:

which arsenic has been united, are gold, silver, tin, lead, nickle, zinc, antimony, and bismuth it also forms an amalgam with mercury, by keeping them some hours over the fire, constantly agitating the mixture. Arsenic is capable of combining with two different proportions of oxygen; by the first is formed the white oxide already described, or arsenious acid, as it is denominated by Fourcroy, on account of the many acid properties which it exhibits; by the second is produced arsenic or arsenical acid, which was discovered in 1775 by Scheele, who also made himself acquainted with its most remarkable properties.

In pharmacy, the white oxide of arsenic is directed by the London Pharmacoparia to be sublimed; after which it is to be boiled with an equal weight of carbonate of potash, in order to form the liquor arsenicalis, sometimes called Fowler's solution, or the tasteless ague drop. This contains one grain of arsenic in two drams, is given in doses of a few drops in intermittent fevers, and in several eruptive diseases. Caution is necessary in the exhibition of so dangerous a remedy. Arsenic has been used externally in cancer, lupus, &c. in form of an ointment. For an account of arsenic, as a poison, its symptoms, effects, and remedies, see PorsON.

ARSENICAL MAGNET, MAGNES ARSENICALIS, is a preparation of antimony, with sulphur and white arsenic.

ARSENIUS, a deacon of the Roman church of great learning and piety, who was selected by the pope as tutor to Arcadius, son of the emperor Theodosius. Arsenius arrived at Constantinople A. D. 383. The emperor happening one day to go into the room where Arsenius was instructing his pupil, found Arcadius seated and his preceptor standing; at this he was exceedingly displeased, took from his son the imperial ornaments, made Arsenius sit in his place, and ordered Arcadius for the future to receive his lessons standing uncovered. Arcadius, however, profited but little by his tutor's instructions, for some time after he formed a design of despatching him. Arsenius, however, hearing of the design, retired to the deserts of Sceté, where he passed many years in devotion, and died aged ninety-five.

ARSENIUS, bishop of Constantinople, in the thirteenth century, excommunicated Michael Paleologus, for taking the imperial crown from John Lascaris the son of Theodore. Though Michael solicited absolution, the bishop refused, unless he would restore the crown; in consequence of which Arsenius was banished to a small island, where he died.

ARSENOTHELYS, among ancient naturalists, the same with hermaphrodite. The Greeks use the word both in speaking of men and beasts, it is formed from apour and Aug, male

and female.

ARSENVAL, in geography, a town of France, in the department of the Aube, and chief place of a canton in the district of Bar-sur-Aube, twentythree miles east of Troyes.

ARSES, or ARSAMES, king of Persia, succeeded Artaxerxes Ochus about A. M. 3612, and after a short reign of less than four years was slain

by Bagoas, who had murdered his predecessor, and succeeded by Darius Codomanus.

ARSHIN, in commerce, the most common Russian measure of length = 16 vershok = 315 Paris lines. It is also a Chinese measure, but one Chinese arshin 302 Paris lines. Three arshins = 1 fathom, and 500 fathoms = 1 verst.

ARSIA, in ancient geography, a small river which had a northern course, and served as a boundary between Histria and Illyria, to the north of the Flanatic gulf. It there terminated Italy on the north-east of the Polatic promontory.

ARSINOE, in ancient geography, the name of various towns mentioned by Strabo, Ptolemy, Stephanus, &c. viz. of five towns in Cilicia, one of which had a station for ships; of three in or near Cyprus; viz. one inland, formerly called Marium, another north of it between Acamas and Soli, and the third in the south, with a port, between Citrum and Salamis. A sea-port in Cyrene, formerly called Teuchira. A town in Egypt near the west extremity of the Arabian Gulf, and south of Hierapolis, called also Cleopatris. Another in the Nomos Arsinoites, mentioned on some coins of Adrian, and formerly called Crocodilorum Urbs, from its abounding with crocodiles; Ptolemy calls this town an inland metropolis, with a port called Ptolemais. A sea-port of Lycia formerly named Patara, but called Arsinoe by Ptolemy Philadelphus after his queen. And three towns of Troglodyte, the chief of which was situated near the mouth of the Arabian gulf, which towards Ethiopia is terminated by a promontory called Dire. This Arsinoe is called Berenice, with the distinction Epidires; because situated on a neck of land running out a great way into the sea. Also the name of several princesses of Egypt; particularly, 1. the daughter of Ptolemy Lagus, and wife of Lysimachus king of Thrace: 2. the wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who named several towns after her.

ARSINOE, in entomology, a species of papilio, found in the island of Amboyna, the wings of which are tailed, indented, fulvous, spotted with black; and the posterior ones marked both above and beneath with two ocellated spots. It is figured by Seba and Cramer.

ARSINOITES, Nomos, an ancient district of Egypt, west of the Heracleotes, on the western banks of the Nile.

ARSIS, and THESIS, in prosody, are names given to two proportional parts into which every foot or rhythm is divided. By arsis and thesis are usually meant no more than a proportional division of the metrical feet, made by the hand or foot of him that beats the time. And in measuring the quantities of words the hand is elevated, as well as let fall; that part of the time which is taken up in measuring the foot, by lifting the hand up, is termed arsis or elevatio; and the part where the hand is let fall, thesis or positio. Vid. Augustin de Musica, lib. ii. cap. 10. In plaudendo enim quia elevatur et ponitur manus, partem pedis, sibi elevatio vendicat, partem positio.

Arsis and thesis are used as musical terms
B 2

long established in Greece before silk-worms were introduced there. The manufacturers were provided with raw silk from Persia: but that commerce being frequently interrupted by war, two monks, in the reign of Justinian, brought eggs of the silk-worm from Hindostan, and taught their countrymen the method of managing them.-The art of reading made a very slow progress. To encourage that art in England, the capital punishment for murder was remitted, if the criminal could but read, which in law language is termed benefit of clergy. One would imagine that the art must have made a very rapid progress when so greatly favored: but there is a gnal proof of the contrary; for so small an dition of the Bible as 600 copies, translated into English in the reign of Henry VIII. was not holly sold off in three years. And the people England must have been profoundly ignorant Queen Elizabeth's time, when a forged clause ded to the twentieth article of the established ed passed unnoticed till about a century ago. The circumstances which arouse the national nit upon any particular art, promote activity prosecute other arts. When the Romans e to excel in the art of war, they rapidly imved in other arts. Nævius composed in verse n books of the Punic war; besides comedies, ete with bitter raillery against the nobility. ius wrote annals, and an epic poem; and us Andronicus became the father of dramatic y in Rome. And the Roman genius for ne arts was much inflamed by Greek learnhen free intercourse between the two nawas opened.

progress of art seldom fails to be rapid, a people happen to be roused out of a torate by some fortunate change of circumpublic liberty now gives to the mind a which is vigorously exerted in every new The Athenians made but a mean figure he tyranny of Pisistratus; but, upon retheir freedom and independence, arts od with arms, and Athens became the eatre for science as well as for the fine he reign of Augustus Cæsar, which put o the rancor of civil war, and restored > Rome with the comforts of society, an auspicious era for literature; and d a cluster of Latin historians, poets, and phers, to whom the moderns are indebted r taste. A similar revolution happened any about 350 years ago. That country been divided into a number of small rethe people excited by mutual petty is, became ferocious and bloody, flaming wenge for the slightest offence. But being under the Great Duke of Tuscany, these lics enjoyed the sweets of peace and a mild ament; when the retrospect of recent caes roused the national spirit, and produced t application to arts and literature. The ration in England in 1660, which put an to an envenomed civil war, promoted imements of every kind, and arts and industry le a rapid progress. Had the nation, upon t favorable turn of fortune, been blessed with succession of able and virtuous princes, arts ad sciences might much carlier have flourished

in their modern perfection. Some important action even of doubtful event, a struggle for liberty, the resisting a potent invader, or the like, have also had beneficial influences on the progress of art. Greece, divided into small states frequently at war with each other, advanced in literature and the fine arts to unrivalled perfection. The Corsicans, while engaged in a perilous war in defence of their liberties, exerted a vigorous national spirit; they founded a university for arts and sciences, a public library, and a public bank. After a long stupor during the dark ages of ecclesiastical tyranny, arts and literature revived among the turbulent states of Italy. The Royal Society in London, and the Academy of Sciences in Paris were both instituted after prolonged civil wars that had animated the people and roused their activity. On the other hand, as the progress of arts and sciences towards perfection is greatly promoted by emulation, nothing is sometimes more fatal than to remove this spur; as when some extraordinary genius appears to soar above rivalship. Thus mathematics long seemed to be declining in Britain: the great Newton, having surpassed all the ancients, left the moderns without any hope of equalling him; for what man will enter the lists who despairs of victory?

The useful have in all ages paved the way for the fine arts. Men upon whom the former had bestowed every convenience turned their thoughts to the latter. Beauty was studied in objects of sight; and men of taste attached themselves to the fine arts, which multiplied their enjoyments and improved their benevolence. Sculpture and painting made an early figure in Greece; which afforded plenty of beautiful originals to be copied in these imitative arts. Statuary, a more simple imitation than painting, was sooner brought to perfection: the statue of Jupiter by Phidias, and of Juno by Polycletes, though the admiration of all the world, were executed long before the art of light and shade was known. Another cause concurred to advance statuary before painting in Greece, viz. a great demand for statues of their gods. Architecture, as a fine art, made a slower progress. Proportions upon which its elegance chiefly depends, cannot be accurately ascertained, but by an infinity of trials in great buildings; a model cannot be relied on: for a large and smal! building, even of the same form, require different proportions. Literature as a branch of the fine arts deserves a separate consideration. See LITERATURE.

The cause of the decline of the fine arts may be illustrated by various instances. The perfection of vocal music is to accompany passion, and to enforce sentiment. In ancient Greece, the province of music was well understood; and being confined within its proper sphere, it had an enchanting influence. Harmony at that time was very little cultivated, because it was of very little use; melody reaches the heart, and it is by it chiefly that a sentiment is enforced, or a passion soothed: harmony, on the contrary, reaches the ear only; and it is a matter of undou experience, that the melodious airs ad of very simple harmony. Artists, in 1 ignorant why harmony was so little re

when the subject of a fugue or point is inverted or reversed; i. e. when one part rises and the other falls. These two words are Greek: arsis

comes from apo, tollo, I raise or elevate; Oog depositio, remissio, a depression or lowering. These terms were applied by the ancients to the motion of the hand in beating time.

ARSON, in English law, is the malicious and wilful burning of the house or out-house of another man, which is felony. This is an offence of great malignity, and more pernicious to the public than simple theft; because, first, it is an offence against that right of habitation which is acquired by the law of nature as well as by the laws of society; next, because of the terror and confusion that necessarily attends it; and, lastly, because in simple theft the thing stolen only changes its master, but still remains in esse for the benefit of the public; whereas by burning, the very substance is absolutely destroyed.-It is also frequently more destructive than murder itself, of which too it is often the cause; since murder, atrocious as it is, seldom extends beyond the felonious act designed; whereas fire too frequently involves in the common calamity persons unknown to the incendiary, and not intended to be hurt by him, and friends as well as enemies. If the house be a man's own, the act is not felony and punishable with death, but only a great misdemeanor, and punishable by fine, imprisonment or pillory.

ARSUR, ASOR, ARSAF, or ARSID, a hamlet on the coast of Syria, which has sometimes received the name of a city, because Solomon is supposed to have built the city Asor upon the site. It contains a fortress and mosque, in the last of which are a few Mahommedan monks.

ARSURA, in ancient customs, a term used for the melting of gold or silver, either to refine them or to examine their value. The inethod of doing this is explained at large in the Black Book of the Exchequer, ascribed to Gervaise in the chapter De Officio Militis Argentarii, being in those days of great use, on account of the various places and different manners in which the king's money was paid. Arsura is also used for the loss or diminution of the metal in the trial. In this sense a pound was said, tot ardere denarios, to lose many penny-weights.

ARSURA, in medicine, is used by some writers for the erysipelas.

ARSURA, in metallurgy, is used for the dust and sweepings of silversmiths, and others who work in silver, melted down, and which they call their sweep.

In oratory, the greatest art is to hide art. Swift. If we compare two nations in an equal state of civilisation, we may remark that where the greater freedom obtains, there the greater variety of artificial wants will obtain also. Cumberland.

The merchant, tradesman, and artisan will have their profit upon all the multiplied wants, comforts, and indulgences of civilised life. Id.

In every quarter of this blessed isle, Himself [the mind] both present is and president, Nor once retires, a happy realm the while, That by no officers lewd ravishment, With greedie lust and wrong consum'd art, He all in all, and all in every part, Does share to each his due and equal dole compart. Fletcher's Purple Island.

Among the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets, to fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to thunder and lightning. Addison.

Poets, like painters, thus unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. Pope's Essay on Criticism. O still the same Ulysses, she rejoin'd; In useful craft successfully refin'd; Artful in speech, in action, and in mind. Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies, Methinks her patient sons before me stand, Where the broad ocean leans against the land, And sedulous to stop the coming tide, Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.

Pope.

Goldsmith.

A man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling on his hands will continue to tumble when he should walk on his feet. Johnson.

He feels no ennobling principle in his own heart, who wishes to level all the artificial institutions which have been adopted for giving a body to opinion, and permanence to fugitive esteem. Burke. ART has been more particularly defined to be a habit of the mind prescribing rules for the due production of certain effects; or the introducing the changes of bodies from some fore-knowledge and design in a person endued with the principle or faculty of acting. The word has been sometimes derived from apog, utility, profit; and is found in that sense in Eschylus.

According to lord Bacon it is a proper disposition of the things of nature by human thought and experience, so as to make them answer the designs and uses of mankind. Nature, according to that philosopher, is sometimes free, and at her own disposal; and then she manifests herself in a regular order; as we see in the heavens, plants, animals, &c.-Sometimes she is irregular and disorderly either through some uncommon accident or depravation in matter, when the resistance of some impediment perverts her from her course; as in the production of monsters. At other times she is subdued and fashioned by human industry, and made to serve the several purposes of mankind. This last is what we call art. In which sense, art stands opposed to nature. Hence the knowledge of nature may be divided into the history of generation, of pretergeneration, and of arts. The first considers nature at liberty; the second her errors; and the third her

restraints.

Art has been distinguished from science; by the latter being regarded as furnishing the principles of all art. Ör science, scientia, all human knowledge, is said to be divisible into those purer sciences which relate to the ideas or laws of the mind, and the relation they bear to each other; and the mixed or applied sciences-that relation which the same ideas bear to the external world. In this view the mixed and applied sciences are but other terms for all the fine and useful arts. Chambers has observed long ago, in the excellent preface to his original Cyclopædia: An Art and a Science, only seem to differ as less and more pure: a science is a system of deductions made by reason alone, undetermined by any thing foreign or extrinsic to itself: an art, on the contrary, requires a number of data, and postulata, to be furnished from without; and never goes any length, without at every turn needing new ones. It is, in one sense, the knowledge and perception of these data that constitutes the art; the rest, that is, the doctrinal part, is of the nature of science; which attentive reason alone will descry. An art, in this light, appears to be a portion of science, or general knowledge, considered, not in itself as science, but with relation to its circumstances or appendages. In a science the mind looks directly backwards and forwards to the premises and conclusions: in an art we also look laterally to the concomitant circumstances. A science, in effect, is that to an art, which a stream running in a direct channel, without regard to any thing but its own progress, is to the same stream turned out of its proper course, and disposed into cascades, jets, cisterns, ponds, &c. In

which case the progress of the stream is not considered with regard to itself, but only as it concerns the works; every one of which modifies the course of the stream, and leads it out of its way. It is easy to trace the progress of the former, from its issue, as it flows consequentially; but a man ever so well acquainted with this will not be able to discover that of the latter, because it depends on the genius, humor, and caprice of the engineer who laid the design.'

The learned author of Hermes says, If it be asked, What art is; we have to answer, 'It is an habitual power in man, of becoming the cause of some effect, according to a system of various and well-approved precepts.' If it be asked, On what subject art operates; we can answer, 'On a contingent, which is within the reach of the human powers to influence.' If it be asked, For what reason, for the sake of what, art operates; we may reply, 'For the sake of some absent good, relative to human life, and attainable by man, but superior to his atural and uninstructed faculties.' Lastly, if it be asked, Where it is the operations of art end?' We may say, Either in some energy, or in some work.' -Harris's Three Treatises, dialogue i.

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Astra.