ACR

Haile, many coloured messenger

Who, with each end of thy blewe bowe do'st crowne My boskie acres, and my unshrub'd downe,

Rich scarph to my proud earth.

Shakespeare.-Tempest. f. 14.

Do you within the bounds of nature live,
And to augment you need not strive;

One hundred acres will no less for you
Your life's whole business, than ten thousand do.
Cowley's Essay on Avarice.
We must not forget one, who dwelling at Stockbridge in this

county, made so artificial a plough, that by the help of engins, and some contrivances, it might be drawn by dogges, and managed by one man, who would plough in one day well nigh an acre of the light ground in this county.

Fuller's Worthies, in Hant-shire.

Heathcote himself, and such large acred men,
Lords of fat Esham, or of Lincoln Fen,
By every stick of wood that lends them heat,
By every pullet they afford to eat.

Pope's Imit. Hor. book ii. ep. 2. While any dregs of this baneful system remain, you cannot justly boast of general freedom: it was a system of niggardly and partial freedom, enjoyed by great barons only, and many acred men, who were perpetually insulting and giving check to the king, while they racked and harrowed the people.

Sir William Jones's Speech on the Reformation of Parliament. ACRE, a measure of land amounting to four square roods, or 160 square poles or perches. In England, the length of the pole varies in different counties, the difference running from the 161 feet to 28, which consequently makes the size of the acre different. In the 24th Henry VIII. an act respecting the sowing of flax, it is declared, that an 160 perches shall make an English acre; and a statute of Edward I. agrees with this measurement, which is that most generally received. The statute length of a pole or perch is 5 yards, or 161 feet. The acre is also divided into 10 square chains, of 22 yards each, that is, 4840 square yards. A Scottish acre contains four square roods; one square rood is 40 square falls; one square fall, 36 square ells; one square ell, nine square feet and 73 square inches; one square foot, 144 square inches. It is also divided into 10 square chains; the measuring chain should be 24 ells in length, divided into 100 links, each link 8,95 inches; and so one square chain will contain 10,000 square links. The English statute acre is about three roods and six falls, standard measure of Scotland.

The French acre, arpent, is equal to 54,450 square English feet, of which the English acre contains only 43,560.-The Strasburg acre is about half an English acre.--The Welsh acre contains commonly two English ones.-The Irish acre is equal to one acre two roods and 19 perches English.

I

inhabitants.

The port of Acre is bad, though it is one of the best Port. situated on the coast, being sheltered from the north and north-west winds by the town, which is situated on a promontory. It is greatly choked up since the time of Fakr-el-din. The fortifications are unimportant; there are only a few low towers near the port, on which cannon are mounted; but so rusty and bad, that some of them burst every time they are fired. Its defence on the land side is merely a garden wall without any ditch. The possession of Acre is, however, of great importance, as it keeps the inhabitants of the country in a state of subjection. It is the sole avenue by which the rice, which is the staple food of the people, can enter; so that the ruler of Acre may, if he please, dry up the resources of Syria, and cause a famine to ravage that whole region. Ships anchor with most security in that part of the bay which lies to the north of Mount Carmel, below the village of Haifa, or, as it is usually termed Caiffa; but the harbour is exposed to the north-west wind, which rages along this coast. It may be called the key of the holy land.

The town was originally surrounded with triple walls, Edifices. and a fosse cut out of the rock, from which, at present, it is a mile distant.. The houses are built of cut stone. and they are flat-roofed, with terraces. The remains of a considerable edifice are observable on the left of the mosque, towards the north side of the city. In its style of architecture, it is Gothic, on which account it has, perhaps, been called by Englishmen, 'King Richard's Palace. Some pointed arches, and a part of the cornice remain; the latter ornamented with enormous stone busts of hideous appearance. The rest of the ruins in Acre, are those of the arsenal, of the college of the knights, of the palace and chapel of the grand master, and of ten or twelve other churches: but they are now so intermingled with modern buildings, as to have almost lost their distinctions and antique character. Three of the churches were originally dedicated to St. Saba, St. Thomas, and St. Nicholas. In the garden of the Djezzar Pacha's palace, there are some pillars of yellow variegated marble of exquisite beauty, which have been brought from the ruins of Cæsarea, upon the coast between Acre and Jaffa, about fifteen or twenty miles south of the point of the promontory of Mount Carm. 1. Close to the entrance of the palace is a beautiful fountain of white marble, which, together with almost all the marble used in the decorations of his sumptuous mosque, are constructed from the same rich quarry of materials. The principal bath of Acre is considered as the finest of any in the

ACRE. Turkish dominions. This city also contains two bazaars, or market-places, three khans, or inns, for the reception of goods, and the accommodation of travellers; and Commerce. several coffee-houses. The staple articles of commerce are corn and cotton; but, though some European nations, particularly the French, formed mercantile establishments here, they naturally dwindled under the monopolizing spirit of the late pacha, who took the trade into his own hands. Both the government and the people, however, pay considerable respect to Europeans. The population was computed by the Abbé Mariti, in 1760, at 16,000; and by Mr. Browne, in 1797, at 18,000, or 20,000. The circumjacent country is exceedingly fertile, abounding in cattle, corn, olives, and linseed. The air of Acre is superior to that of Cyprus, a remark which applies generally to all the coast of Syria and Palestine, and is verified by the absence of noxious reptiles, and of venomous insects, such as toads and mosquitoes, which always pervade an insalubrious region.

History.

The history of this town may be traced to a distant period; and in modern times it has acquired celebrity by being the theatre of some considerable transactions. Josephus considers it as belonging to the tribe of Asher, and relates, that after being held by Demetrius, the son of Saleucus, it came by treachery into the possession of Antiochus Epiphanes; after which it was captured by the Hebrew Alexander, ceded to Ptolemy; from whom it passed to Cleopatra. It was also conquered by the Persians, and subsequently becoming a Roman colony, then under the dominion of the Moors, it sustained many sieges both by the Christians and Saracens, in the period of the crusades: the former expelled the latter from it in 1104, but in 1187 it was taken by Saladin, king of Egypt. Soon afterwards, being invested by the combined forces of all the Chris tians in Palestine, after a vigorous defence of more than two years, it yielded to the arms of Philip Augustus of France, and Richard I. of England, on the 12th of July 1191. The conquest, however, was dearly acquired by the loss of 100,000 Christians, besides great numbers who perished by shipwreck and disease. It was now occupied for nearly a century, in some sense, by all the European and Asiatic powers; for there were no less than nineteen of them exercising an independent authority here, among which we find-the kings of Jerusalem and Naples; the princes of Antioch, Jaffa, Tripoli, Galilea, Tarentum, and Armenia; the pope's legate; the duke of Athens; the commanders of the English, Genoese, Florentine, and Pisan armies; the Teutonic and Lazarene knights, and the Knights Templars-specified; and during this period it was a place of great resort and large extent. In 1291, it was again besieged, and taken by the Saracens, and sixty thousand Christians consigned to death or slavery, in retaliation for at least equal barbarities exercised on the infidels by the besieged. On this occasion, the nuns gave an almost unparalleled specimen of fortitude, by mangling themselves in a dreadful manner in the face, for the purpose of exciting the aversion of the victors, of whom they had otherwise just reason to apprehend a violation of their chastity: the Saracens, in revenge, slew them all. From this period, Acre remained in a state of magnificent decay, and almost total desertion; till in the seventeenth century, Faccardin, prince of the Druses,

attempted its restoration: but notwithstanding his ACRE. choking up the harbour to defend himself from the Turks, they regained it, and the pasha of Saide appointed an annual governor; till at length Daher, an Arabian Sheik, who obtained the name of St. John of Acre, carried it by assault in 1749, and having appeased the Porte, assumed the government of the city. Here he not only maintained his independence, but by his judicious regulations, raised it from meanness to dignity; but in 1775, at the time he was attacked by a Turkish fleet, aided by the Moors, he was betrayed and assassinated at the age of nearly ninety years. His successor was Ahmed Pasha, a Bosnian, who was sirnamed Djezzar, or butcher. The baron De Tott's Djezzar. Memoirs first brought the name of this wretched prince into Europe, as having in his time (1785), entombed alive, a number of Greeks whose heads were then to be seen. "His mere name," observes Dr. Clarke, "carried terror with it over all the Holy Land; the most lawless tribes of Arabs expressing their awe and obeisance whensoever it was uttered. His appellation, Djezzar, as explained by himself, signified butcher; but of this name, notwithstanding its avowed allusion to slaughters committed by him, he was evidently vain. He was his own minister, chancellor, treasurer, and secretary; often his own cook and gardener; and not unfrequently both judge and execu→ tioner in the same instant. Yet there were persons who had acted, and still occasionally officiated, in these several capacities, standing by the door of his apartment; some without a nose, others without an arm, with one ear only, or one eye, marked men', as he termed them, persons bearing signs' of their having been instructed to serve their master with fidelity." During the misrule of this arbitrary monster, Buonaparte landed in Egypt, and proposed an alliance, which was refused; upon which, after victoriously traversing Syria, with an army of more than twelve thousand men, the French conqueror began the siege of Acre, on the 18th of March, 1799. The pasha, who had already evacuated Caiffa, conceiving that the fortifications were in too miserable a state to avail him, was preparing to retreat, when Sir Sydney Smith anchored with his squadron in the roads of Caiffa, and reinspirited the inhabitants, by making every preparation for a vigorous defence. Buonaparte having invested the place, and being enabled to carry his trenches close to the ditch, a breach was effected in ten days, when he endeavoured to carry it by assault, but was repulsed with a heavy loss. Within two days, another assault was made, and with a similar result. Eight different attempts were made of the same kind, by which multitudes of the French perished on the occasion, and in the sorties by which they were followed. On the fifty-second day, two last and desperate efforts were made; the Turkish fire, even when aided by the opportune approach of the British seamen, was for some time ineffectual, owing to the numbers of the enemy, which perpetually renewed the ranks of the slain. At length, however, the French were repulsed; but as a breach had been made practicable for fifty men abreast, the French entered in the evening; a dreadful carnage ensued, Djezzar was every where animating his troops, and the foe was utterly vanquished. After these disastrous struggles, during which Buonaparte lost his battering pieces and stores, and was ultimately

ACRIDOPHAGI.

ACRE compelled to throw his heavy cannon into the sea; on the 20th of May, at the expiration of sixty-one days, he raised the siege, and boldly announced in Egypt, in a public manifesto, that Acre was reduced to a heap of ruins, and posterity would ask where the city had stood. After this period, the fortifications were considerably enlarged. At the time of Dr. Clarke's visit they were proceeding with great rapidity, to whom Djezzar made this sage and characteristic remark, upon the entrance of the engineer into his presence: Some persons have a head for these matters" (putting his finger to his forehead), " and some have not. Let us see whether or not Buonaparte will make a breach there again. A breach is a breach, and a wall is a wall!" Djezzar pasha adorned Acre, however, with several magnificent public works, in which he is said to have been his own engineer and artist. He built the principal bazaar, the mosque, and the very elegant public fountain. After the death of Djezzar, Ishmael pasha usurped the government; but he was displaced and slain by one of Djezzar's slaves, named Sulliman, a man generally of a mild and pacific character, on whom the Porte conferred the pachalic. Acre is about 27 miles south of Tyre, and 70 north of Jerusalem. N. lat. 32°, 40'. E. lon. 39°, 25'. See HUME's Hist. vol. ii.-p. 14, 23. GIBBON'S Hist. vol. 2. chap. 59. CLARKE'S Travels, part 2, sect. 1, chap. 3.

ACREDULLA, a species of the Mus, in the Linnean system-the migratory mouse of Pallas, found in Siberia.

Like a lawyer, I am ready to support the cause, in which, give me leave to suppose, that I shall be soon retained with ardour; and if occasion be, with subtility and acrimony. Bolingbroke's Occasional Letter Writer.

The malignity of soldiers and sailors against each other has been often experienced at the cost of their country; and, perhaps, no order of men have an enmity of more acrimony, or longer continuance. Rambler, No. 9.

Most satyrists are indeed a public scourge,
Their mildest physic is a tarrier's purge,
Their acrid temper turns, as soon as surred,
The milk of their good purpose all to curd.

Couper's Charity. ACRIDOPHAGI, from arpie, locust, and payw, to eat, an ancient people of Ethiopia, inhabiting near the deserts, who fed on locusts. As the precise situation of the country has never been ascertained, many have considered the accounts of them which antiquity has transmitted are wholly fabulous. Diodorus Siculus describes their stature as short, meagre, and extremely black. "They were so short-lived that their life never exceeded forty years, and they generally died a wretched death. In their old age, winged insects of different forms, bred in their bodies, beginning in the breast and belly, and soon spreading through the whole frame. The patient at first felt an itching; and the agreeable sensation produced by scratching, occasioned these vermin foreing their way out, and they caused effusions of corrupt blood, with excruciating pains in the skin. The sufferer, with lamentable cries, was industrious himself to make passages for them with his nails. At length he expired, covered with numberless ulcers. In spring,

when the warm west winds drive swarms of locusts ACRIDOPHAGI. among the Acridophagi, they set fire to wood and other combustibles in a steep and large valley, when the flight of locusts passing over it were suffocated by the smoke. They are immediately collected in heaps, and salted for use."

Pliny represents the Parthians as feeding on locusts. Elian says, they were sold in Egypt for food, which is corroborated by the testimony of various Greek au thors. Hasselquist, who visited Syria and Egypt, in the year 1752, with a view to improve natural history, informs us, that he asked Franks, and many others who had lived long in these countries, whether they had ever heard that the inhabitants of Arabia, Ethiopia, &c. used locusts as food? They answered in the affirmative. To the same question, Armenians, Copts, and Syrians, who lived in Arabia, and had travelled in Syria, and near the Red sea, gave a similar answer. A learned scheik at Cairo, who had lived six years in Mecca, mentioned, that a famine frequently rages at Mecca, when there is a scarcity of corn in Egypt, which obliges the inhabitants to live upon coarser food than ordinary: and that when corn is scarce, the Arabians grind the locusts in hand-mills, or stone mortars, and bake them into cakes, and use these cakes in place of bread.

Sparrman informs us, that locusts sometimes afford a high treat to the remote hordes of the Hottentots; when, as sometimes happens, after an interval of eight, ten, fifteen, or twenty years, they make their appearance in incredible numbers. At these times they come from the north, migrating to the southward, and do not suffer themselves to be impeded by any obstacles, but fly boldly on, and are drowned in the sea whenever they come to it. The females of this race of insects, which are most apt to migrate, and are chiefly eaten, are said not to be able to fly; partly by reason of the shortness of their wings, and partly on account of their being heavy and distended with eggs; and shortly after they have laid these in the sand, they are said to die. It is particularly of these that the Hottentots make a brown coffee-coloured soup, which at the same time acquires from the eggs a fat and greasy appearance. The Hottentots are highly rejoiced at the arrival of these locusts, though they are sure to destroy every bit of verdure on the ground: but the Hottentots make themselves ample amends for this loss, by falling foul on the animals themselves, eating them in such quantities as in the space of a few days to get visibly fatter and in better condition than before.

Dr. Shaw observes, that the Jews were allowed to eat them; and that when they are sprinkled with salt, and fried, their taste resembles that of our fresh water cray-fish; and Russel says, the Arabs salt and eat them as a delicacy. These accounts sufficiently explain the scriptural statement respecting the food of John the Baptist in the wilderness, Matt. iii. 4. Some indeed maintain, that the original word signifies the tops of certain herbs, or the fruits of certain trees: others have supposed it means quails; but Shaw contends it. is applied to the locust on account of its appetite for such food. The word is used by Aristotle, and other historians, in the same sense, and therefore the literal interpretation of the word may be received. In addition to the authors cited above, consult Strabo, lib. xvi.

ACRIDO- Agatharcides Perip. de rubro mari. Athenæus, lib. xlix.
PHAGI. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vi. and xi. Hieronynis' Opera,
tom. iv. Niebuhr Descrip. de l'Arabie. Barrow's Tra-
ACRO-
MION. vels, vol. i.
Drake's Voyages. Buffon, Nat. Hist.
vol. vi. Bryant on the Plagues of Egypt, art. Locusts.
Harmer's Observations, vol. ii. Calmet's Dict.

ACRISIONEUS, a patronymic name of the Argives, from Acrisione, a town of Argolis, called after a daughter of Acrisius, one of their ancient kings. VIRGIL. ACROAMATICI, a name given to the disciples or followers of Aristotle, who were admitted into the secrets of the inner or more abstruse philosophy. The word (Acroamatic) has sometimes been generally applied to what is deep or profound in science.

ACROATHOUM, or ACROTHOOS, in Ancient Geography, a town on the top of Mount Athos, where the inhabitants, according to Mela, were longer lived by half than in any other country; called by the modern Greeks, Aytov opoc; by the Italians La Cima di Monte Santo.

ACROATIC, the name given to Aristotle's lectures on the abstruse points of philosophy, to which only his own disciples and intimate friends were admitted; the exoteric were open to all, and were employed in rhetorical and civil speculations. The acroatics were the subject of the morning exercises in the Lyceum, the exotarics in the evenings.

ACROBATICA, or ACROBATICUM (aкpoç, high, and Barew, or Baww, I go), an ancient engine, for the purpose of raising up workmen or others to the top of buildings or trees. The acrobatica of the Greeks was the same with the scansorium of the Latins. Some authors, as Turnebus and Barbarus, consider it to have been a military engine, raised by besiegers to overlook the walls; others regard it as a moveable scaffold, or cradle, used for general purposes of business or pleasure.

ACROCERAUNIUM, a promontory of Epirus, on which are situated the ACROCERAUNIA, or MONTES CERAUNII (aкpos high, repavvos thunder), in Ancient Geography-so called from their being often thunderstruck, between the Ionian sea and the Adriatic; where Illyria ends and Epirus begins; now the mountain called Monti della Chimera. They project into the sea, and make the point of land dangerous to navigators.

ACROCHERISMUS, (from axpos and Xep, the hand) a sort of gymnastic exercise, among the Greeks, in which the two combatants contended only with their hands and fingers, without closing with each other, or engaging the other parts of the body. ACROCHIRITA was a name given to those engaged in this species of combat.

ACROCORINTHUS, in Ancient Geography, a lofty mountain on the isthmus of Corinth, remarkable for an acropolis, or citadel. Here was a temple of Venus; lower down issued the fountain Priene; it separated the two continents of Greece and Peloponnesus.

ACRO'KE. On Crook. See CROOK.

And giue her fre the reine of her pleasance
For libertie is thing that women looke
And truly els the matter is a acrooke.

Chaucer.-Court of Love, fol. 350. c. 3.

ACROMION, in Anatomy, the upper process of the scapula, or shoulder blade. See ANATOMY, Div. ii.

ACROMONOGRAMMATICUM, in Poetry, a kind ACRO of poem, wherein one verse begins with the letter with MONO. which the preceding verse terminates.

GRAMMATICUM.

ACRON, a district of the territory of the Fantees, on the Gold coast of Guinea, in Africa. Its capital is Assam, or Apam, a commodious sea-port, where the ACROSS Dutch have a small fort. This place was destroyed, with most of the inhabitants, in 1811, by the Ashantees. A week after, the fort was plundered and laid in ruins by Attah, late king of Akim; it is about fifty miles E. N. E. of Cape Coast. GREAT ACRON is a kind of a republic farther inland.

ACRONICAL, ACHRONYCAL, or ACHRONICAL, a term applied to the rising of a star, after sun-set. See ASTRONOMY, Div. ii.

ACROPOLIS, in Ancient Geography, the citadel of Athens, built on an eminence accessible only on one side, called Polis, because it constituted the original city; and the Upper Polis, to distinguish it from the lower, which was afterwards built round it in a large open plain. On the north side was a wall, built by the Pelasgi, and called Pelasgic; and another on the south constructed by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, out of the Persian spoils. From its nine gates, it was called Enneapylon, the ascent to which was by a magnificent flight of steps of white marble, built by Pericles. At the bottom was a temple to Minerva.

ACROPOLIS, was likewise the name given to a city of Libya, another of Etolia, and a third of Albania. ACROSPERMUM, in Botany, a genus of plants, of the class Cryptogamia fungi, of which there are six species.

ACROSS'. On Cross. See CROSS.

στιχος,

ACROSTICK, (from aкpoç, extremity, and verse), a poetical composition, in which the initial letters of the lines or the verses form the name of some person or thing. The acrostic is so obviously an artificial and adventitious arrangement of verse as to have been justly abandoned by all sound critics and poets in modern times.

ACROSTICHUM, RUSTYBACK, WALL-RUE, or FORK-FERN, a genus of plants belonging to the class Cryptogamia, order Filices.

ACROSTOLIUM, in ancient naval architecture, the ornament which was appended to the extreme part on the prows of ships, the other decorations on this part being called solos. The shape of the acrostolium was generally circular or spiral, though sometimes it assumed the form of particular parts of ancient armour, or consisted of rude imitations of different animals. The acrostolium frequently appeared on the reverse of ancient medals, as emblematical of victory.

ACROTERIA, or ACROTERS, in ancient Architecture, small pedestals, without bases, placed at the middle or two extremes of pediments or frontispieces, and used for the purpose of supporting statues. The figures on the tops of churches, and the sharp pinnacles which appear in ranges about flat buildings, acquired the same designation.

Ancient physicians, used the term in reference to the larger extremities of the body, as the head, hands, and feet; and sometimes for the processes of bones, and for the extremities of the fingers.

For somtime we be Goddes instruments,
And menes to don his commandements,
Whan that him list, upon his creatures,
In divers actes and in divers figures:
Withouten him we have no might certain,
If that him list to stonden ther again.

Chaucer. Freres Tale, vol. i. p. 284.

And this way is cleped penance; of which man shuld gladly herken and enqueren with all his herte, to wete, what is penance, and whennes it is cleped penance, and how many maneres ben of actions or werkings of penance.

VOL. XVII.

Ib. Personnes Tale, vol. ii. p. 281.

Thus sayth the fend; for certes, than is a man al ded in soule; and thus is sinne accomplised, by temptation, by delit, and by consenting and than is the sinne actuel.

Chaucer. Personnes Tale, vol. ii. p. 308.

It is well knowe, both to reason and experience in dooing euery actiue woorcheth on his passiue.

Ib. 2nd Book of the Testament of Loue, fol. 306, col. 1.

For of fre will thine actioun is sa wicht
Nane may it peirs, will thou resist and stande:
Becum thou cowart crawdoun recriand,
And by consent cry cok, thy dede is dicht.

Douglas, Prol. to b. xith, line 26.

For Venus efter the gys and maner thare,
Ane actiue bow apoun hir schulder bare,
As sche had bene ane wilde huntreis,
With wind waffing hir haris lowsit of trace,
Hir skirt kiltit till hir bare knee.

And so Moses obeyed the voyce of hys father in lawe, & chose actyue men out of all Israel, and made them as heedes ouer the people. Bible, 1539.-Exodus, chap. xviii. O Geue thanckes vnto the Lord, for he is gracyous, and his mercy endureth for euer. Who can expresse ye noble actes of thre Lorde, or shewe forth all hys prayse?

Psalme cvi. Bible, 1539.

Moreouer thou shalt seke out amonge all the people, men of actiuite, and such as feare God.

Du. O then, vnfold the passion of my loue,
Surprize her with discourse of my deere faith;
It shall become thee well to act my woes:

She will attend it better in thy youth,

Than in a nuntio's of more graue aspect.

Ib.

Shakespeare, T. Night, act i. sc. 4.

It is not so with him that all things knowes
As 'tis with vs, that square our guesse by showes:

But most it is presumption in vs, when

The help of heauen we count the act of men.