of the body. (See Nutrition.) Alimentary matter, therefore, must be similar to animal substance, or transmutable into such. In this respect, alimentary substances differ from medicines, because the latter retain their peculiar qualities in spite of the organs of digestion, and will not assimilate with the animal substance, but act as foreign substances, serving to excite the activity of particular organs or systems of the body. All alimentary substances must, therefore, be composed, in a greater or less degree, of soluble parts, which easily lose their peculiar qualities in the process of digestion, and correspond to the elements of the body. These substances, in their simple state, are mucilage, gelatin, gluten, albumen, farina, fibrin and saccharine matter. Of these, vegetables contain chiefly mucilage, saccharine matter and farina, which latter substance, particularly in connexion with the vegetable gluten, by which both become apt for fermentation, and thus for dissolution and digestion, is the basis of very nutritious food. The nutritive part of fruits consists of their saccharine matter and a little mucilage. In animal food, gelatin is particularly abundant. The nutritiousness of the different species of food and drink depends, therefore, upon the proportion which they contain of those substances, and the mode in which they are connected, favoring or obstructing their dissolution. Organs of digestion in a healthy state dissolve alimentary substances more easily, and take up the nutritious portions more abundantly, than those of which the strength has been impaired so that they cannot resist the tendency of each substance to its peculiar chemical decomposition. The wholesome or unwholesome character of any aliment depends, therefore, in a great measure, on the state of the digestive organs, in any given case. Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it produced a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a medicine, and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are in the same condition. Very often a simple aliment is made indigestible by artificial cookery. Aliments abounding in fat are unwholesome, because fat resists the operation of the gastric juice. The addition of too much spice makes many an innocent A. injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and produce an irritation of particular parts of the system.

They were introduced as artificial stimulants of appetite. In any given case, the digestive power of the individual is to be considered, in order to determine whether a particular aliment is wholesome or not. In general, therefore, we can only say, that that A. is healthy, which is easily soluble, and is suited to the power of digestion of the individual; and, in order to render the A. perfect, the nutritious parts must be mixed up with a certain quantity of innocent substance affording no nourishment, to fill the stomach, because there is no doubt, that many people injure their health by taking too much nutritious food. In this case, the nutritious parts which cannot be dissolved act precisely like food which is in itself indigestible. (See Digestion.) In Prussia and Austria, where, as in many despotic governments, the medical police is very good (this being a thing much more easily regulated in an absolute government than in a free one), the public officers pay much attention to aliment, and are careful that provisions exposed to sale shall be of a good quality, particularly that no decayed or adulterated things are sold to the poor. Such regulations exist, to a certain extent, in England, France, the U. States of A. and, in fact, in every civilized country. The kind of A. used influences the health and even the character of man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable A., but can live exclusively on either. Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid parts of the blood, the fibrin, and, therefore, the strength of the muscular system, but disposes the body, at the same time, to inflammatory, putrid and scorbutic diseases, and the character to violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to produce a gentle character. Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, cheese and butter, are vigorous people. The nations of the north incline generally more to animal A.; those of the south, and the Orientals, more to vegetable. These latter are generally simpler in their diet than the former, when their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes in the East, and the

caste of Brahmins in India, live entirely on vegetable food. The inhabitants of the most northern regions live almost entirely upon animal food, scarcely ever partaking of any vegetable substance, at least during the greater part of the year. Some nations feed chiefly on terrestrial animals, others on aquatic ones.

ALLA BREVE is the proper designation of the time of a piece of music, in which the breve is equal to a semibreve in time; and is to be played in a movement of twice the usual rapidity; so that a breve is played as fast as a semibreve, a semibreve as fast as a minim, and so on. It

is usual, in this mode of time, to prefix to the piece a designation, that resembles a C with a perpendicular line through it, but is intended to represent a circle bisected; sometimes also a 2, or large 2, or. It is, however, distinct from twominim time, which is also often called alla breve time, and may be designated by 2, and C with a perpendicular line through it; but the value of the note corresponds with the designation. Besides, the expression alla cappella is sometimes used; by which phrase is meant, that though the notes in their proportional magnitude are the same as in the ancient psalm tune, yet they are not to be given in the choral style as sung by the congregation, but more lively, as is usual in the chapel style.

ALLAH, or ALLA, in Arabic; the name of God, the Creator of all nature, of whom Mohammed says, he is the only being who derives his existence from himself, and has no equal. All creatures are made by him. He is Lord of the material and spiritual universe; and Mohammed inculcates obedience to him as the one true God, the Author of his religion. The word is compounded of the article al, and the word Elah, which signifies the Adored and the Adorable, and is synonymous with the singular of the Hebrew word Elohim.

ALLAN, David, a Scotch historical painter, was born in 1744. Some early efforts of his genius having attracted attention, he was sent to an academy of painting and engraving, in Glasgow, where he remained 7 years. He afterward visited Italy, where he passed 16 years in pursuing his studies, and copying the remains of antiquity and the old masters. While at Rome, in 1773, he received a gold medal, for the best specimen of historical composition. On his return, he established himself at Edinburgh, where he died, in 1796. His illustrations of the Gentle Shepherd, the Cotter's Saturday Night, and other sketches

of rustic life and manners in Scotland, in aquatinta, obtained for him the name of the Scottish Hogarth. His principal painting is the Return of the Prodigal Son. The subject of his prize composition, which is much admired, is the Origin of Painting.

ALLAY. (See Alloy.)

ALLEGHANY or APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS; a range of mountains in the U. States. They commence in the northern part of Georgia and Alabama, and run north-east to the state of New York, nearly parallel with the sea-coast, about 900 miles in length, and from 50 to 200 in breadth. They divide the rivers and streams of water, which flow into the Atlantic on the E., from those which flow into the lakes and the Mississippi on the W. These mountains are not confusedly scattered and broken, but stretch along in uniform ridges, for the most part scarcely half a mile high. The several ridges are known by different names, as Blue ridge, Alleghany ridge, north mountain, Jackson's mountain, Laurel mountain, Cumberland mountains, &c.--For the geological structure of these mountains, see North America.

ALLEGHANY; a river which rises in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, winds through the south part of New York, turns again into Pennsylvania, runs S. W., and unites with the Monongahela at Pittsburg, to form the Ohio. It is navigable for keel boats of 10 tons to Hamilton, in New York, 260 miles above Pittsburg. Its most important branches are the Kiskimenetas, and Toby's and French creeks.

It

ALLEGIANCE (from alligare, to bind); the obedience which every subject or citizen owes to the government of his country; in England and the U. States, obedience to its lawful commands. It is the doctrine of the English law, that naturalborn subjects owe an allegiance which is intrinsic and perpetual, and which cannot be divested by any act of their own. has been a question frequently and gravely argued, both by theoretical writers and in forensic discussions, whether the English doctrine of perpetual allegiance applies in its full extent to the citizens of the U. States of America. From a historical review of the principal discussions in the federal court of the U. States on this interesting subject in American jurisprudence, the better opinion would seem to be, that a citizen cannot renounce his allegiance to the U. States without the permission of government, to be declared by law; and that, as there is no existing legislative regulation on the subject,

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the rule of the English common law remains unaltered. (See Kent's Commentaries, vol. ii.) If an alien wishes to become a citizen of the U. States, he must renounce his allegiance to the government whose subject he has been, as much as two years before he can be admitted to take the oath of allegiance to the government of the U. States.

ALLEGORY (from the Greek a220, something else, and yoosiv, to speak); a figurative representation, in which the signs (words or forms) signify something besides their literal or direct meaning. Irony is distinguished from allegory by conveying a meaning directly contrary to the literal signification of the words, while in allegory there is an agreement between the literal and the figurative sense, each of which is complete in itself. The allegory should be so constructed as to express its meaning clearly and strikingly; and the more clear and striking the meaning is, the better is the allegory. All of the fine arts have, to a certain degree, an allegorical character, because, in all, the visible signs generally represent something higher, the ideal; but, in the narrower sense of allegory, its object is to convey a meaning of a particular character by means of signs of an analogous import. The allegory, moreover, ought to represent an ensemble, by which it is distinguished from the trope or metaphor and the conventional symbol. The last differs from the allegory, also, in this particular, that its character could not be understood, if it had not been previously agreed upon. For instance, the olive-branch would not convey the idea of peace if it had not been adopted as its sign. From all which has been said, it is clear that the allegory can take place in rhetoric, poetry, sculpture, painting and pantomime, but never in music or architecture, because these two arts are not capable of conveying a double meaning in their representations. As an instance of allegory in poetry, Prior's verses from Henry and Emma may serve ;

Did I but purpose to embark with thee On the smooth surface of a summer's sea, While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales, And fortune's favor fills the swelling sails, But would forsake the ship, and make the shore, When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar? or the often quoted ode 1, 14 of Horace. An instance of allegory in painting or sculpture is the representation of peace by two turtle-doves sitting on their nest in a helmet or a piece of ordnance; or Guido's representation of Fortuna. The representation of an allegory ought always to lead

directly to its figurative meaning; thus a warrior throwing the doves out of a helmet would be a bad allegory of war; a good one would be a husbandman making a weapon out of his sithe. In rhetoric, allegory is often but a continued metaphor. The symbolic and allegoric representation often come very near to each other, and sometimes it is hard to say to which a piece of art most inclines. This is the case, for instance, with the beautiful representations of Justice, Poetry, &c., by Raphael, in the Vatican. Parables and fables are a species of allegory; e. g. the beautiful parable in one of the tales in the Arabian Nights, in which the three religions, the Mohammedan, Jewish and Christian, are compared to three similar rings, bequeathed to three brothers by their father. This allegory has been repeated by Boccaccio in a tale of his Decameron, and by Lessing in his Nathan the Wise. Allegory in rhetoric was used by the most ancient nations, because it is well fitted to express an elevated state of feeling, and, at the same time, to give somewhat of the charm of novelty to ideas at once common and important. Addison truly says, "Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracts of light in a discourse, that make every thing about them clear and beautiful." In painting and sculpture, however, the ancients made by no means so much use of allegory as the modern artists, partly owing to their greater facility of expressing certain ideas by means of the stories and the images of their different gods, who all more or less represented a single idea. The moderns have no such copious stores of illustration, the Protestants particularly, who are not familiar with the multitude of Catholic saints and legends; thus they are often obliged to express single ideas by allegory. Another cause of the greater prevalence of allegory in modern times is to be found in the circumstance, that allegory is always more cultivated in the period of the decline of the arts, when the want of great and pure and simple conceptions of the beautiful is supplied by studied and ingenious inventions, as well as in the fact, that the ancients were more exclusively conversant with simple ideas than the moderns, among whom the relations of society are much more complicated, and every branch of science, art and social life more fully developed. Sometimes, whole poems are allegorical, as Spenser's Fairy Queen; but, in these cases, the poet must take great care not to fali into trifling. Bunyan's Pilgrim's

Progress is a famous instance of a work wholly allegorical. There was a time when every poem was taken as an allegory; even such works as those of Ariosto and Tasso were tortured from their true meaning, and made to pass for allegorical pictures. There exist many editions of these poets, in which, at the beginning of each canto, the allegory of it is given. With equally little reason, the Song of Solomon has long been considered an allegory of Christ's love to his church. The most productive period of allegory in painting and sculpture was that of Louis XV, which may be styled, in regard to the arts, the age of flattery. During this period, innumerable bad, and some good ones were produced. They are now much less in vogue. Rubens painted several fine allegorical pictures, in the Luxemburg gallery. Lessing, Herder and Winckelmann have investigated the subject of this article, perhaps, more thoroughly than any other modern writers. No poet, in our opinion, has made use of allegory in a more powerful and truly poetical manner than the great Dante; yet the opinion that the whole of his Divina Commedia is allegorical, is quite erroneous. ALLEGRI, Gregorio; born at Rome, in 1590, and died there in 1652; a singer in the papal chapel, and considered to this day, in Italy, one of the most excellent composers of that time. He was a scholar of Nanini. His Miserere, one of the most sublime and delightful works of human art, has particularly distinguished him. It is even now sung yearly, during passion-week, in the Sistine chapel at Rome. This composition was once esteemed so holy, that whoever ventured to transcribe it was liable to excommunication. Mozart disregarded this prohibition, and, after two hearings, made a correct copy of the original. In 1771, it appeared at London, engraved, and in 1810 at Paris, in the Collection des Classiques. In 1773, the king of England obtained a copy, as a present from the pope himself. According to the opinion of Baini, at present the leader of the choir (maestro della cappella), in the pope's chapel, the Miserere of Allegri was not composed for all the voices, but only the bass of the 18 or 20 first parts; all the rest is the addition of successive singers. But in the beginning of the 18th century, the existing manner of singing it was established as a standard at Rome, by the orders of the pope. A full score of it has never existed.-A. is also the name of an Italian satirical poet, a native of Florence, who flourished towards the 16

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end of the 16th century. His Christian name was Alexander.

ALLEGRO, in music; a word denoting one of the six distinctions of time. It expresses a sprightly motion, the quickest of all, and originally means gay. The usual distinctions succeed each other in the following order-grave, adagio, largo, vivace, allegro, presto. Allegro time may be heightened, as allegro assai and allegrissimo, very lively; or lessened, as allegretto or poco allegro, a little lively. Più allegro is a direction to play or sing a little quicker.

ALLELUIA. (See Halleluia.)

ALLEMAND; 1, a well-known dance, originally German, distinguished for its sprightliness; 2, a very lively dancingtune, in time, which has much resemblance to the French tambourine.

ALLEN, Ethan, a brigadier-general in the American revolutionary army, was born in Salisbury, Connecticut, but was educated principally in Vermont, to which state his parents emigrated whilst he was yet young. His education was of a limited character. In the disturbances which agitated Vermont, he took an active part against the royal authority, in favor of the Green mountain boys, the name by which the settlers in that territory were designated.-In 1775, soon after the battle of Lexington, in compliance with the request of the legislature of Connecticut, A. collected a body of about 230 Green mountain boys, and marched against the fortresses of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, for the purpose of taking them by assault. At Castleton, he was joined by colonel Arnold, who had received directions from the Massachusetts committee of safety to raise a corps of men for the same purpose, but, failing to accomplish that object, he determined to proceed with the small force of colonel A. They arrived at the lake opposite to Ticonderoga, on the evening of May 9, and, having with great difficulty procured boats, landed 83 men on the other shore during the night. The day beginning, however, to dawn, A. was obliged to attack the fort before his rear could cross the lake, having previously animated his soldiers, by a harangue, which he concluded with saying, "I now propose to advance before you, and in person to conduct you through the wicketgate; but, inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, I do not urge on any one contrary to his will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelocks." They all immediately poised their firelocks. He then advanced at the head of the centre file to the wicket-gate, where a sentry

snapped his fusee at him, and retreated through the covered way, followed by A., who formed his men upon the parade. The apartments of the commanding officer having been pointed out to him by a sentry who asked quarter, he instantly repaired thither, and, holding his sword over captain de Laplace, whom he found undressed, demanded the surrender of the fort. The latter asking him by what authority, "I demand it," said A., "in the name of the great Jehovah, and of the continental congress." De Laplace was constrained to comply with the summons, and the fort, with its stores and garrison, was given up. On the same day, also, A. obtained possession of Crown Point, and soon after captured a sloop of war, the only armed vessel on lake Champlain, and thus acquired the entire command of that lake. In the following autumn, he was twice despatched into Canada, to engage the inhabitants to lend their support to the American cause. In the last of these expeditions, he formed a plan, in concert with colonel Brown, to reduce Montreal. September 10, 1775, A. accordingly crossed the river, at the head of 110 men, but was attacked, before Brown could join him, by the British troops, consisting of 500 men, and, after a most obstinate resistance, was taken prisoner. The events of his captivity he himself has recorded in a narrative compiled by him after his release, in the most singular style, but apparently with great fidelity. For some time, he was kept in irons, and treated with much severity. He was sent to England as a prisoner, with an assurance, that, on his arrival there, he would meet with the halter. During the passage, extreme cruelty was exercised towards him and his fellowprisoners. They were all, to the number of 34, thrust, hand-cuffed, into a small place in the vessel, enclosed with white-oak plank, not more than 20 feet wide by 22 long. After about a month's confinement in Pendennis castle, near Falmouth, he was put on board a frigate, January 8, 1776, and carried to Halifax. Thence, after an imprisonment of five months, he was removed to New York. On the passage from Halifax to the latter place, A. was treated with great kindness by captain Smith, the commander of the vessel, and evinced his gratitude by refusing to join in a conspiracy to kill the British captain and seize the frigate. His refusal prevented the execution of the plan. He remained at New York for a year and a half, sometimes in confinement, and sometimes at large, on parole.-On May 6, 1778, A. was

exchanged for colonel Campbell, and immediately afterwards repaired to the headquarters of general Washington, by whom he was received with much respect. As his health was impaired, he returned to Vermont, after having made an offer of his services to the commander in chief, in case of his recovery. His arrival in Vermont was celebrated by the discharge of cannon; and he was soon appointed to the command of the state militia, as a mark of esteem for his patriotism and military talents. A fruitless attempt was made by the British to bribe him to lend his support to a union of Vermont with Canada. He died suddenly at his estate in Colchester, February 13, 1789.-General Allen was a man of a strong and enterprising, but haughty and restless mind. Although his education had been circumscribed, he was daring in his pretensions to knowledge, and bold and peremptory in his assertions. Besides the narrative of his captivity, which we have noticed, and a number of pamphlets in the controversy with New York, he published a "Vindication of the Opposition of the Inhabitants of Vermont to the Government of New York, and their Right to form an independent State," 1779, and a work, entitled "Allen's Theology, or the Oracles of Reason," the first formal publication, in the U. States, openly directed against the Christian religion. A. was a confirmed infidel. He adopted some of the most fantastical and absurd notions imaginable, believing, with Pythagoras, that the soul of man, after death, would live again in beasts, birds, fishes, &c. He often told his friends, that he himself would live again under the appearance of a large white horse. However, there is an anecdote extant, which proves that he professed to entertain those ideas more from an affectation of singularity, than from conviction. Whilst sitting in his library, conversing with a physician by the name of Elliot, A. was informed that his daughter was dying, and desired to speak with him. He immediately repaired to her chamber, followed by doctor Elliot. His wife was distinguished for piety, and had instructed her daughter in the principles of Christianity. As soon as her father stood at her bedside, she said to him, "I am about to die; shall I believe in the principles you have taught me, or shall I believe in what my mother has taught me ?" He became greatly agitated; his chin quivered; his whole frame shook; and, after waiting a few moments, he replied, "Believe what your mother has taught you."