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The only amaranthine flow'r on earth
1s virtue; th' only lasting treasure, truth.

Couper's Task, book iii. AMARANTH, a Swedish order of knighthood, established by Queen Christiana, in 1653, on the celebration of an annual feast in that country, called Wirtschaft, which was henceforth to be called the feast of the gods. The young nobility, on that occasion, waited on the assumed deities, the queen herself bearing the title of Amarante, or the unfading. The order was a military one, and their device a cypher, composed of two interwoven A's, one erect, and the other inverted, enclosed by a laurel crown, surmounted with the motto, "Dolce nella memoria." The jewel of the order was worn sometimes on a gold chain, and sometimes on a crimson or blue ribbon. The ambassador of the English Commonwealth was made one of the first knights.

AMARANTH, a colour deriving its name from that of the flower so called, which is somewhat between á crimson and a purple.

AMARANTHUS, in Botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class Monoecia, and order Pentandria. AMARGURA, or GARDENER'S ISLAND, an island in the Southern Pacific, first discovered by, Morello, a Spanish navigator, in 1781; and named Amargura, or Bitterness, on account of its barren and inaccessible appearance. A landing-place, however, being discovered on the N. W. by Captain Edwards, in the Pandora, in 1791, he called it Gardener's island. He observed smoke to issue from one of its mountains; and the whole island has a volcanic appearance. W. lon. 175°, 17'. S. lat. 17°, 57'.

AMARIN D'AMARIN, or EMMERIN, ST. a town of Upper Alsace, in France, on the river Thur, containing 1,400 inhabitants. It is in the department of the Upper Rhine, arrondissement of Befort, and the head of a canton. The valley of the same name is rich in iron; and the Moselle takes its rise not far from the

town.

AMARʼITUDE, ». Lat. amaritudo, amarus, bitter. Bitterness,

What amaritude or acrimony is deprehended in choler, it acquires from a commixture of melancholy, or external malign bodies.

Harvey, on Consumptions. AMARUCO, a small river of South America, which falls into the mouth of the Oronoco, after running eastward through a great part of Guiana.

AMARUMAJU, a river of South America, in Peru, which takes its source in the Cordelier mountains, and

runs 400 leagues through the country before it joins

the Amazon river, in about 5°. S. lat. It assumes many local names in its course.

AMARYLLIS, in Botany, a genus of plants of the class Hexandria, and order Monogynia.

AMARYNTHUS, in Ancient Geography, a village of Euboea, in which festivals in honour of Diana were solemnized; whence that goddess is sometimes called Amarysia, and Euboea itself Amarynthus.

AMASIA, in Ancient Geography, a city of Pontus, the birth-place of Mithridates the Great, and the

geographer Strabo, STRAB. xii.; PLINY, vi. 3. Also AMASIA. an ancient name for the Ems, a river of Germany. TACIT. An. i. 60, 63. PLIN. iv. 14.

AMASIA, a town of Asiatic Turkey, in the province of Natolia, giving name to a small, fertile district, and supposed to stand on the site of the ancient Amasia. It is accessible only by two narrow defiles, one on the north and the other on the south; and is

commanded by a strong fort. It was formerly the seat of the kings of Cappadocia, and in more modern times it became the see of an archbishop; but is at present, though populous and extensive, a mean-looking town. The inhabitants are said to amount to 60,000 or 70,000 persons, and are noted for their urbanity to strangers: they are chiefly of the Greek church; but there is a very fine mosque here, built of hewn stone, and adorned with lofty minarets. Here

are also numerous and well-constructed baths and re-
servoirs for water, with which the city is well supplied,
and a superior wine is made in the neighbourhood.
The river Kizilermak runs through the town. E. lon.
36°, 12'. N. lat. 40°, 40'.

AMASONIA, or AMAZONS, in Botany, a genus of
plants belonging to the class Didynamia, and order
Angiospermia.
AMASS', v.
Fr. amasser. Lat. massa: from
AMASS', n. the Greek paw, to knead into a
AMASS'MENT. lump.

To form into one body, heap, or collection. To heap, collect, or accumulate.

For treasure spent in lyef, the bodye doth susteyne;
The heire shall waste the whourded gold, amassed with muche payne.
Surrey.

The last is the compounded order: His name being a brief of his nature. For this pillar is nothing in effect, but a medly, or an amasse of all the precedent ornaments. Reliquia Wottonianæ.

Various are the means whereby the sultan daily adds prodigious sums to his vast revenues, such as, for example, the obliging every one of the bashaws and governors of his dominions, every new year's day to send him presents, commonly in ready money, which does amount to a very large and almost incredible amassment.

Purbeck's Pr. State of the Turkish Empire.

He who perceives not the treasure that is quickly amassed, and consumes it at his pleasure, most certainly would reduce it nothing, if he were as rich as Plutos. Sir William Jones's Hitópadésa.

Have you been more anxious to instruct them in the means of securing an inheritance there, than in the arts of amassing wealth, and acquiring distinction here. Porteus's Letter to the Inhabitants of Manchester. AMASTRATUS, in Ancient Geography, a town in the north-west of Sicily, on the river Alasus, which falls into the Tyrrhene sea. CIC. Verr. iii. 39. lagonia, on the Euxine, formerly called Sesamum, and at present Amastreh. PLINY, ii. 2.; OVID, &c.

AMASTRIS, in Ancient Geography, a town of Paph

AMATE. Skinner thinks from the German mat, from missen, to want, to be deprived of. But the A.S. wearied, weak; and mat, Wachter says, is perhaps Mezan, somniare, to mete, to dream, presents a more satisfactory etymology

To amate, is to dream, to be a dreamer; to be or make stupid, as a dreamer; senseless, as a mad-man. (A.S Mæt.)

But thought and sicknesse were occasion
That he thus lay in lamentacion
Grouffe on the ground, in place desolate
Sole by himself, awhaped and amate.

Chaucer. Complaint of the Blacke Knight, f. 271, c. 3.

AMATE.

AMATE.

AMATTO FOA.

Thou wretched man, of death hast greatest need,
If in true ballaunce thou wilt weigh thy state;
For never knight, that dared warlike deed,
More luckless dissaventures did amate.

Spenser's Faerie Queene, book i. canto ix. His [King John's] suddaine comming, with so vnexpected attendance, to the siege of Rochester castle, so amated both the captaine thereof, and all the barons (who had sworne to assist him against any siege), that the one not daring to approach to his rescue, the other was enforced to yeeld vp his charge.

Speed's Hist. of Gr. Britain. AMATEUR, in the Fine Arts, a French term, now frequently applied in this country to signify a person much attached to any particular art, but who does not practise it; thus we say, an amateur in painting, in music, in sculpture, &c. The French phrase expresses it well- Il ne sait pas peindre, mais il est amateur." AMATHANTE, at present an unimportant village of Cyprus, a little distant from the south shore of that island; but interesting to the antiquarian, as occupying part of the site of the ancient city of Amathus. The ruins of the walls are close to the sea, and mutilated columns, broken arches, and decayed catacombs are stretched along the shore: these serve as the retreat of myriads of bats, who are said successfully to defend and obscure the ruins from the inspection of the traveller by fluttering against the torches of such as intrude them. upon On the apex of a hill, two large and highly sculptured vases are to be seen, cut out of the solid rock: on each of their sides are the figures of four bulls, finely executed, looking to the four cardinal points of the compass. What allusion this may bear to the fable of Venus having changed the inhabitants of the island into bulls, on account of some irregularities in her worship, it is difficult to determine: that she had a celebrated temple here is well known.. Ovid says that courtezans first made their appearance in public at this place. The present village is about three miles from Limasol, and the river Amathante runs near it: also a town of the Peloponnese, in Laconia, according to Strabo; and a river of the Peloponnese.

AMATHUS, in Scripture Geography, a town of the Gadites, beyond Jordan, where some have conjectured that Gabinius, the proconsul of Syria, fixed one of the five seats of justice. Roland conjectures it to have been the same with Ramoth-gilead.

AMATHUSIA, in Ancient Geography, an epithet sometimes applied to the island of Cyprus, in allusion to the town of Amathus.

AMATIQUES, a sea-port of South America, at the mouth of the Guanacos river, which empties itself into the Amatique gulf, or gulf of Honduras, in the province of Vera Pas, Mexico. The chief trade of the place is in logwood; and on the south side of the gulf is a tract of land called Amatique land. W. lon. 89°. N. lat. 15°, 23'.

AMATO, a river of Calabria Ultra, in the kingdom of Naples, which rises in the Appenines, and discharges itself into the gulf of St. Euphemia, on the west coast of Calabria.

AMATO, a small town of Naples, upon the abovenamed river, seven miles S. E. of Nicastro.

AMATORII MUSCULI, in Anatomy, those muscles of the eye, which, by bringing the abductor and humilis to act together, draw that organ in an oblique direction, and give it the appearance of what is vulgarly called ogling.

AMATTO FOA, or TooгоA AMA, or KAMA ISLAND,

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A prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of an heathen woman praying to a heathen god; and that in no serious book, but in the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia. Milton's Answer to Eikon Basilike.

Leland mentions eight books of his [Henry Earl of Huntingdon] epigrams, amatorial verses, and poems on philosophical subjects. Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry.

His friend Mr. Philips's Ode to Mr. St. John (late Lord Bolingbroke), after the manner of Horace's Lusory, or Amatorian Odes, is certainly a master-piece; but Mr. Smith's Pocockius is of the sublimer kind; though, like Waller's writings upon Oliver Cromwell, it wants not the most delicate and surprising turns peculiar to the person praised. Johnson's Life of Smith.

AMAUROSIS, in Surgery, a disease of the eye, commonly called gutta serena, wherein there is a partial, or (when the morbid affection is complete) a total loss of sight, although the organ itself to all external appearance remains complete and unaffected. It is generally seated in the optic nerve.

AMAXIA, in Ancient Geography, a town of the Troad; and a town of Cilicia, abounding with wood for ship-building.

AMAZE', v. AMAZE', n. AMAZ'EDLY, AMAZED', AMAZEDNESS, AMAZEMENT,

AMA'ZING,

AMAZINGLY.

From maze, a labyrinth; and this from the Dutch, missen; errare, to miss, to err, to wander. Skinner.

To mase, or maze, is of frequent occurrence in our old English writers.

To put out of the right way; to confuse, to perplex, to astonish, to confound; to stupify. I am right siker, that the pot was crased. Be as be may, be ye no thing amased. As usage is, let swepe the flore as swithe; Plucke up your hertes and be glad and blithe.

Chaucer. The Chanones Yemannes Tale.

For as a man that sodeinly
A goost beholdeth, so fare I:
So that for feare I can nought gette
My wit: but I myself foryette,
That I wote neuer, what I am,
Ne whither I shall, ne when 1 cam:
But muse, as he that were amased.

Gower. Con. A. book iv. let not your hartes faynte, nether feare, nor be amased nor adread Heare O Israell, ye are come vnto battell, agenste yo enemyes of them. Bible, 1539. Deuteronomiù, ch. xx.

For, as within that temple wide on every thing he gazed,
And waited when the queene should come, and stood as one amated
To see the worke.
He seeth among them, all the jests of Troy, and stories all.
Aeneidos, by Thos. Phaer, book i.

He would drowne the stage with teares,
And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech:
Make mad the guilty, and apale the free;
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,
The very faculty of eyes and eares.

Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is confessed, immediately after the Reformation, Protestant religion stood awhile in amaze, and was but barren in good works.

But why

Fuller's General Worthies.

Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
Come sisters, cheere we vp his sprights,
And shew the best of our delights.

Shakespeare's Macbeth, act iv.

AMAZE.

MAZON.

Vpon a sodaine,
As Falstaffe, she, and I, are nevly met,
Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at once
With some diffused song: Vpon their sight
We two, in great amazednesse will flye:
Then let them all encircle him about,
And fairy-like to pinch the vncleane knight.

Shakespeare. Merry Wives of Windsor.

See if thou canst, without wonder and a kind of ecstatical amaze

ment, behold the infinite goodness of thy God, that hath exalted thy

wretchedness to no less than a blessed and indivisible union with the Lord of Glory. Bp. Hall's Treatise of Christ Mystical.

It amuses one to consider what progress, in the most difficult arts may be made, when our faculties of mind and body are properly directed in the beginning of life. Beattie's Elements of Moral Science.

Do not the French etonnement, and the English astonishment and amazement, point out as clearly the kindred emotions which attend fear and wonder? Burke, on the Sublime and Beautiful. Spain has long fallen from amazing Europe with her wit, to amusing them with the greatness of her catholic credulity.

Goldsmith, on Polite Learning. The Arabians cultivated the study of philosophy, particularly astronomy, with amazing ardour.

T. Warton's Hist. of the English Poetry, Dis. i.

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Or bold Penthesile's refulgent car, Move the triumphant Amazonian train, In bright array, exulting, to the plain.

Dryden.

Proudly they march, and clash their painted arms,
And all Thermodoon rings with proud alarms;
With female shouts they shake the sounding field;
And fierce they poise the spear, and grasp the moony shield.
Pitt.

AMAZON. The Amazons, in Ancient History, were a celebrated tribe of warlike women, who are said to have first established themselves in Asia Minor, near the river Thermodon, in Cappadocia, and afterwards to have extended their settlements along the Euxine, as far as the Caspian sea. Diodorus Siculus mentions a still more ancient tribe, of Lybia, in Africa, who flourished before the Trojan war, and whose actions, he says, were sometimes transferred to those of Asia. The Amazons formed a nation, according to some historians, who originally murdered their husbands, and in which the male sex had no permanent settle ment, being only admitted occasionally for the purpose of continuing the race. Some writers state that they were in the habit of visiting neighbouring countries on this errand; and Plutarch alleges that they lived two months annually with an adjacent nation,

and afterwards retired to their own habitations for AMAZON. the rest of the year. Authors vary in their statements respecting their treatment of the children thus obtained; but all agree that the female infants only were reared by them for the service of the state. Diodorus Siculus says, that they crippled and distorted the limbs of their male offspring by luxations of the them soon after their birth; while Quintus Curtius and joints and other methods; Justin that they strangled Philostratus affirm that they sent them to their fathers. The Amazonian females were carefully educated, and were trained up for war by the labours of the field, and by the sedulous practice of the manly exercises. Their right breasts were cut or burnt off in order to enable them to command their bow with more expertness, and wield their battle-axe with vigour; and from this circumstance they are said to have derived their The arms of this people were the javelin, the bow, the battle-axe, and the shield; the form of the latter resembling that of a half-moon. Virgil thus describes an Amazonian queen:

name.

Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis,
Penthesilea furens, mediisque in millibus ardet,
Aurea subnectens exertæ cingula mammæ.

Æneid, i. 490. He again speaks of this extraordinary people, Æneid, xi. 659. See the foregoing extracts.

The chief seat of the Amazons was undoubtedly in Cappadocia, but they also considerably extended their empire. The first account that we have of their exploits is in the attack which Hercules made upon them; and in which, after a gallant resistance, they were overcome by the hero whom the gods had made invincible. In order to revenge this insult, the Amazons are stated to have invaded Greece, and, after many inferior adventures, to have fallen furiously upon the Athenian army under the very gates of Athens. According to Plutarch, Theseus was at this time king; and notwithstanding all his efforts to cover the city, the Athenians would have been entirely routed, but for the arrival of unexpected succours. This expedition proved so calamitous to the Amazons, that we are told by an Athenian orator that their very name became extinct : Την εαυτων πατριδα δια την συμφοραν ανώνυμον εποίησαν. Lysias. Homer, in his Iliad, however, twice introduces this people:

Οτε ἦλθον Αμαζονες αντιανείξαι. And again in the sixth book,

Il. b. iii. 189.

Il. vi. 186.

Κατεπεφνεν Αμαζονες αντιανείρας. We hear nothing more of the Amazons, with the exception of Virgil's allusion to the exploits of Penthesilea in defence of Troy, until the time of Alexander the Great. Quintus Curtius, the historian of this prince, gives us a detailed account of an interview between Alexander and an Amazonian princess, named Thalestris, which was avowedly for the object of obtaining children by him. She appeared at the head of three hundred of her warriors, and having sent forward messengers to announce her approach, leaped from her horse into the presence of the king, with two javelins in her right hand. Their costume, according to Curtius, reached only to the left breast, and just below the knee, covering the defect of the right side. Thalestris made no secret of her errand; she urged her claims to the honour of giving an heir to the Macedonian throne, and promised to leave any male child of her union with the king to his own disposal, though she is said to have

AMAZON.

exhibited some tokens of disappointment at his diminutive appearance. She was coolly received by Alexander for thirteen days, though he ultimately complied with her request. The historian adduces this conduct of that monarch as a proof of his continence and insensibility to female charms.

The last time we meet in history with these warriors is in Plutarch's life of Pompey, where he says it was stated that the Amazons came to the support of the Albanians against the Romans, and that they fought desperately in an engagement between the two nations. The biographer, however, gives no proof of the truth of this assertion, and confesses that the Romans only supposed the Amazons to be present at the fight, from the circumstance of some buskins and painted shields being discovered upon the field of battle. What, however, is decisive against the validity of this statement, is the circumstance of not one female prisoner being made by the Romans, and that not the body of a single woman was found amongst the killed or wounded. The chief supporters amongst the ancient writers of the existence of the Amazons, are Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Justin, and Quintus Curtius. Plutarch, in his life of Theseus, is under the necessity of giving up most of their marvellous achievements, of which he says, περιφανως εοικε μυθῳ και πλασματι. “ They clearly resemble fable and fiction." But the geographer Strabo has most strenuously opposed the opinion of their existence, which he adduces as a proof of the absurd credulity of mankind. He was himself a native of Cappadocia, the alleged seat of their empire, and must have been acquainted with any vestiges of their history, or any traces of popular tradition respecting them, had they remained there. His principal argument against the authenticity of their history, is, that many stories have some mixture of truth, and most accounts admit of some variation; but that the history of the Amazons had been uniformly the same, a monstrous and absurd detail, as much without variety as probability. "For who," says he, "can be persuaded, that a community of women, either as an army, a city, or a state, could subsist without men? And not only subsist, but make expeditions into other countries, and gain a sovereignty over other kingdoms; not merely over the Ionians, and those who were in their neighbourhood, but also to cross the seas, and carry their arms into Europe? To believe all this, we must suppose that nature varied from her fixed principles, and that in those days women were men, and men women."

Amongst the moderns, the existence of the Amazons has found advocates in the celebrated names of Petitus and Dr. Johnson; the former of whom published a learned dissertation on this subject at Paris, 1605. This treatise was attacked by our learned countryman Bryant, in his Mythology, vol. i. 52.; vol. v. Ĭ10.; and to this work we refer our readers for further information upon their fabulous attributes. The historian of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" asserts his scepticism upon this point with more than

usual success.

Some successful efforts have been made to account for the alleged existence of these heroines etymologically. It has been remarked that Herodotus, in his Melpomene, informs us that the Amazons were called by the Scythians, Oiorpata; and then goes on to say that this expression is compounded of two words

oior, a man; and pata, to kill and consequently the AMA term Oiorpata is equivalent to aropokrovos, a man-slayer. This, therefore, may probably be the origin of the fiction of the Amazons murdering their husbands and male children; and be itself originally derived from the abominable custom of sacrificing strangers to their gods; which it is well known to our classical readers obtained amongst the people of Tauris, in the Thracian Chersonesus. Another etymological mistake may account (according to Bryant) for the notion of their being women, and of cutting off their breasts. The Greeks, who never stepped beyond the circle of their own language, imagined that the word Amazon was compounded of a privative, and μaža, a breast: and their enthusiastic and fertile genius found in this derivation of the word a fund of materials to work upon, and gradually painted the Amazons as women without bosoms, as murderers of their husbands, and delighting in war and carnage. Nor is it improbable that the metaphorical use of the word breast, and being without breasts, as expressive of a want of natural affection, may have contributed to the assigning of this strange distinction, literally, to some barbarous and cruel tribes. However this may be, those who are acquainted with the structure of Grecian fables, and the general nature of the fictions of the ancient mythology, must be well aware that many of them were founded upon circumstances not at all more substantial.

AMAZONIA, an extentive district of South America, so named by the celebrated Francisco Orellana; who, about the year 1541, discovered this country. He was, by accident, involved amidst the streams of the Amazon, or Maragnon river; and, in a bark manned only with fifty soldiers, he pursued its course, and landed occasionally, to procure provisions, sometimes on one bank and sometimes on the other. Amongst the other fictions in which these early navigators thought themselves licensed to indulge, Orellana declared that on one of its banks he had found a republic of warlike women, resembling the Amazons of old; and hence arose its name of Amazonia. So many difficulties have attended the various attempts at colonization here, that the country is still little known, and its boundaries not precisely ascertained. It appears, however, from 1,300 to 1,400 miles in length, by about 900 miles broad; bounded on the south by La Plata, on the west by Peru, on the north by the province of Terra Firma, and on the east by Brazil. There are some colonies of Spaniards in this country, which is found to be very fertile in corn, and other vegetable productions, and tropical fruits: it is rich also in large timber, and in dying woods; in cocoa, tobacco, sugar-canes, cotton, yams, potatoes, raisins, and some rich balsamic gums. The country is overflowed by the river during one half the year, which renders the air nearly as cool as in any part of the temperate zone. The natives are brave, but savage and idolatrous, worshipping the images of their ancient heroes.

AMAZONS, a river of South America, one of the largest in the world, at first called Maragnon. It rises in Peru in the lake Lauricocha, near Guanuco city, about thirty leagues from Lima; and after flowing through 1,000 or 1,100 leagues of country, at first nearly from south to north, and afterwards from west to east, it empties itself into the Atlantic, nearly under the equator, by a channel of one hundred and fifty

SY.

ON. miles in breadth. It intersects the widest part of South America; it is joined in its course by about two hundred other rivers, many of which are not inferior in size to the largest of the old continent; and at the distance of 1,500 miles from its mouth, it is forty or fifty fathoms in depth. The name of Maragnon was first given to it by the navigator Orellana; and afterwards that of Amazons, on account of the country, Amazonia, through which it flows. The turtle and tortoise are found on its banks; and the crocodile, alligator, and waterserpents, are in great numbers in its course.

AMAZONIUM, a place in Attica, near Athens, where Theseus is said to have completely defeated the Amazons.

AM'BAGES, n. Ambeages (says Vossius); ambe, from app, around, and ago, to drive. See AMBI

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AMBARVALIA (ambiendis arvis, Lat.), in Ancient Customs, annual processions round the ploughed fields in honour of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, and performed by the Romans in April and July. A sow, a sheep, and a bull, were considered as the sacrifices of the Ambarvalia, hence it has been sometimes called Suove taurilia, from the words sus, ovis, and taurus. The inhabitants of the district generally went thrice round the field, crowned with oak leaves, invoking the care, as they celebrated the praises of the goddess. VIRG. Georg. i. 339, 345.; MACROB. iii. 5.

AM'BASSY, n. AMBASSADE', AMBAS'SADOUR, AMBAS'SADRESS, AM BASSAGE, AMBAS'SATRIE, AMBAS'SIAT.

Menage, Junius, and Wachter, have written largely upon this word.-From the

A. S. Ambyhe, nuntium, legatio; German, ambacht, ministerium; seems to have

arisen the barbarous Latin ambascia: and thence ambasciator; by which word, says Wachter, apud Latino-barbaros, any messenger king, monastery, or state, is designated.

I say, be tretise and ambassatrie,

And by the popes mediation,

And all the chirche, and all the chevalrie,

That in destruction of Maumetrie,

And in eucrese of Cristes lawe dere,

They ben accorded so as ye may here.

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of

Wherefore the king of England [Edwarde the Thirde] sent his

ambassade to the kinge of Scottes, desyryng him to make deliuerance
of the towne of Barwicke, for it perteyned to his heritage.
Grafton, vol. i. p. 335.

With Grekes, what fortune euer befall
And finally emong his lords all
There nas not one of high or low estate
That would gone on this ambassiat
Out of the towne, ne for bet ne worse.

The Story of Thebes, by John Lidgate, part iii. f. 589. c. 2. Go ye therfore as trustye ambassadoures, and stickynge to me yourauthour; teache fyrst the Jewes, than the next nyghboures vnto them, afterwardes all the natios of the whole world. Udal. Math. cap. xxviii.

We therfore in Christes behalfe executing the ambassage committed by him vnto vs, euen as God exhorted you by vs, besechę you in Christes name, to leaue your olde vices, and to be reconcyled to God. Id. 2 Paule to the Corinthians, c. v.

The earl of Leicester is to go to the king of Denmark, and other princes of Germany; the main of the ambassy is to condole the late death of the lady Sophia, queen dowager of Denmark, our king's grandmother.

Howell's Letters.

WARW, When you disgraced me in my embassade,
Then I degraded from being king,
And come now to create you duke of Yorke.

Shakespeare's K. Hen. VI. 3d pt.

SCRU. A noble troupe of strangers,

For so they seen; th' haue left their barge and landed,
And hither make, as great embassadors
From forraigne princes.

Id. K. Hen. VIII. act i. sc. 4.

But he that serves the Lord of Hoasts Most High,
And that in highest place t'approach him nigh,
And all the peoples prayers to present
Before his throne, as on ambassage sent
Both to and fro, should ne deserve to weare
A garment better, than of wooll or heare.

Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale. seems to be the reason, that Hezekiah shewed those ambassadors from To make the Babylonians put a greater value upon his alliance, them, all the riches of his house, his treasures, his armoury, and all his stores and strength for war. Prideaux's Connections.

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LOTн. Well, my ambassadress, what must we treat of?
Come you to menace war and brave defiance ?
Or does the peaceful olive grace your message?
Rowe's Fair Penitent, act i.

blishment of an ordinary ambassador at Constantinople. The first
The commerce of the Turkey company first occasioned the esta
English embassies to Russia arose altogether from commercial in-
terests.
Smith's Wealth of Nations.

The Roman name was revered among the most remote nations of the earth, and we are informed by a contemporary historian, that he had seen ambassadors who were refused the honour which they came to solicit, of being admitted into the rank of subjects. Gibbon's Roman Empire. AMBASSADOR, or EMBASSOR, the personal representative of one sovereign power to another, to which he is sent properly accredited. Ambassadors ordinary, are those stationed at a foreign court to preserve a good understanding between the court of the sovereign sending them and that by which they are received. The signing and countersigning of passports, the general protection of the trade of their own countrymen, and the transmission of all intelligence that can interest their respective courts, are the chief duties of their important trust. Ambassadors extraordinary are those deputed on some occasion of particular importance, and are generally surrounded with superior pomp and splendour. The privileges of ambassadors are high and various. By the public law of Europe, and of most civilized nations, not only the person of the ambassador himself is inviolate, but his whole train are ordinarily exempt from the municipal law of the country where he resides, Nature and reason have been suffered

AMBASSY:

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