nally written by him in Spanish, and translated by him into French. It exhibited such a familiarity with the Spanish tongue, that many Spaniards asserted it to be the production of some one of their countrymen. It is not said whether it was printed or circulated in manuscript. His Italian and French verses were also much esteemed; the latter were published, and placed him (according to his biographer) among the first poets of his day. He wrote also with great facility in prose, and the works which he composed or translated amounted to several volumes. As, however, they were published anonymously, they were claimed by others who wished to have the credit of their authorship. This was the case with his great work "Estats et Empires." Considerable part of his life was passed in military service, in which he rose to the rank of captain of infantry. He was in the army of the Statholder Maurice of Nassau, at the siege of Rheinberg in 1606, and afterwards served in the army of the Duke of Lesdiguières, Constable of France, on the Italian frontier. In 1630 he was engaged in the relief of Casale, on the Po, besieged by the Marquis Spinola with the Spanish army. During the war or part of the war with the Hugonots, under the administration of Richelieu, in the reign of Louis XIII., he maintained at his own charge some companies of infantry. He passed some of the intervals of military service in travelling; he spent eight months of the year 1620 in Italy; and in 1626 visited several considerable cities of Germany. His purpose in these travels was to accumulate materials for his " Estats et Empires," a work on which he was engaged, but left incomplete; part of the work had been published during his lifetime, and part was in the press at the time of his death. He died at Paris, March, 1635, of a disorder aggravated by the infirmities of age, and the effects of his bodily and mental exertions, aged sixtytwo years. He is styled in the title-page of those of his works which were not anonymous, M. Mont-martin or Seigneur de Montmartin, and gentleman in ordinary of the King's bedchamber. He left one son, a minor, Claude d'Avity, who wrote the dedication to the second edition of his "Estats et Empires." His biographer speaks of him as eminent for his piety, and mentions an incident illustrative of his strict moral principles. He had, at the request of a person of distinction, made "an elegant prose translation" of the "Amores" of Ovid; but a friend, to whose revision he submitted the manuscript, having told him that he would corrupt the world by this translation, more than the poet had by the original, he threw the translation into the fire, "judging that a Christian could not without guilt publish a work which had been the cause or the pretext of the banishment of a heathen." 66 2. His works are as follows:-1. "Les Travaux sans Travail," a collection of tales and miscellaneous pieces, which went through three editions in the author's lifetime, 12mo. Paris, 1599 and 1602, and Rouen, 1609. Panégyricà Mr. Desdiguières (Lesdiguières) Maréchal de France," 8vo. Lyon, 1611. 3. "Le Banissement des Folles Amours," a moral treatise designed to repress licentiousness, 12mo. Lyon, 1618. 4. " Arrêt de mort exécuté en la personne de Jean Guillot, Lyonnois, architecte, duement convaincu de l'horrible calomnie par lui imposée à ceux de La Rochelle," 8vo. Paris, 1624. 5. A work in German, professedly translated from part of a letter from M. Montmartin (D'Avity) to M. Maisonneuve Montournois, having the title of "Discovery of a fearful enterprise falsely charged on the townsmen of La Rochelle," 8vo. 1624. 6. "Etat certain de ceux de la Religion en France," 8vo. Paris, 1625. These works relate to the religious struggles of the reign of Louis XIII. 7. The work on which he was engaged at the time of his death, currently referred to by the abridged title of "Estats et Empires;" but of which the full title is "Estats et Empires du Monde, par D. T. U. Y." This at least was the title of the first volume, published in fol. 1626. The portions which were published after the author's death appear to have borne other titles. In the second edition, which was revised by François Ranchin, an advocate of Montpellier, and published in 1643, the title of the first volume, which may be regarded as the general title of the work, is "Le Monde, ou la Description Générale de ses Quatre Parties, avec tous ses Empires, Royaumes, Estats, et Républiques." This edition is in seven folio volumes. The first volume contains a preliminary treatise entitled "Discours Universel, comprehending the natural history and philosophy of the heavens and the earth, the natural history of man, an account of customs, languages, the various forms of religion and government, the monastic and military orders, and ancient and modern heresies, with a brief historical sketch of the successive ages of the world. The subsequent volumes have different titles indicative of their contents: as "Description Générale de l'Asie, première partie du monde, avec tous ses Empires, Royaumes, Estats, et Républiques." A volume each is assigned to Asia, Africa, and America; Europe has three volumes. The work, which came to a third edition in 1660, revised and augmented by J. B. de Rocoles, Historiographer to the King, manifests extensive reading; and the successive editions of it, notwithstanding its size, show the credit it obtained. It was translated into Latin by Louis Godefroi, under the title of "Archontologia Cosmica," 3 vols. fol. Frankfort, 1649. The work is described in the " 'Biographie Universelle" as "a very ordinary compi lation, but which, nevertheless, contained some pieces which had not before appeared in the French language, as the abridged history of the kings of Persia after Mirkhond, which Davity translated from Texeira." Some accounts make the volume published in 1626 to have been a first edition of the whole work; we believe we have described it more correctly as the first volume only; apparently the second was in the press at the time of the author's death. 8. "Origines de tous les Ordres Militaires et de Chevalerie de toute la Chrétienté, par le Sieur T. V. Y. A." fol. Paris, 1635. We believe this to have formed part of his great work just mentioned, and, from the date, it was probably the part that was in the press at the time of his death. It was included, says Fevret de Fontette, in some of the subsequent editions of that work. (La Vie de Pierre Davity, in the first vol. of Rocoles' edition of D'Avity's great work Le Monde, ou La Description Générale, &c. 1660; Le Long, Bibliothèque Historique de la France, ed. Fevret de Fontelle; Catalogue des Livres Imprimés de la Bibliothèque du Roy (Belles Lettres), Paris, 1750; Biographie Universelle, "Davity, Pierre;" D'Avity, Works.) J. C. M. AVOGA'DRÓ, ALBERTO, a native of Vercelli, lived in the first half of the fifteenth century, and was a dependant of the Florentine chief, Cosmo de' Medici. He celebrated the churches and other edifices erected by his patron, in a rude and inelegant Latin poem of two books, in elegiac verse, which was not printed till it appeared in the twelfth volume of Lami's "Delicia Eruditorum," 17361744. (Mazzuchelli, Scrittori d'Italia.) W. S. | AVOGA'DRO, CAMILLO, a Milanese of noble birth, published a small volume of Latin poems on the canonization of San Carlo Borromeo, Milan, 1611, 4to., and an Oration, "De Studio Literario, præcipuè in artibus liberalibus, restaurando," Milan, undated. Some of his Latin poems are in the sixth book of the Epigrams of Ignazio Albani. Avogadro died in 1617. There was an earlier Camillo Avogadro, or "Camillus Advocatus," who was a native of Brescia. To him, and to his father Matteo Avogadro, Marius Nizolius acknowledges himself to have been much indebted in the preparation of his "Lexicon Ciceronianum," which was first published in 1535. (Argellati, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Mediolanensium, i. 4, ii. 1931; Mazzuchelli, Scrittori d'Italia.) W. S. AVOGA'DRO, FAUSTINO. [AvOGADRO, LUCIA.] AVOGA'DRO, GIRO'LAMO, a native of Brescia, was the son of Ambrogio Avogadro, who distinguished himself both as a jurist and as a patriotic citizen in the first half of the fifteenth century. Girolamo is known only for an early edition of Vitruvius, which is ascribed to him, under his Latinized name of "Hieronymus Advocatus," by Cardinal Quirini. The assertion is made on the strength of some complimentary expressions contained in a letter addressed to Avogadro, in 1486, by the philologer Joannes or Angelus Britannicus, whom he patronized. No one has ever seen this edition; and it is now quite certain that it does not exist. The utmost possible extent of Avogadro's services to Vitruvius is, that he may in some way have assisted in the preparation of the Editio Princeps, edited by Joannes Sulpicius, and published at Rome in or soon after 1480: but even this is merely matter of conjecture. Britannicus, throughout the whole letter, exaggerates so grossly the merits of his rich and liberal patron, that he is likely enough to have derived from something very trifling his vague assertion, that it was owing to Avogadro that a complete and accurate text of Vitruvius was now in the hands of every one. (Mazzuchelli, Scrittori d'Italia; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, ed. Ernesti, i. 484.) W. S. AVOGA'DRO, GIUSEPPE, Count of Casanova, was born at Vercelli in 1731, of an ancient family. He lived the life of a country gentleman, and published several treatises on topics of rural economy, of which the most recent appeared in 1810. The principal of them are, a treatise on the cultivation and irrigation of meadows, Vercelli, 1783, 8vo.; and another on the cultivation of flax, Vercelli, 1786, 8vo. Count Avogadro was made chamberlain of the king of Sardinia: he was governor of the department of Vercelli during the occupation of Piedmont by the French; and he received further honours under the empire. He died at Vercelli in 1813. (Biographie Universelle, Supplement.) W. S. AVOGADRO, LUCIA, an Italian poetess of the sixteenth century, was born at Bergamo. She was a daughter of the Cavalier Giovanni Girolamo Albano, who afterwards became a cardinal. She married the Cavalier Faustino Avogadro of Brescia, a gentleman whose name has found its way into the list of modern Latin poets through this whimsical mistake, that he has been said to be the author of a poem celebrating his own memory. The poem, addressed to his widow, and entitled "Epicedium Faustini Advocati Equitis ad Luciam Albanam conjugem," is in Gruter's "Delicia Italorum Poetarum," part i. pp. 1-4. It was really written by Giannantonio Taglietti. Lucia's husband died at Ferrara, in 1568; and she herself is supposed not to have survived the end of that year. She is praised by the obscure poet Árnigio, and by a more illustrious friend, Torquato Tasso. Her only poetical remains are a few verses, in two collections of her own times; Ruscelli's "Rime di diversi eccellenti Autori Bresciani," Venice, 1553, 1554, 8vo. ; and the "Rime in morte d' Irene da Spilimbergo," 1561. From the latter of | appeared at Palermo, 1741, fol.; book ii. AVOGA'RO, RAMBALDO AVONDA'NO or AVONTA'NO, AVONMORE, VISCOUNT. [YELVER TON.] these volumes is taken a specimen quoted by | of Italy. Book i. "Præparatio Biblica," Crescimbeni. (Mazzuchelli, Scrittori d'Italia; Crescimbeni, Istoria della Volgar Poesia, iv. 96.) W. S. ÁVOGADRO, NE'STORE DIONI'GI, a nobleman of Novara, lived in the fifteenth century. Having become a Franciscan friar, he is usually called by his conventual name, and known as Father Nestor Dionysius Novariensis. He attached himself to classical philology, and composed a Latin Lexicon, which is described by Fabricius as a work not to be despised, if we take into account the age in which it was written. Schöttgen says it is remarkable for its references to authors very little known. It was dedicated to Lodovico Sforza; but the dedication must have been written before Lodovico became Duke of Milan, if Mazzuchelli be correct in saying that the author speaks of Sixtus IV. as AVONT, PIETER VAN, a painter, still alive. Sixtus died in 1483. The oldest etcher, and printseller of Antwerp, where he known edition of the Lexicon, which, how- lived in the middle of the seventeenth century. ever, is described in the colophon as being He painted figure-pieces, such as landscapes the second, is that of Venice, 1488, fol. Sub- with figures from sacred history or heathen sequent editions are those of Milan, 1493, mythology; and he added also the figures in fol.; Paris, 1496, fol.; Venice, 1496, fol.; some of the pictures of David Vinckenbooms Strassburg, 1502, fol.; Venice, 1506, and and of Velvet Breughel. His pictures are Strassburg, 1507, fol. In the last of these scarce and highly esteemed, as are also his editions, revised by Joannes Tacuinus de Tri- etchings, which are few, and exclusively from dino, there are inserted several philological his own designs. There are however many treatises by Father Nestor Dionysius. (Maz-prints after him by other masters: W. Hollar zuchelli, Scrittori d'Italia; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Media et Infimæ Latinitatis, Padua, 1754, 4to., v. 97, 98.) W. S. AVOGA'DRO, PIETRO, a clever Italian painter of Brescia, who lived in the earlier part of the eighteenth century; the date of his birth and death are unknown. He was the scholar of Pompeo Ghiti of Brescia, but chose the principal Bolognese masters as his models, with whose qualities he combined, says Lanzi, somewhat of the colouring of Venice. He was correct in his drawing, graceful in his foreshortenings, judicious in his compositions, and an agreeable harmony of effect prevails in all his works: his masterpiece is perhaps the Martyrdom of Santi Crispino and Crispiniano in the church of San Giuseppe at Brescia. Avogadro, says Lanzi, holds in the opinion of many the first place after the three great painters of Brescia: these are Alessandro Bonvicino, called I Moretto di Brescia; Lattanzio Gambara, and Girolamo Savoldo, known in Venice as Girolamo Bresciano. (Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, &c.) R. N. W. AVOGA'DRO, RAMBALDO DEGLI AZZONI. [Azzoni.] AVOGADRO, or AVVOCATI, VINCENZO MARI'Á, born at Palermo in 1702, became a Dominican friar, and taught theology in the seminary of Girgenti. He was the author of a work in two books, "De Sanctitate Librorum qui in Ecclesia Catholicâ consecrantur," which enjoyed in its day some fame among the theologians engraved several. Avont was proprietor and AVONTA'NO. (AVONDANO.] AVOSA'NI, ORFE'O, a composer of the seventeenth century, was organist at Viadana, a small Mantuan town, and published the following works:-1. "Missa a tre voci," Venice, 1645. 2. "Salmi." 3. "Compieta concertata a cinque voci." (Walther, Lexicon.) E. T. AVOST, JEROME D', born at Laval in Brittany, in 1558 or 1559, held an employment in the household of Margaret of France, first wife of Henry IV. He translated from the Italian of Lodovico Domenichi a comedy, "Les deux Courtisannes," and the "Jerusalem" of Tasso. He is also the author of the following works:-1. "Les Amours d'Ismène et de la chaste Ismine écrits premièrement en grec par Eustathius; traduits du grec en Italien par Lelio Carassi, et de l'Italien en Français par d'Avost," Paris, 16mo, 1582. 2. "Dialogues des grâces et excellences de l'homme et de ses misères et disgrâces, trad. de l'Ital. d'Alphonse Colombet," 8vo., 1583. 3. "Poésies de Hiérome d'Avost de Laval, en faveur de plusieurs illustres et nobles personnes," Paris, 8vo. 4. "Essais sur les son nets du divin Pétrarque, avec quelques autres poésies de l'invention de l'auteur," Paris, 8vo. 1584. 5. "Des Quatrains de la vie et de la mort," Paris. (Adelung, Supplement to Jöcher, Allg. Gelehrten-Lexicon; Abbé Goujet, Biblioth. Franc. vol. vii. p. 318; De Percel, Biblioth des Romans, vol. ii., p. 13; Biographie Universelle.) A. H. AVRIGNY, CHARLES-JOSEPH LŒILLARD D', was born in the island of Martinique, about the year 1760. He was sent at an early age to France, and received his education at Montpellier; but whether with a view to any profession is uncertain. A circumstance which occurred to him in his eighteenth year in all likelihood determined the course of his future life. He wrote a poem "On the Prayer of Patroclus to Achilles," the subject for that year of the annual prize of the French Academy. For some reason not exactly known, no successful candidate was named; but the Academy, in their report, declared D'Avrigny's verses worthy of honourable mention. Not long afterwards D'Avrigny removed to Paris, where he married Mademoiselle Regnault, at that time one of the most admired singers of the Opéra Comique; and this connection induced him to attempt dramatic composition. The French revolution soon broke out, but, in spite of its horrors, the theatres of Paris were as crowded as before. D'Avrigny wrote operas for the establishment to which his wife belonged, and vaudevilles for the minor theatres; occasionally diversifying these labours by the composition of hymns and odes for the republican festivals of the period. In 1801 he contributed to Michaud's work on Mysore the sketch which it contains of the origin and progress of British power in India, an elegant and vigorous essay, which has led French critics to regret that he did not turn his attention exclusively to history. His dramatic pieces were tolerably successful, but have long ceased to be acted; only one of them was ever printed, a little afterpiece called "La Lettre" (Paris, 1795), which it is said the old playgoers of Paris still remember with pleasure. Under the empire, D'Avrigny, besides being a censor of the press, held a high and lucrative appointment in the bureau of the minister of marine. Poetry was now no longer the business of his life, but he continued to cultivate it as the amusement of his leisure hours. In 1807 he published "Le Départ de la Peyrouse, ou la Navigation moderne," a poem which the "Biographie Universelle" strangely praises as a happy imitation of Cicero's "Dream of Scipio," in his "Tusculans." Avrigny wrote also, with the assiduity of a self-constituted laureate, triumphal odes on the victories of Napoleon; and he began an epic on the conquest of Mexico by Cortes, of which only a single episode entitled "Marina" was completed. All these are contained in his "Poésies Nationales" (Paris, 1812), to which he prefixed the motto of "Celebrare domestica facta." At the Restoration D'Avrigny lost his situation in the marine, and his censorship was limited to the revision of dramatic pieces, a task which he performed with great delicacy and to the satisfaction of the irritable class with which he had to deal. On the 4th of July, 1819, he appeared once more in the literary world, as the author of "Jeanne d'Arc à Rouen," a tragedy, which was performed with great applause at the Théâtre Français. In the course of the following year he was made chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Subsequently, on several occasions, he struggled to be made a member of the Academy, but he never obtained this distinction. D'Avrigny died of apoplexy, on the 17th of September, 1823. (Encyclopédie des Gens du Monde; Biographie des Contemporains; Biographie Universelle; Quérard, La France Littéraire.) G. B. AVRIGNY, HYACINTHE ROBILLARD D', a French Jesuit, was born at Caen, in the year 1675. He took the vows of his order in 1691, studied in a college of Jesuits, and became at length professor of the "Humanities," in what college is not clear, but probably at Alençon. His constitution, naturally delicate, suffered from the severe duties of his professorship; and, by command of his superiors, he exchanged this office for the post of procurator of the college. Besides a care for his health, his superiors were perhaps actuated by an additional and more powerful motive in withdrawing him from his professorship. With the sagacity of members of their order, they discerned in him at this time those mental qualities which he afterwards displayed in his writings. A spirit of fearless investigation and a judgment which disdained the shackles of ecclesiastical authority were never much admired by the Jesuits in any man, and least of all in an instructor of youth. D'Avrigny's new office was less dignified than his professorship, but, being almost a sinecure, left the greater part of his time at his own disposal. His favourite study was history, both ecclesiastical and civil; and the fruit of his leisure exists in two works, which, although published, have not come down to us unimpaired from the hand of their author. The titles of these are 1. "Mémoires chronologiques et dogmatiques pour servir à l'Histoire ecclésiastique, depuis 1600 jusqu'en 1716, avec des Réflexions et des Remarques critiques," 4 vols. 12mo.; without the name of the author, and without imprint, but first printed at Paris, in the year 1720. Reprinted at Lyon and Rouen, and a second edition printed in 1739. 2. "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire universelle de l'Europe, depuis 1600 jusqu'en 1716," 4 vols. (Amsterdam or Paris), 1725, 12mo.; Paris, 1731, 12mo.; a new edi- some occasional verses, among which were tion, with additions and corrections by Father "Regrets sur la Rupture de la Paix, l'an Griffet, 5 vols. Paris, 1757, 12mo. Neither 1568," and "Ode sur les Victoires obtenues of these works was published during the life par Monseigneur le Duc d'Anjou," both of of the author. Of the former it is said that which were printed together in 1570. In upon its completion he lent the MS. to a 1578 he published also "Le Bienveignement friend, a member of his own order, who, à Monseigneur entrant en Anjou," a poem finding in it some startling revelations re- intended as a welcome to the Duke of Anjou, specting the Jesuits, immediately submitted whom he had probably secured as a patron. it to the inspection of his superiors, who re- Avril translated from the Latin into French solved that it could not be printed without verse the first two books of the "Zodiac" of much suppression and alteration, and Father Manzoli; but the success of Scévole de SainteLallemant was ordered to revise and prepare Marthe's imitations of that writer deterred it for the press. The expression of their Avril from making his performance public. opinion was conveyed to D'Avrigny, as it La Croix du Maine tells us that Avril was may be supposed, in no very mild or mea- living at Angers at the time he wrote, 1584; sured terms; and, with a frame already atte- and nothing further is known of his history. nuated by sickness, the mortification which (La Croix du Maine and Du Verdier, Bibhe experienced hurried him to his grave. Heliothèques Françoises, ed. Juvigny, i. 445.) died either at Quimper or Alençon, in the year 1719. D'Avrigny's reputation as an historian is deservedly high. His works, even mutilated as we possess them, are evidently the productions of a cultivated and vigorous mind. Impartiality and candour are apparent throughout; they abound in curious anecdotes and philosophical reflections; the narrative is well sustained, and the author's style not without grace. It is much to be regretted that a century and sixteen years of civil and ecclesiastical history, from the pen of an author evidently competent for his task, should not have escaped the scissors of his ecclesiastical censor. Of the "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire universelle," which underwent the same revision as the ecclesiastical memoirs, the Abbé Artigny assures us that the original MS. contained a complete narrative of the mysteries of the War of the Succession, in which the French were so shamefully beaten; besides many other curious revelations which are not in the printed work. It may be mentioned also that the work as we possess it justifies the cruelties exercised towards the Protestants of the Palatinate, although the author himself really stigmatized them as opposed to the spirit of Christianity. Notwithstanding the mutilated shape in which they were published, the ecclesiastical memoirs were condemned three several times: first, at Rome, by a decree dated the 2nd of September, 1727; afterwards, in a pastoral letter of M. de Tourouvre, Bishop of Rodez, on the 19th of June, 1728; and finally, in the "Assertions Dangereuses" of the parliament of Paris, in 1762. (Moréri, Dictionnaire Historique; Gachet d'Artigny, Nouveaux Mémoires d'Histoire, de Critique, et de Littérature, vol. i. 463-465; Le Long, Bibliothèque Historique, vol. i. 329, vol. ii. 612; Biographie Universelle.) G. B. AVRIL, JEAN, Sieur de la Roche, and Prior of Corzé, a French poet of the sixteenth century, was a native of Pont-de-Cey, near Angers. His only publications were J. W. AVRIL, JEAN JACQUES, the name of two distinguished French engravers, father and son. The elder was born at Paris in 1744, according to Joubert; Brulliot says 1736, probably from Huber; but as Avril died as recently as 1832, the later date, 1744, is more probably correct. He studied originally architecture, but decided eventually upon engraving, and became the pupil of J. G. Wille. His works amount to five hundred and forty, and many of them are of large dimensions: they are executed with great taste and technical skill, and his subjects are well chosen. They are marked with his name or initials. Among his best plates are the following, of ten after Lebarbier :-the Horatii and Curiatii, Penelope and Ulysses, Coriolanus and Veturia, Lycurgus, Virginia and Icilius, and Cincinnatus receiving the ambassadors of Rome; the last two were exhibited in the Louvre in 1804. Also the following, after other masters:-four marine landscapes after J. Vernet; Ste. Geneviève, after C. Vanloo; the Taking of Courtray, after Vandermeulen; the Passage of the Rhine, after Berghem; the family of Darius, and the Death of Meleager, after Le Brun; the Raising of Lazarus, after Le Sueur; the Journey, in 1787, of Catherine II. of Russia, and the Accession of Alexander I., after Demeys, ordered by the Emperor Alexander I.; besides many after Rubens, N. Poussin, Albani, and others, several of which were for the Musée of Robillard and Sauveur. Avril was a member of the French Academy of Painting, &c.; his reception-piece was a plate of Study attempting to stay Time, after Menageot; the same piece was also Menageot's reception-picture into the Academy. The younger Avril was born at Paris, according to Gabet, in 1771, and was the pupil of his father. He obtained, in 1804, the second great prize given by the National Institute, for line engraving; and he has en |