name of acute yellow atrophy of the liver, that organ undergoes such rapidly destructive change as results in its shrinking to half, or one-third, of its normal size in the course of a few days. The term progressive muscular atrophy (synonyms, wasting or creeping palsy) is applied to an affection of the muscular system, which is characterised by the atrophy and subsequent paralysis of certain muscles, or groups of muscles, and is associated with morbid changes in the anterior roots of the nerves of the spinal cord. This disease begins insidiously, and is often first observed to affect the muscles of one hand, generally the right. The attention of the sufferer is first attracted by the power of the hand becoming weakened, and then there is found to be a wasting of certain of its muscles, particularly those of the ball of the thumb. Gradually other muscles in the arms and legs become affected in a similar manner, their atrophy being attended with a corresponding diminution in power. Although sometimes arrested, this disease tends to progress, involving additional muscles, until in course of time the greater part of the muscular system is implicated, and a fatal result ensues.. (J. O. A.) ATROPOS (a priv., and rpérew, to turn), the eldest of the three Moirai, Parcæ, or Fates. Her name, The Unalterable, indicates the part generally played by her, viz., that of rendering the decisions of her sisters irreversible or immutable. This is the function ascribed to her by Plato (Rep., x 620), who also assigns to her supremacy over future events (617). Ancient authorities, however, are not unanimous in their distribution of the parts of the three sisters. Atropos is most frequently represented with scales, a sun-dial, or a cutting instrument, the "abhorred shears," with which she slits the thin-spun thread of life that has been placed on the spindle by Clotho and drawn off by Lachesis. See PARCE ATTACHMENT, in English Law, is a process from a court of record, awarded by the justices at their discretion, on a bare suggestion, or on their own knowledge, and is properly grantable in cases of contempt. It differs from arrest, in that he who arrests a man carries him to a person of higher power to be forthwith disposed of; but he that attaches keeps the party attached, and presents him in court at the day assigned, as appears by the words of the writ. Another difference is, that arrest is only upon the body of a man, whereas an attachment is often upon his goods. It is distinguished from distress in pot extending to lands, as the latter does; nor does a distress touch the body, as an attachment does. Every court of record has power to fine and imprison for contempt of its authority. Attachment being merely a process to bring the defendant before the court, is not necessary in cases of contempt in the presence of the court itself. Attachment will be granted against peers and members of Parliament, only for such gross contempts as rescues, disobedience to the Queen's writs, and the like. Attachment will not lie against a corporation. The County Courts in this respect are regulated by the 9 and 10 Vict. c. 95, § 113, and the 12 and 13 Vict. c. 101, § 2. They can only punish for contempts committed in presence of the court. (See CONTEMPT OF COURT.) Attachments are granted on a rule in the first instance to show cause, which must be personally served before it can be made absolute, except for non-payment of costs on a master's allocatur, and against a sheriff for not obeying a rule to return a writ or to bring in the body. The offender is then arrested, and when committed will be compelled to answer interrogatories, exhibited against him by the party at whose instance the proceedings have been had; and the examination when taken is referred to the master, who reports thereon, and on the contempt being reported, the court gives judgment according to its dis com cretion, in the same manner as upon à conviction for a misdemeanour at common law. Sir W. Blackstone observes that "this method of making the defendant answer upon oath to a criminal charge is not agreeable to the genius of the common law in any other instance," and it may be added that the elasticity of the legal definitions of contempt of court, especially with respect to ments on judicial proceedings, is the subject of much complaint. ATTACHMENT OUT OF CHANCERY enforced answers and obedience to decrees and orders of that court, now merged in the High Court of Justice under the Judicature Act, 1873, and was made out without order upon an affidavit of the due service of the process, &c., with whose requirements compliance was sought. A corporation, however, is proceeded against by distringas and not by attachment. It was formerly competent to the plaintiff to compel the appearance of a defendant in Chancery by attachment, but the usual course was to enter appearance for him in case of default. By the proposed rules under the Judicature Act, 1873, a writ of attachment is to have the same force and effect as the old attachment out of Chancery. It is one of the modes of execution allowed for the recovery of property other than land or money. ATTACHMENT OF THE FOREST is the proceeding in the Courts of Attachments, Woodmote, or Forty Days' Courts. These courts have now fallen into absolute desuetude. They were held before the verderers of the royal forests in different parts of the kingdom once in every forty days, for the purpose of inquiring into all offences against "vert and venison." The attachment is by the bodies of the offenders, if taken in the very act of killing venison, or stealing wood, or preparing so to do, or by fresh and immediate pursuit after the act is done; else they must be attached by their goods. These attachments were received by the verderers and enrolled, and certified under their seals to the Court of Justice seat, or Sweinmote, which formed the two superior of the forest courts. ATTACHMENT, FOREIGN, is an important custom prevailing in the city of London, whereby a creditor may attach money owing to his debtor, or property belonging to him in the possession of third parties. The person holding the property or owing the money must be within the city at the time of being served with the process, but all persons are entitled to the benefit of the custom. The plaintiff having commenced his action, and made a satisfactory affidavit of his debt, is entitled to issue attachment, which thereupon affects all the money or property of the defendant in the hands of the third party, who in these proceedings is called the garnishee. The garnishee, of course, has as against the attachment all the defences which would be available to him against the defendant, his alleged creditor. The garnishee may plead payment under the attachment, if there has been no fraud or collusion, in bar to an action by the defendant for his debt or property. The court to which this process belongs is the Mayor's Court of London, the procedure in which is regulated by 20 and 21 Vict. c. 157. This custom, and all proceedings relating thereto, are expressly exempted from the operation of the Debtor's Act, 1869. Similar customs exist in Bristol and a few other towns in England, and also in Scotland. ARREST and ARRESTMENT. See ATTACHMENT OF DEBTS.-It was suggested by the common law commissioners in 1853 that a remedy analogous to that of Foreign Attachment might be made available to creditors, after judgment, against debts due to their debtors. Accordingly, the Common Law Procedure Act, 1854, enacted that any creditor, having obtained judgment in the superior courts, should have an order that | Attainder are legislative in form, and the consent of Crown, ATTALIA, an ancient city of Pamphylia, which de rived its name from Attalus II., king of Pergamus. It seems to have been a place of considerable importance, and is most probably to be identified with the modern Adalia, Antalia, or Sataliah, as it is variously called. See SATALIAH. ATTAR, or OTTO, of ROSES, a well-known perfume of great strength, is an essential oil of roses, prepared chiefly in Hindustan and Persia. See OILS and PERFUMERY. the judgment debtor might be examined as to any debts due and owing to him before a master of the court. On affidavit that the judgment was still unsatisfied, and that any other person within the jurisdiction was indebted to the judgment debtor, the judge was empowered to attach all debts due from such third person (called the garnishee) to the judgment debtor, to answer the judgment debt. | This order binds the debts in the hands of the garnishee, and if he does not dispute his liability execution issues against him at once. If he disputes his liability the question must be tried. Payment by the garnishee or execution against him is a complete discharge as against ATTENTION, in Psychology, may be defined as the the judgment debtor. These provisions were, by an order in concentration of consciousness, or the direction of mental Council of 18th Nov. 1867, extended to the County energy upon a definite object or objects. By means of it Courts. (By 33 and 34 Vict. c. 30, it is enacted that no we either bring within the circle of our conscious life perorder for the attachment of the wages of any servant, ceptions and ideas which would not otherwise have risen labourer, or workman shall be made by the judge of any from their obscurity, or render clearer and more distinct court of record or inferior court.) The proposed rules and some of those already under notice. Its mode of operation regulations under the Judicature Act, 1873, retain the and the effects produced by it may be compared with the process for attachment of debts as established by the Pro- | concentration of visual activity on some definite part of cedure Act of 1854. the field of vision, and the clearer perception of the limited portion which is thereby attained. In both cases the result is brought about, not by effecting any change in the perceptions themselves, but simply by isolating them, and considering them to the exclusion of all other objects. Since all consciousness involves discrimination, i.e., isolation of one object from others, it involves attention, which might therefore be defined as the necessary condition of consciousness. Such a definition is, however, too general, and throws no light upon the nature of the process whereby our mental energy is strengthened in particular cases. This increase of force, when consciousness is directed to any one object to the exclusion of others, is partly to be explained by reference to the general law that, as the amount of intellectual energy at our disposal is limited, the greater the number of objects over which it is spread, the less will each receive, pluribus intentus, minor est ad singula sensus; and conversely, the greater the concentration, the fewer must be the objects attended to. In addition to this general law of limitation, there are special circumstances which determine the amount of consciousness we shall bestow on any object. In the first place, there are certain mechanical influences only partly subject to the will, such are the force or vividness of the impression, the interest attaching to an object, the trains of associated ideas excited, or the emotions roused by its contemplation. There is, secondly, an exercise of volition employed in fixing the mind upon some definite cbject; this is a purely voluntary act, which can be strengthened by habit, is variable in different individuals, and to which, as being its highest stage, the name Attention is sometimes restricted. The general law of the limitation of conscious activity, pointed out above, throws considerable light on the nature of abstraction and its relation to Attention. It is clear that concentration of consciousness upon any one attribute or attributes of an object involves withdrawal of consciousness froin all other attributes. This withdrawal is, logically and etymologically, Abstraction, which is thus the negative side of Attention, or, as Hamilton expresses it, the two processes form the negative and positive poles of the same mental act. ATTAINDER, in the Law of England, was the immediate and inseparable consequence from the common law upon the sentence of death. When it was clear beyond all dispute that the criminal was no longer fit to live, he was called attaint, attinctus, stained or blackened, and could not, before the 6 and 7 Vict. c. 85, § 1, be a witness in any court. This attainder took place after judgment of death, or upon such circumstances as were equivalent to judgment of death, such as judgment of outlawry on a capital crime, pronounced for absconding from justice. Conviction without judgment was not followed by attainder. The consequences of attainder were-1st, Forfeiture; 2d, Corruption of blood. On attainder for treason, the criminal forfeited to the Crown his lands, rights of entry on lands, and any interest he might have in lands for his own life or a term of years. For murder, the offender forfeited to the Crown the profit of his freeholds during life, and in the case of lands held in fee-simple, the lands themselves for a year and a day; subject to this, the lands escheated to the lord of the fee. These forfeitures related back to the time of the offence committed. Forfeitures of goods and chattels ensued not only on attainder, but on conviction for a felony of any kind, or on flight from justice, and had no relation backwards to the time of the offence committed. By corruption of blood, "both upwards and downwards," the attainted person could neither inherit nor transmit lands The lands escheated to the lord of the fee, subject to the Crown's right of forfeiture. The doctrine of attainder has, however, ceased to be of much importance. By the 33 and 34 Vict. c. 23, it is enacted that henceforth no confession, verdict, inquest, conviction, or judgment of or for any treason or felony, or felo de se, shall cause any attainder or corruption of blood, or any forfeiture or escheat. Sentence of death, penal servitude, or imprisonment with hard labour for more than twelve months, after conviction for treason or felony, disqualifies from holding or retaining a seat in Parliament, public offices under the Crown or otherwise, right to vote at elections, &c., and such disability is to remain until the punishment has been suffered or a pardon obtained. Provision is made for the due administration of convicts' estates, in the interests of themselves and their families. Forfeiture consequent on outlawry is exempted from the provisions of the Act. Bills of Attainder in Parliament ordinarily cominence in the House of Lords; the proceedings are the same as on other bills, but the parties affected by them may appear by counsel and witnesses in both Houses. In the case of an impeachment, the House of Commons is prosecutor and the House of Lords judge; but proceedings by Bill of ATTERBOM, PER DANIEL AMADEUS, a Swedish poet, was born in Ostergöthland in 1790, studied in the University of Upsala from 1805 to 1815, became Professor of Philosophy there in 1828, and died in 1855. He was the leader in the great romantic movement which revolutionised Swedish literature. In 1807, when in his 17th year, he founded at Upsala an artistic society, called the Aurora League, the members of which included Palmblad, Elgström, Hedborn, and other youths, whose names were destined to take a foremost rank in the belles-lettres of their generation. | Churchman. It was the practice, not a very judicious Their first newspaper, Polyxem, was a crude effort, soon practice, of Aldrich, to employ the most promising youths abandoned, but in 1810 there began to appear a journal, of his college in editing Greek and Latin books. Among Fosforus, edited by Atterbom, which lasted for a consider- the studious and well-disposed lads who were, unfortunately able time, and finds a place in classic Swedish literature. for themselves, induced to become teachers of philology It consisted entirely of poetry and aesthetico-polemical when they should have been content to be learners, was essays; it introduced the study, of the newly-arisen Charles Boyle, son of the earl of Orrery, and nephew of Romantic school of Germany, and formed a vehicle for the Robert Boyle, the great experimental philosopher. The early works, not of Atterbom only, but of Hammarsköld, task assigned to Charles Boyle was to prepare a new edition Dahlgren, Palmblad, and other eminent poets. Among of one of the most worthless books in existence. It was a Atterbom's independent works the most celebrated is fashion among those Greeks and Romans who cultivated Lycksalighetens ö(The Fortunate Island), a romantic drama rhetoris as an art, to compose epistles and harangues in the of extraordinary beauty, published in 1823. Before this names of eminent men. Some of these counterfeits are he had published a cycle of lyrics, The Flowers, of a fabricated with such exquisite taste and skill, that it is mystical character, somewhat in the manner of Novalis. the highest achievement of criticism to distinguish them Of a great drama, Fogel blå (The Blue Bird), only a from originals. Others are so feebly and rudely executed, fragment is preserved, but what exists is among the most that they can hardly impose on an intelligent schoolboy. exquisite of his writings. As a purely lyrical poet he has The best specimen which has come down to us is perhaps not been excelled in Sweden, but his popularity has been the Oration for Marcellus, such an imitation of Tully's endangered, partly by his weakness for allegory and eloquence as Tully would himself have read with wonder symbolism, partly by his consistent adoption of the and delight. The worst specimen is perhaps a collection of mannerisms of Tieck and Novalis. His renown during letters purporting to have been written by that Phalaris who his lifetime was unbounded. governed Agrigentum more than 500 years before the Christian era. The evidence, both internal and external, against the genuineness of these letters is overwhelming. When, in the 15th century, they emerged, in company with much that was far more valuable, from their obscurity, they were pronounced spurious by Politian, the greatest scholar of Italy, and by Erasmus, the greatest scholar on our side of the Alps. In truth, it would be as easy to persuade an educated Englishman, that one of Johnson's Ramblers was the work of William Wallace, as to persuade a man like Erasmus, that a pedantic exercise, composed in the trim and artificial Attic of the time of Julian, was a despatch written by a crafty and ferocious Dorian, who roasted people' alive many years before there existed a volume of prose in the Greek language. But though Christ Church could boast of many good Latinists, of many good English writers, and of a greater number of clever and fashionable men of the world than belonged to any other academic body, there was not then in the college a single man capable of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotage of Greek literature. So superficial, indeed, was the learning of the rulers of this celebrated society, that they were charmed by an essay which Sir William Temple published in praise of the ancient writers. It now seems strange, that even the eminent public services, the deserved popularity, and the graceful style of Temple, should have saved so silly a performance from universal contempt. Of the books which he most vehemently eulogised, his eulogies proved that he knew nothing. In fact, he could not read a line of the language in which they were written. Among many other foolish things, he said that the letters of Phalaris were the oldest letters and also the best in the world. Whatever Temple wrote attracted notice. People who had never heard of the Epistles of Phalaris began to inquire about them. Aldrich, who knew very little Greek, took the word of Temple who knew none, and desired Boyle to prepare a new edition of these admirable compositions which, having long slept in obscurity, had become on a sudden objects of general interest. ATTERBURY, FRANCIS, a man who holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England, was born in the year 1662, at Middleton in Buckinghamshire, a parish of which his father was rector. Francis was educated at Westminster School, and carried thence to Christ Church a stock of learning which, though really scanty, he through life exhibited with such judicious ostentation that superficial observers believed his attainments to be immense. At Oxford, his parts, his taste, and his bold, contemptuous, and imperious spirit soon made him conspicuous. Here he published, at twenty, his first work, a translation of the noble poem of Absalom and Ahithophel into Latin verse. Neither the style nor the versification of the young scholar was that of the Augustan age. In English composition he succeeded much better. In 1687 he distinguished himself among many able men who wrote in defence of the Church of England, then persecuted by James II., and calumniated by apostates who had for lucre quitted her communion. Among these apostates none was more active or malignant than Obadiah Walker, who was master of University College, and who had set up there, under the royal patronage, a press for printing tracts against the established religion. In one of these tracts, written apparently by Walker himself, many aspersions were thrown on Martin Luther. Atterbury undertook to defend the great Saxon Reformer, and performed that task in a manner singularly characteristic. Whoever examines his reply to Walker will be struck by the contrast between the feebleness of those parts which are argumentative and defensive, and the vigour of those parts which are rhetorical and aggressive. The Papists were so much galled by the sarcasma and invectives of the young polemic, that they raised a cry of treason, and accused him of having, by implication, called King James a Judas. After the Revolution, Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to the new Government. In no long time he took holy orders. He occasionally preached in London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, and soon had the honour of being appointed one of the royal chaplains. But he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he took an active part in academical business, directed the classical studies of the undergraduates of his college, and was the chief adviser and assistant of Dean Aldrich, a divine now chiefly remembered by his catches, but renowned among his contemporaries as a scholar, a Tory, and a High The edition was prepared with the help of Atterbury, who was Boyle's tutor, and of some other members of the college. It was an edition such as might be expected from people who would stoop to edit such a book. The notes were worthy of the text; the Latin version worthy of the Greek original. The volume would have been forgotten in a month, had not a misunderstanding about a manuscript arisen between the young editor and the greatest scholar that had appeared in Europe ance the | had all the help which the most celebrated members of A revival of letters, Richard Bentley. The manuscript was in Bentley's keeping. Boyle wished it to be collated. mischief-making bookseller informed him that Bentley had refused to lend it, which was false, and also that Bentley had spoken contemptuously of the letters attributed to Phalaris, and of the critics who were taken in by such counterfeits, which was perfectly true. Boyle, much provoked, paid, in his preface, a bitterly ironical compliment to Bentley's courtesy. Bentley revenged himself by a short dissertation, in which he proved that the epistles were spurious, and the new edition of them worthless; but he treated Boyle personally with civility as a young gentleman of great hopes, whose love of learning was highly commendable, and who deserved to have had better instructors. Few things in literary history are more extraordinary than the storm which this little dissertation raised. Bentley had treated Boyle with forbearance; but he had treated Christ Church with contempt; and the Christ Churchmen, wherever dispersed, were as much attached to their college as a Scotchman to his country, or a Jesuit to his order. Their influence was great. They were dominant at Oxford, powerful in the Inns of Court and in the College of Physicians, conspicuous in Parliament and in the literary and fashionable circles of London. Their unanimous cry was that the honour of the college must be vindicated, that the insolent Cambridge pedant must be put down. Poor Boyle was unequal to the task, and disinclined to it. It was, therefore, assigned to his tutor Atterbury,. The answer to Bentley, which bears the hame of Boyle, but which was, in truth, no more the work of. Boyle than the letters to which the controversy related were the work of Phalaris, is now read only by the curious, and will in all probability never be reprinted again. But it had its day of noisy popularity. It was to be found not only in the studies of men of letters, but on the tables of the most brilliant drawing-rooms of Soho Square and Covent Garden. Even the beaux and coquettes of that age, the Wildairs and the Lady Lurewells, the Mirabells, and the Millamants, congratulated each other on the way in which the gay young gentleman, whose crudition sate so easily upon him, and who wrote with so much pleasantry and good breeding about the Attic dialect and the anapæstic measure, Sicilian talents and Thericlean cups, had bantered the queer prig of a doctor. Nor was the applause of the multitude undeserved. The book is, indeed, Atterbury's masterpiece, and gives a higher notion of his powers than any of those works to which he put his name. That he was altogether in the wrong on the main question, and on all the collateral questions springing out of it, that his knowledge of the language, the literature, and the history of Greece, was not equal to what many freshmen now bring up every year to Cambridge and Oxford, and that some of his blunders seem rather to deserve a flogging than a refutation, is true; and therefore it is that his performance is, in the highest degree, interesting and valuable to a judicious reader. It is good by reason of its exceeding badness. It is the most extraordinary instance that exists of the art of making much show with little substance. There is no difficulty, says the steward of Molière's miser, in giving a fine dinner with plenty of money the really great cook is he who can set out a banquet with no money at all. That Bentley should have written excellently on ancient chronology and geography, on the development of the Greek language, and the origin of the Greek drama, is not strange. But that Atterbury should, during some years, have been thought to have treated these subjects much better than Bentley, is strange indeed. It is true that the champion of Christ Church that society could give him. Smalridge contributed some very good wit; Friend and others some very bad archæology and philology. But the greater part of the volume was entirely Atterbury's: what was not his own was revised and retouched by him; and the whole bears the mark of his mind-a mind inexhaustibly rich in all the resources of controversy, and familiar with all the artifices which make falsehood look like truth, and ignorance like knowledge. He had little gold; but he beat that little out to the very thinnest leaf, and spread it over so vast a surface, that to those who judged by a glance, and who did not resort to balances and tests, the glittering heap of worthless matter which he produced seemed to be an inestimable treasure of massy bullion. Such arguments as he had he placed in the clearest light. Where he had no arguments, he resorted to personalities, sometimes serious, generally ludicrous, always clever and cutting. But, whether he was grave or merry, whether he reasoned or sneered, his style was always pure, polished, and easy. Party spirit then ran high; yet, though Bentley ranked among Whigs, and Christ Church was a stronghold of Toryism, Whigs joined with Tories in applauding Atterbury's volume. Garth insulted Bentley, and extolled Boyle in lines which are now never quoted except to be laughed at. Swift, in his Battle of the Books, introduced with much pleasantry Boyle, clad in armour, the gift of all the gods, and directed by Apollo in the form of a human friend, for whose name a blank is left which may easily be filled up. The youth, so accoutred and so assisted, gains an easy victory over his uncourteous and boastful antagonist. Bentley, meanwhile, was supported by the consciousness of an immeasurable superiority, and encouraged by the voices of the few who were really competent to judge the combat. "No man," he said, justly and nobly, 66 was ever written down but by himself." He spent two years in preparing a reply, which will never cease to be read and prized while the literature of ancient Greece is studied in any part of the world. This reply proved not only that the letters ascribed to Phalaris were spurious, but that Atterbury, with all his wit, his eloquence, his skill in controversial fence, was the most audacious pretender that ever wrote about what he did not understand. But to Atterbury this exposure was matter of indifference. He was now engaged in a dispute about matters far more important and exciting than the laws of Zaleucus and the laws of Charondas. The rage of religious factions was extreme. High Church and Low Church divided the nation. The great majority of the clergy were on the High Church side; the majority of King William's bishops were inclined to latitudinarianism. A dispute arose between the two parties touching the extent of the powers of the Lower House of Convocation. Atterbury thrust himself eagerly into the front rank of the High Churchmen. Those who take a comprehensive and impartial view of his whole career will not be disposed to give him credit for religious zeal. But it was his nature to be vehement and pugnacious in the cause of every fraternity of which he was a member. He had defended the genuineness of a spurious book simply because Christ Church had put forth an edition of that book; he now stood up for the clergy against the civil power, simply because he was a clergyman, and for the priests against the episcopal order, simply because he was as yet only a priest. He asserted the pretensions of the class to which he belonged in several treatises written with much wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony. In this, as in his first controversy, he was opposed to antagonists whose knowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his; but in this, as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by bold assertion, by arcasm, by declamation, and, above all, by his peculiar | knack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make it look like a great deal. Having passed himself off on the world as a greater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now passed himself off as a greater master of ecclesiastical learning than Wake or Gibson By the great body of the clergy he was regarded as the ablest and most intrepid tribune that had ever defended their rights against the oligarchy of prelates. The Lower House of Convocation voted him thanks for his services; the University of Oxford created him a doctor of divinity; and soon after the accession of Anne, while the Tories still had the chief weight in the Government, he was promoted to the deanery of Carlisle. Soon after he had obtained this preferment the Whig party rose to ascendency in the state. From that party he could expect no favour. Six years elapsed before a change of fortune took place. At length, in the year 1710, the prosecution of Sacheverell produced a formidable explosion of High Church fanaticism At such a moment Atterbury could not fail to be conspicuous. His inordinate zeal for the body to which he belonged, his turbulent and aspiring temper, his rare talents for agitation and for controversy, were again signally displayed. He bore a chief part in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the accused divine pronounced at the bar of the Lords, and which presents a singular contrast to the absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very unwisely been honoured with impeachment. During the troubled and anxious months which followed the trial, Atterbury was among the most active of those pamphleteers who inflamed the nation against the Whig ministry and the Whig Parliament. When the ministry had been changed and the Parliament dissolved, rewards were showered upon him. The Lower House of Convocation elected him prolocutor. The Queen appointed him dean of Christ Church on the death of his old friend and patron Aldrich. The college would have preferred a gentler ruler. Nevertheless, the new head was received with every mark of honour. A congratulatory oration in Latin was addressed to him in the magnificent vestibule of the hall; and he in reply professed the warmest attachment to the venerable house in which he had been educated, and paid many gracious compliments to those over whom he was to preside. But it was not in his nature to be a mild or an equitable governor. He had left the chapter of Carlisle distracted by quarrels. He found Christ Church at peace; but in three months his despotic and contentious temper did at Christ Church what it had done at Carlisle. He was succeeded in both his deaneries by the humane and accomplished Smalridge, who gently complained of the state in which both had been left. "Atterbury goes before, and sets everything on fire. I come after him with a bucket of water." It was said by Atterbury's enemies that he was made a bishop because he was so bad a dean. Under his administration Christ Church was in confusion, scandalous altercations took place, opprobrious words were exchanged; and there was reason to fear that the great Tory college would be ruined by the tyranny of the great Tory doctor. He was soon removed to the bishopric of Rochester, which was then always united with the deanery of Westminster. Still higher dignities seemed to be before him. For, though there were many able men on the Episcopal bench, there were none who equalled or approached him in parliamentary talents. Had his party continued in power it is not improbable that he would have been raised to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The more splendid his prospects the more reason he had to dread the accession of a family which was well known to be partial to the Whigs. There is every reason to believe that he was one of those politicians who hoped that they might be able, during the life of Anne, to prepare matters in such a way that at her decease there might be little difficulty in setting aside the Act of Settlement and placing the Pretender on the throne. Her sudden death confounded the projects of these conspirators. Atterbury, who wanted no kind of courage, implored his confederates to proclaim James III., and offered to accompany the heralds in lawn sleeves. But he found even the bravest soldiers of his party irresolute, and exclaimed, not, it is said, without interjections which ill becaine the mouth of a father of the church, that the best of all causes and the most precious of all moments had been pusillanimously thrown away. He acquiesced in what he could not prevent, took the oaths to the House of Hanover, and at the coronation officiated with the outward show of zeal, and did his best to ingratiate himself with the royal family. But his servility was requited' with cold contempt. No creature is so revengeful as a proud man who has humbled himself in vain. Atterbury became the most factious and pertinacious of all the opponents of the Government. In the House of Lords his oratory, lucid, pointed, lively, and set off with every grace of pronunciation and of gesture, extorted the attention and admiration even of a hostile majority. Some of the most remarkable protests which appear in the journals of the peers were drawn up by him; and, in some of the bitterest of those pamphlets which called on the English to stand up for their country against the aliens who had come from beyond the seas to oppress and plunder her, critics easily detected his style. When the rebellion of 1715 broke out, he refused to sign the paper in which the bishops of the province of Canterbury declared their attachment to the Protestant succession. He busied himself in electioneering, especially at Westminster, where as dean he possessed great influence; and was, indeed, strongly suspected of having once set on a riotous mob to prevent his Whig fellow-citizens from polling. 66 After having been long in indirect communication with the exiled family, he, in 1717, began to correspond directly with the Pretender. The first letter of the correspondence is extant. In that letter Atterbury boasts of having, during many years past, neglected no opportunity of serving the Jacobite cause. My daily prayer," he says, "is that you may have success. May I live to see that day, and live no longer than I do what is in my power to forward it." It is to be remembered that he who wrote thus was a man bound to set to the church of which he was overseer an example of strict probity; that he had repeatedly sworn allegiance to the House of Brunswick; that he had assisted in placing the crown on the head of George I., and that he had abjured James III., “without equivocation or mental reservation, on the true faith of a Christian." It is agreeable to turn from his public to his private life. His turbulent spirit, wearied with faction and treason, now and then required repose, and found it in domestic endearments, and in the society of the most illustrious of the living and of the dead. Of his wife little is known; but between him and his daughter there was an affection singularly close and tender. The gentleness of his manners when he was in the company of a few friends was such as seemed hardly credible to those who knew him only by his writings and speeches. The charm of his softer hour" has been commemorated by one of those friends in imperishable verse. Though Atterbury's classical attainments were not great, his taste in English literature was excellent; and his admiration of genius was so strong that it overpowered even his political and religious antipathies. His fondness for Milton, the mortal enemy of the Stuarts and of the church, was such as to |