be by direct contact. To this it was replied that we have no evidence that real contact ever takes place between two bodies, and that, in fact, when bodies are pressed against each other and in apparent contact, we may sometimes actually measure the distance between them, as when one piece of glass is laid on another, in which case a considerable pressure must be applied to bring the surfaces near enough to show the black spot of Newton's rings, which indicates a distance of g the fact that there is attraction between the two bodies by saying that the energy of the system consisting of the two bodies increases when their distance increases. The question, therefore, Why do the two bodies attract each other? may be expressed in a different form. Why does the energy of the system increase when the distance increases? But we must bear in mind that the scientific or scienceproducing value of the efforts made to answer these old standing questions is not to be measured by the prospect they afford us of ultimately obtaining a solution, but by their effect in stimulating men to a thorough investigation of nature. To propose a scientific question presupposes scientific knowledge, and the questions which exercise men's minds in the present state of science may very likely be such that a little more knowledge would show us that no answer is possible. The scientific value of the question, How do bodies act on one another at a distance is to be found in the stimulus it has given to investigations into the properties of the intervening medium. Newton, in his Principia, deduces from the observed motions of the heavenly bodies the fact that they attract one another according to a definite law. This he gives as a result of strict dynamical reasoning, and by it he shows how not only the more conspicuous phenomena, but all the apparent irregularities of the celestial motions are the calculable results of a single principle. In his Principia he confines himself to the demonstration and development of this great step in the science of the mutual action of bodies. He says nothing there about the means by which bodies gravitate towards each other. But his mind did not rest at this point. We know that he did not believe in the direct action of bodies at a distance. "It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must do if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus be essential and inherent in it. . . . That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it."-Letter to Bentley. And we also know that he sought for the mechanism of gravitation in the properties of an æthereal medium diffused over the universe. "It appears, from his letters to Boyle, that this was his opinion early, and if he did not publish it sooner it proceeded from hence only, that he found he was not able, from experiment and observation, to give a satisfactory account of this medium and the manner of its operation in producing the chief phenomena of nature."1 In his Optical Queries, indeed, he shows that if the pressure of this medium is less in the neighbourhood of dense bodies than at great distances from them, dense bodies will be drawn towards each other, and that if the diminution of pressure is inversely as the distance from the dense body the law will be that of gravitation. The next step, as he points out, is to account for this inequality of pressure in the medium; and as he was not able to do this, he left the explanation of the cause of gravity as a problem to succeeding ages. As regards gravitation the progress made towards the solution of the problem since the time of Newton has been almost imperceptible. Faraday showed that the transmission of electric and magnetic forces is accompanied by phenomena occurring in every part of the intervening medium. He traced the lines of force through the medium; and he ascribed to them a tendency to shorten themselves and to separate from their neighbours, thus introducing the idea of stress in the medium in a different form from that suggested by Newton; for, whereas Newton's stress was a hydrostatic pressure in every direction, Faraday's is a tension along the lines of force, combined with a pressure in all normal directions. By showing that the plane of polarisation of a ray of light passing through a transparent medium in the direction of the magnetic force is made to rotate, Faraday not only demonstrated the action of magnetism on light, but by using light to reveal the state of magnetisation of the medium, he " illuminated," to use his own phrase, "the lines of magnetic force." From this phenomenon Thomson afterwards proved, by strict dynamical reasoning, that the transmission of magnetic force is associated with a rotatory motion of the small parts of the medium. He showed, at the same time, how the centrifugal force due to this motion would account for magnetic attraction. A theory of this kind is worked out in greater detail in Clerk Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. It is there shown that, if we assume that the medium is in a state of stress, consisting of tension along the lines of force and pressure in all directions at right angles to the lines of force, the tension and the pressure being equal in numerical value and proportional to the square of the intensity of the field at the given point, the observed electrostatic and electromagnetic forces will be completely accounted for. The next step is to account for this state of stress in the medium. In the case of electromagnetic force we avail ourselves of Thomson's deduction from Faraday's discovery stated above. We assume that the small parts of the medium are rotating about axes parallel to the lines of force. The centrifugal force due to this rotation produces the excess of pressure perpendicular to the lines of force. The explanation of electrostatic stress is less satisfactory, but there can be no doubt that a path is now open by which we may trace to the action of a medium all forces which, like the electric and magnetic forces, vary inversely as the square of the distance, and are attractive between bodies of different names, and repulsive between bodies of the same names. The force of gravitation is also inversely as the square of the distance, but it differs from the electric and magnetic forces in this respect, that the bodies between 1 Maclaurin's account of Sir Isaac Newton's discoveries. which it acts cannot be divided into two opposite kinds, one positive and the other negative, but are in respect of gravitation all of the same kind, and that the force between them is in every case attractive. To account for such a force by means of stress in an intervening medium, on the plan adopted for electric and magnetic forces, we must assume a stress of an opposite kind from that already mentioned. We must suppose that there is a pressure in the direction of the lines of force, combined with a tension in all directions at right angles to the lines of force. Such a state of stress would, no doubt, account for the observed effects of gravitation. We have not, however, been able hitherto to imagine any physical cause for such a state of stress. It is easy to calculate the amount of this stress which would be required to account for the actual effects of gravity at the surface of the earth. It would require a pressure of 37,000 tons' weight on the square inch in a vertical direction, combined with a tension of the same numerical value in all horizontal directions. exist in the invisible medium, is 3000 times greater than The state of stress, therefore, which we must suppose to that which the strongest steel could support. of Le Sage, who attributes it to the impact of "ultramunAnother theory of the mechanism of gravitation, that dane corpuscules," has been already discussed in the article Aтом, supra, p. 46. Sir William Thomson2 has shown that if we suppose all space filled with a uniform incompressible fluid, and generating and emitting this fluid at a constant rate, the if we further suppose either that material bodies are always always absorbing and annihilating the fluid, the deficiency fluid flowing off to infinity, or that material bodies are flowing in from infinite space, then, in either of these cases, there would be an attraction between any two bodies inversely as the square of the distance. If, however, one of the bodies were a generator of the fluid and the other an absorber of it, the bodies would repel each other. Here, then, we have a hydrodynamical illustration of action at a distance, which is so far promising that it shows how bodies of the same kind may attract each other. But the conception of a fluid constantly flowing out of a body without any supply from without, or flowing into it without any way of escape, is so contradictory to all our experience, that an hypothesis, of which it is an essential part, cannot be called an explanation of the phenomenon of gravitation. Dr Robert Hooke, a man of singular inventive power, in 1671 endeavoured to trace the cause of gravitation to floating on water agitated by waves were drawn towards the waves propagated in a medium. He found that bodies centre of agitation. He does not appear, however, to have completely the action of waves on an immersed body. followed up this observation in such a way as to determine theory of the effect of waves of condensation and rarefacProfessor Challis has investigated the mathematical tion in an elastic fluid on bodies immersed in the fluid. that he has not been able to arrive at numerical results. He He found the difficulties of the investigation to be so great concludes, however, that the effect of such waves would be repel it from that centre, according as the wave's length is to attract the body towards the centre of agitation, or to the body. Practical illustrations of the effect of such waves very large or very small compared with the dimensions of have been given by Guyot, Schellbach, Guthrie, and Thomson.* delicately suspended light body. The body is immediately A tuning-fork is set in vibration, and brought near a Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 7th Feb. 1870. 3 Posthumous Works, edited by R. Waller, pp. xiv. and 184. 4 Philosophical Magazine, June 1871. attracted towards the tuning-fork. If the tuning-fork is itself suspended, it is seen to be attracted towards any body placed near it. Sir W. Thomson has shown that this action can in all cases be explained by the general principle that in fluid motion the average pressure is least where the average energy of motion is greatest. Now, the wave motion is greatest nearest the tuning-fork, the pressure is therefore least there; and the suspended body being pressed unequally on opposite sides, moves from the side of greater pressure to the side of less pressure, that is towards the tuning-fork. He has also succeeded in producing repulsion in the case of a small body lighter than the surrounding medium. It is remarkable that of the three hypotheses, which go some way towards a physical explanation of gravitation, every one involves a constant expenditure of work. Le Sage's hypothesis of ultramundane corpuscules does so, as we have shown in the article АTOм. That of the generation or absorption of fluid requires, not only constant expenditure of work in emitting fluid under pressure, but actual creation and destruction of matter. That of waves requires some agent in a remote part of the universe capable of generating the waves. According to such hypotheses we must regard the processes of nature not as illustrations of the great principle of the conservation of energy, but as instances in which, by a nice adjustment of powerful agencies not subject to this principle, an apparent conservation of energy is maintained. Hence, we are forced to conclude that the explanation of the cause of gravitation is not to be found in any of these hypotheses. For the mathematical theory of attraction and attraction of ellipsoids, see POTENTIAL; for attraction of gravitation, capillary attraction, and attraction of cohesion, see respectively GRAVITATION, CAPILLARY ATTRACTION, and CONSTITUTION OF BODIES. (J. C. M.) ATTWOOD, THOMAS, musical composer, was born in London in 1767. As one of the boy choristers in the chapel royal he received his early instruction in music from Nares and Ayrton. In 1783 he was sent to study abroad at the expense of the Prince of Wales, who had been favourably impressed by his skill as a performer on the harpsichord. After spending two years at Naples, Attwood proceeded to Vienna, where he became a favourite pupil of Mozart. On his return to London he held for a short time an appointment as one of the chamber musicians to the prince of Wales. In 1795 he was chosen organist of St Paul's, and in the following year he succeeded Dr Dupuis as composer to the chapels royal. His court connection was further confirmed by his appointment as musical instructor to the duchess of York and afterwards to the princess of Wales. For the coronation of George IV. he composed the anthem, The King shall Rejoice, a work of high merit. The king, who had neglected him for some years on account of his connection with the princess of Wales, now restored him to favour, and in 1821 appointed him organist to his private chapel at Brighton. Soon after the institution of the Royal Academy of Music, Attwood was chosen one of the professors. He wrote the anthem, O Lord, grant the King a Long Life, which was performed at the coronation of William IV., and he was composing a similar work for the coronation of Queen Victoria when he died (March 24, 1838). Attwood's compositions are favourable specimens of the English school. His services and anthems were published in a collected form after his death by his pupil Walmesley, and are frequently used in cathedral worship. Of his secular compositions several songs and glees are well known and popular. The operas which he composed in early life are now almost forgotten, belonging, as they do, to a period when English music was at its lowest ebb. ATWOOD, GEORGE, an author celebrated for the accuracy of his mathematical and mechanical investigations, and considered particularly happy in the clearness of his explanations, and the elegance of his experimental illustrations, was born in the early part of the year 1746. He was educated at Westminster school, to which he was admitted in 1759. Six years afterwards he was elected off to Trinity College, Cambridge. He took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1769, with the rank of third wrangler and first Smith's prizeman. These distinctions were amply sufficient to give him a claim to further advancement in his own college. In due time he obtained a fellowship, and was afterwards one of the tutors of the college. He became Master of Arts in 1772, and in 1776 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In the year 1784 he ceased to reside at Cambridge, and soon afterwards received from Mr Pitt a patent office, which required but little of his attendance, and enabled him still to devote a considerable portion of his time to his special studies. He died in 1807. Atwood's published works, exclusive of papers contributed to the Philosophical Transactions, for one of which he obtained the Copley medal, are as follows :-(1.) Analysis of a Course of Lectures on the Principles of Natural Philosophy, Cambridge, 1784. (2.) Treatise on the Rectilinear Motion and Rotation of Bodies, Cambridge, 1784, which contains a good account of the elementary principles of mechanics, though it is deficient in the application of higher mathematical analysis. It also gives some interesting experiments, by means of which mechanical truths can be ocularly exhibited and demonstrated, and describes the machine, since called by Atwood's name, for verifying experimentally the laws of simple acceleration of motion. (3.) Review of the Statutes and Ordinances of Assize which have been established in England from the 4th year of King John, 1202, to the 37th of his present Majesty, London, 1801, a work of some historical research. (4.) Dissertation on the Construction and Properties of Arches, London, 1801, with supplement, pt. i. 1801, pt. ii. 1804, an elaborate and, in its time, valuable work, though it is now completely superseded. ATYS, ATTIS, or ATTES, in the Phrygian and Lydian Mythology, a youth beloved for his beauty by the goddess Rhea, there called Agdistis. Like Adonis, he was a personification of the changes in nature, from the beauty of spring and summer to the severity and darkness of winter. The story, as told at Pessinus, the centre of the worship of the goddess, was that she had born to Zeus a being both male and female; that the gods, displeased, had transformed this being into a tree, from the fruit of which the daughter of the river-god Sangarius bore a boy, who grew up among herdsmen marvellous in his beauty, so as to win the love of Agdistis. This was Atys, and he was about to be married to the king's daughter of Pessinus, when the goddess appeared among the guests, terrified them, and caused Atys to run to the woods, where he maimed himself and was transformed into a pine tree; from his blood sprang violets. Agdistis begged Zeus to restore him, but he could only assure her that the youth would never decay, and that his hair would always grow. She conveyed the pine to her cave at Pessinus, and gave herself up to grief. AUBAGNE, a town of France, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, with a population of 7408, who carry on the manufacture of wine, pottery, leather, coarse cloth, &c. The only remarkable monument is a fountain to the memory of the Abbé Barthélemy, whose family was long connected with the town. AUBE, a department of France, bounded on the N. by the department of Marne, N.W. by Seine-et-Marne, W. by Yonne, S. by Cote-d'Or, and E. by Haute-Marne. It consists of a portion of Champagne and Vallage, with a small part of Burgundy, and has an area of 2317 square miles. Its general inclination from S.E. to N.W. presents little variety of surface, the only elevations being a double line of hills along the course of the Seine, never exceeding 1150 feet in height. The department belongs to the Seine basin, and is watered by that river and its tributaries, the Ource, the Sarce, the Melda, and the Aube, &c. The climate is comparatively mild, but damp. Heavy rains fall at the beginning of winter. In the N. and N. W. the soil is dry and sterile; but the S. and E. districts are very fertile, particularly the valleys, which are admirably adapted for the cultivation of the vine. About two-thirds of the surface consists of arable land, and the agricultural condition of the country is improving. The principal productions are wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and wine, of which last about one-half is exported. In minerals Aube is one of the poorest departments in France; a few iron mines have been worked, but with insignificant results. Chalk and clay are abundant; and there are also quarries of marble, lithographic stone, and building stone. The principal manufacture is hosiery; but the department also produces glass, earthenware, paper, sugar, and ropes, and has a large number of distilleries, tile-works, and dye-works, and an❘ oil factory. Among the celebrated men connected with Aube are Villehardouin, Pope Urban IV., Mignard, Danton, Beugnot, and Ulbach. The capital is Troyes, and the arrondissements are Troyes, Arcis-sur-Aube, Nogent-surSeine, Bar-sur-Aube, and Bar-sur-Seine. Population in 1872, 255,687. AUBENAS, a town of France, department of Ardèche, near the river of that name, 14 miles S. W. of Privas. It is beautifully situated on the slope of a hill, but its streets generally are crooked and narrow. It is surrounded by a ruinous wall flanked with towers, and has an old Gothic castle, now occupied by the municipal authorities. As the centre of the silk trade of the surrounding district, it is a place of considerable traffic, and there is besides a large local manufacture of silk and woollen goods. Population, 7694. AUBER, DANIEL FRANÇOIS ESPRIT, musical composer, the chief representative of the French school, was the son of a Paris printseller. He was born at Caen, in Normandy, on the 29th January 1782, while his mother was on a visit to that town. Destined by his father to the pursuits of trade, he was allowed, nevertheless, to indulge his fondness for music, and learnt to play at an early age on several instruments, his first teacher being the Tyrolean composer, Ladurner. Sent at the age of twenty to London to complete his business training, he returned after the rupture of the peace of Amiens. He had already attempted musical composition, and at this period produced several concertos pour basse, in the manner of the violoncellist, Lamare, in whose name they were published. The praise given to his concerto for the violin, which was played at the Conservatoire by Mazas, encouraged him to undertake the resetting of the old comic opera, Julie. Conscious by this time of the need of regular study of his chosen art, he placed himself under the severe training of Cherubini, by which the special qualities of the young composer were admirably developed. In 1813 he made his debut in an opera in one act, the Séjour Militaire, the unfavourable reception of which put an end for some years to his attempts as composer. But the failure in business and death of his father, in 1819, compelled him once more to turn to music, and to make that which had been his pastime the serious employment of his life. He produced another opera, the Testament et les Billets-doux, which was no better received than the former. But he persevered, and the next year was rewarded by the complete success of his Bergère Châtelaine, an opera in three acts. This was the first in a long series of brilliant successes, terminating only in the eighty-sixth year of his age. In 1822 began his long association with M. Scribe, who shared with him, as librettist, the success and growing popularity of his compositions. The opera of Leicester, in which they first worked together (1823), is remarkable also as showing the first evidences of the influence of Rossini on Auber's style. This style was, however, distinctly original, and was easily recognisable. A phrase of Auber, said his friend Théodore Gautier, is not the phrase of any one else. His characteristics are lightness and facility, sparkling vivacity, grace and elegance, clear and piquant melodiousness,-these marking him out as a true son of France, and making him her darling singer. Depth of thought, elevation of sentiment, intensity of passion, inspiration which grasps the sublime and the infinite-these are not in Auber. Devoted by preference to the comic opera, as the most fitting field for his talents, he ventured on more than one occasion to pass into the field of grand opera, and in his La Muette de Portici, familiarly known as Masaniello, he achieved his greatest musical triumph. Produced at Paris in 1828, it rapidly became a European favourite, and its overture, songs, and choruses were everywhere heard. The duet, Amour sacré de la patrie was welcomed like a new Marseillaise; sung by Nourrit at Brussels in 1830, it became the signal for the revolution which broke out there. Among his other works, about fifty in all, the more important are-Fra Diavolo (1830), Lestocq (1834), L'Ambassadrice (1836), Le Domino Noir (1837), Le Lac des Fées (1839), Les Diamants de la Couronne (1841), Haydee (1847), Marco Spada (1853), and La Fiancée du roi de Garbe (1864). Official and other dignities testified the public appreciation of Auber's works. In 1829 he was elected member of the Institute, in 1830 he was named director of the court concerts, and in 1842 he succeeded Cherubini as director of the Conservatoire. He was also a member of the Legion of Honour from 1825, and attained the rank of commander in 1847. One of Auber's latest compositions was a march, written for the opening of the International Exhibition in London in 1862. His fascinating manners, his witty sayings, and his ever ready kindness and beneficence won for him a secure place in the respect and love of his fellow-citizens. He remained in his old home during the German siege of Paris, 1870-71, but the miseries of the Communist war which followed sickened his heart, and he at last refused to touch his beloved instrument, or to take food. He died May 13, 1871. (W.L.R.C.) AUBIN, a town of France, in the department of Aveyron and arrondissement of Villefranche, principally remarkable for its extensive mines of coal, sulphur, and alum. It also carries on an active trade in sheep, iron goods, &c. A church of the 12th century, with some remarkable sculpture, and the ruins of the castle of the counts of Rouergue, are still in existence. Population, 8863. The name Aubin, or St Aubin, is one of the most frequent in France, being borne by upwards of fifty villages from the Pyrenees to Jersey. AUBURN, the capital of Cayuga county, in the state of New York, on the railway between Albany and Buffalo, 174 miles W. of the former. The irregularity of the surface on which the city is built has prevented the complete carrying out of the rectangular arrangement of streets, which is so much in favour in the United States, but the thoroughfares are wide and lined with trees, and the houses for the most part well built. The principal public buildings are in Genesee Street. The most remarkable of the institutions is the state prison, founded in 1816, which is conducted on the "silent system," and usually contains upwards of 1000 prisoners, who are employed each in |