He was send me money, but who they were I never | relating to Anne Askew are taken from an knew." She afterwards says "Then they unpublished manuscript by Bale], book iv. did put me on the rack because I confessed 242.) no ladies nor gentlewomen to be of my opinion, and thereon they kept me a long time, and because I lay still and did not cry, my lord chancellor and Master Rich took pains to rack me with their own hands till I was nigh dead." "Whether it was noble in these lords, or legal in these lawyers, or conscientious in these chancellors, to rack one already condemned to death," says Fuller in his "Church History," "belongeth to others to determine." There has been some dispute as to the fact, but without sufficient reason, for the veracity of Anne Askew is apparent through the whole of her simple narrative. On (according to Stow) the 16th of July, 1546, she was burned at Smithfield, in company with Nicolas Belerian, a priest of Shropshire, John Aldams, a tailor, and John Lassels, a gentleman of the court and household of King Henry, whom Anne in one part of her writings calls her preceptor. She was brought to Smithfield in a chair, being unable to stand on account of her sufferings from the rack. Doctor Shaxton, formerly bishop of Salisbury, who had recanted his own opposition to the Six Articles, preached a sermon to the sufferers, after which the lord chancellor Wriothesley, who was present, sent to Anne Askew her pardon, already made out and sealed, in case she would recant, but she refused to look at it, and said that she did not come there to defy her lord and master. The others made a like refusal -on which the lord mayor commanded fire to be put to them, crying with a loud voice "Fiat justitia." Anne Askew is enumerated by Bale in his catalogue of English authors, on account of her narratives of her examinations, which were published by Bale himself in two small pamphlets, at Marburg, in Hesse, the first in November, 1546, and the second in January, 1547. The text of Anne Askew is accompanied with a running commentary by Bale, which is omitted in Fox's "Book of Martyrs," in which her very interesting narrative is reprinted at length. At the end are some specimens of her poetry, and Bale mentions her as the author of many religious songs. The best which he gives is one beginning 66 Lyke as the armed knyght And fayth shall be my shielde." T. W. ASKEW, ANTHONY, was descended from a respectable Westmoreland family, and was born at Kendal, in 1722. first sent to school at Sedbergh, but afterwards removed to the grammar-school at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. "He told me," says Dr. Parr, "that he had received a part of his education under Richard Dawes at Newcastle, and with great pleasantry he described the astonishment and terror which he felt upon his first interview with a schoolmaster whose name was a μορμολύκειον in the north of England." It was from Dawes, in all probability, that Askew imbibed his taste for Greek literature. From school he went to Emanuel College, Cambridge, where he continued until he took his degree of M.B. and was elected a fellow in 1745, after which he studied for a year at Leiden. He then travelled for some time, visited Hungary, resided at Athens and Constantinople, at the latter city in company with Sir James Porter, the English ambassador to the Porte, and finally returned home through Italy. In 1749, having previously become a fellow of the Royal Society, he received the honour of being elected one of the free academicians of the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris. In the next year he took his degree of M.D. at Cambridge, after which he established himself in London as a physician, and continued for the rest of his life in good practice, occupying the posts of physician to St. Bartholomew's and to Christ's Hospital, and registrar of the College of Physicians. His death took place at his house in Hampstead, on the 27th of April, 1774. He was married twice, the second time to Elizabeth Halford," a woman," says Dr. Parr, "of celestial beauty and celestial virtue," by whom he left a family of twelve children. His father, Dr. Adam Askew, who was regarded as the Radcliffe of the North of England, died in 1773, only a year before his son, at the age of seventy-nine. Dr. Askew never published any medical work. While at Leiden, in 1746, he issued a "Novæ editionis Tragoediarum Eschyli Specimen, curante A. Askew," in a small quarto pamphlet, dedicated to Dr. Mead, in which he gave the various readings of nineand-twenty lines of the "Eumenides" only (ver. 563 to 591, in Schütz's edition), and this was his only work. He had, however, while in Greece, collected a hundred and ninety-two Greek inscriptions of sufficient length to fill an octavo volume of a hundred and forty-two pages, which, on the sale of his manuscripts, passed into the hands of Dr. Burney, and now forms the 402nd volume of the Burney collection in the British Museum, in the printed catalogue of which each inscription will be found mi nutely specified. On the last appears the memorandum "Finished the copy of this, January the 24th, 1748, the 2nd day of my Quarrentine" (sic) "at Malta." The 523rd volume of the same collection contains a few proposed emendations of texts in Euripides and Galen, also by Dr. Askew. At the end of the specimen before mentioned are proposals for publishing a complete critical edition of Eschylus in three volumes quarto, and during the rest of his life Askew collected notes and collations for this projected labour, but seems to have advanced no farther. In Butler's edition of Eschylus, published between 1809 and 1816, most of Askew's collections were made use of, and a volume in his handwriting, which contained a collation of five codices, was referred to as Askew's. Bishop Blomfield, who discovered that the volume was entirely a transcript from a similar one in the hand-writing of Peter Needham, with some bibliographical errors, takes notice of the fact in the prefaces to his editions of the Prometheus and the Seven against Thebes, in terms as little complimentary to the honesty as to the learning of Askew, and which in fact it would require a distinct proof of fraudulent intention on the part of Askew to justify. The Doctor's reputation as a Greek scholar, which was diffused over all Europe during his life-time, appears, on the whole, to have shrunk to small dimensions. He is now chiefly remembered as a friend of learned men and a collector, especially in the latter capacity. He was intimate with Dr. Mead; and among those who were accustomed to frequent his house in Queen-square were Archbishop Markham, Sir William Jones, Dr. Farmer of Cambridge, Dr. Taylor, the editor of Demosthenes, and Dr. Parr, who describes Askew as 66 one of his earliest and firmest friends." The house was crowded with books, even up to the garrets; the collection was chiefly classical, and it was its possessor's aim to have every edition of a Greek author. During the life-time of Dr. Mead he bought of him his manuscripts for 500l., and Taylor, in his will, bequeathed all his manuscripts to Askew. The doctor was perpetually adding to his collection, which he is said to have been very willing to show to his friends. "It was to be expected," says Dr. Dibdin, "that the public would one day be benefited by such pursuits; especially," he adds, apparently by way of explanation, "as he" (Dr. Askew) "had expressed a wish that his treasures might be unreservedly submitted to sale after his decease." This intention was carried into effect, and a proposal made by the king to purchase the entire library for 5000l. was declined. If this offer was for the printed books only, the refusal of it was much to the disadvantage of the family, for at the sale they only produced the sum of 39931. Os. 6d. The auction took place in 1775, lasted twenty days, and comprised 3570 lots. The five principal purchasers were the King, to the amount of about 300l.; Dr. Hunter, to the amount of 500l.; the King of France, for about 500l. more; the British Museum, and Mr. Cracherode; and the purchases of three of the five, the King, the Museum, and Mr. Cracherode, are now concentrated in the great national collection. The prices obtained were in general much higher than those which Dr. Askew had given. His copy of the first edition of "Cicero de Officiis," printed by Fust in 1465, which he had bought for 13 guineas, sold for 301.; his Olivet's Cicero, on large paper, rose from 14 guineas to 361. 15s.; and the edition of Pliny's "Natural History," printed at Venice by Spira, which had cost him only 11 guineas, brought 43l. This copy is now in the British Museum. Askew's sale was nevertheless looked back to as a time of cheapness, when the bibliomania, as it was called, had afterwards risen to its height within the first ten years of the present century. The auction of the manuscripts did not take place, in consequence of delay arising from family arrangements, till ten years later, in 1785, and not in 1781, as erroneously stated by Nichols and Dibdin. The number of lots was 663, and it comprised many articles of interest, among others, as already mentioned, the manuscripts of Mead and Taylor. An Appendix to Scapula's Greek and Latin Lexicon which was edited by Dr. Charles Burney in 1789, is described by him as being taken "e codice manuscripto olim Askeviano." A verbal index to Aristophanes, by John Caravella, an Epirote, which was published at Oxford in 1822, is mentioned in the preface to be one of a series of verbal indexes to Greek authors, which were formerly in Askew's and are now in the Bodleian Library. The editor states that he was unable to discover who or what the compiler was, but if his researches had led him to Hirsching's "Historisch-literarisches Handbuch," he would have found there the information, probably taken from some English source, that John Carabella, or Caravella, was the name of Dr. Askew's librarian. An engraved portrait of Askew is given in the second volume of Dibdin's enlarged edition of Ames's "Typographical Antiquities." In Dr. Macmichael's "Gold-headed Cane there is a full length representation of him, from a model in unbaked potters'-clay, then in the possession of Sir Lucas Pepys, who had married one of Dr. Askew's daughters, but since presented by Sir Lucas to the College of Physicians. This model was the production of a poor Chinese named Chetqua, who made it as a token of gratitude for the kindness he had received from the doctor, to whom he had been brought when in London as to one who, from having travelled in "the East," was likely to have a knowledge of Chinese. The bust of Dr. Mead, at the College of Physicians, was presented by Dr. Askew, who engaged Roubiliac to execute it for 501., and was so satisfied with the work that he gave him 1007., to which the sculptor replied by sending in a bill for 1087. 2s. Dr. Mead gave to Askew the gold-headed cane which he had himself received from Radcliffe, and which, after passing through the hands of Pitcairn and Baillie, was finally presented by Miss Joanna Baillie to the College of Physicians. (The Gold-headed Cane, by Dr. Macmichael, p. 119-132; Mackenzie, Account of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, p. 505; Cantabrigienses Graduati, p. 12; Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, iii. 494, &c.; Gentleman's Magazine, lxxii. 492, i. (new series) p. 194, &c.; Dibdin, Bib-| liomania, pp. 5, 15, &c.; Dr. Parr, Works, vii. 593, 668; Hirsching, Historisch-literarisches Handbuch, i. 65; Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, new series, i. Burney Collection, 141-146, &c.; Askew's Manuscripts in the British Museum, sale catalogues, &c.) T. W. ASKEW, SIR GEORGE. [AYSCUE.] ASLA'CUS, CUNRA'DUS, was born on the 28th of June, 1564, at Bergen, in Norway. He first received the private instruction of a pastor in that town, and, after the death of his parents, was sent to school at Malmö. In 1584 he entered the university of Copenhagen, where a stipend granted to him by the chapter of Bergen enabled him to pursue a varied course of study. His zeal for the mathematical sciences procured him admission, in 1584, to the house of Tycho Brahe. Here he enjoyed the instruction of that astronomer for three years, and so entirely secured his approbation, that it was through his letters of recommendation that he obtained a liberal pension from the king to support him on his travels. In 1593 he accepted the rectorate of the school at Malmö, but was enabled in the year after to commence his journey. Six years were now consumed in visiting Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and Scotland. In 1600 he set sail from Leith, and landed at Callundborg, bringing with him Otto Brahe, the son of the astronomer. Soon after his arrival he was appointed professor of philosophy in the university of Copenhagen. In 1607 he became doctor and professor of theology. He lectured on the Latin and Greek languages; and, for more than six years, on the Hebrew. He died on the 7th of February, 1624. His chief works, of which a fuller list is given by Freher, are" Physica et Ethica Mosaica, duobus libris," Hanau, 1613, 8vo. "Oratio de Religionis per Lutherum Reformata Origine et Progressu in Germania et in Regnis Daniæ et Norwegiæ ab anno MDXVII ad annum hujus seculi XVII," Copenhagen, 1621, 4to., which appeared the year following, at the same place, in a | Danish and in a German translation. "Grammatices Hebraicæ Libri Duo," Copenhagen, 1606, 8vo. (Freher, Theatrum Virorum Clarorum, p. 419; Walch, Bibliotheca Theologica Selecta, iii. 331.) J. N-n. ASMONEANS, more properly CHASHMONÆANS (DD), a dynasty or family conspicuous in the annals of the Jewish nation, during a period of one hundred and thirty years. The founder of the family, Asmonæus, or Asamonæus (DWN, 'Aσauovalos), is not known in history, and it was perhaps the significative etymology of his name ( fatness, from an obsolete verb, Dn, he was fat) which induced the later Jewish chroniclers to distinguish his more illustrious descendants by the title of Asmonæans. Asmonæus was a Levite of the class Joiarib, or Jehoiarib; and from his name it may be inferred that he was a man of substance, a wealthy man, a prince, or noble. The word Den occurs in the Bible (Joshua, xv. 29) as the name of a town in the tribe of Judah, and (feminine) as the name of a station of the Israelites in the desert (Numbers, xxxiii. 29). The word 'n occurs only once (Psalm lxviii. 32) in the sense of nobles or princes-"Princes shall come out of Egypt;" or, as it is sometimes rendered, "The Chashmonæans shall come out of Egypt." The corresponding word in Arabic has the same signification as in our authorized version-men of substance, magnates, princes, nobles. Asmonæus was perhaps contemporary with the immediate successors of Alexander the Great. His son, Simon, and his grandson, John, are undistinguished in history; but in the person of Mattathias, his great-grandson, the Asmonæan family emerged from obscurity. It will be useful to glance briefly at the condition of the Jews from B.c. 323 to B.C. 167. Upon the death of Alexander the Great, and the partition of the Macedonian empire, the Jews were alternately subject to the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucidæ of Syria. Their fortune was various. At one time they were the victims of military outrage and religious persecution; at another time their civil rights were respected, their religion tolerated, and their temple unprofaned. Both before and after the establishment of the Græco-Egyptian and GræcoSyrian monarchies, Palestine was frequently the battle-field of contending armies, and conquerors and conquered seemed to vie with each other in plundering and insulting the inhabitants. Towards the latter end of the reign of the first Ptolemy (Lagi) they enjoyed an interval of tranquillity. Under his successor, Philadelphus, they experienced a mild and beneficent government. To him they owed the release of one hundred and twenty thousand captives, and the Septuagint version of their sacred writings [ARISTEAS]; and he still further conciliated them by munificent donations to their holy temple at Jerusalem. The third Ptolemy (Euergetes) | was also benevolently disposed towards them. But his successor Ptolemy Philopator occupied Jerusalem with a hostile army, pillaged the inhabitants, and insulted their religion. Seleucus Nicator (B.c. 312), the founder of the dynasty of the Seleucidæ, conferred various privileges upon the Jews in his dominions; and Antiochus the Great (B.c. 223), after recovering Judæa from Ptolemy Philopator and his son Ptolemy Epiphanes, rewarded the Jews for their adherence to him by remitting a portion of their taxes, and securing to them the free exercise of their religion. But Judæa was afterwards ceded by him, as a marriage portion with his daughter Cleopatra, to Ptolemy Epiphanes. Antiochus Epiphanes, the eighth of the Syrian kings, began to reign B.C. 175. During his reign the Jews were subject to a persecution almost unparalleled in the history of any nation. Antiochus sought to win Egypt from its youthful king, Ptolemy Philometor; but the Romans, who now began to interfere in the disputes of the Eastern princes, prevented him from completely subjugating the country. Raging with disappointment, with an army flushed with conquest, and indignant at not reaping its fruits, he determined to wreak his vengeance upon Judæa. In B.C. 170 he took Jerusalem; forty thousand of the inhabitants were massacred, and as many sold into slavery; the temple was pillaged of its sacred treasures; and, upon his departure to Antioch, he ordered his vicegerents to carry on the work of destruction, and to root out the Jewish nation and religion from the face of the earth. But the Jews themselves, by their previous intestine discord, were in a great measure the cause of this fierce persecution. The long intercourse, which they had held with the Greeks since the time of Alexander the Great, had alienated the minds of not a few of them from the religion and customs of their ancestors. Two priests, Jesus, otherwise Jason, and Onias, otherwise Menelaus, who had each of them successively purchased the high-priesthood from Antiochus, strove which should excel the other in his zeal for everything Greek; Greek observances, Greek laws, Greek games, and the Greek religion; and these traitors numbered their partisans by thousands among the infatuated populace. [JESUS, otherwise JASON, and ONIAS, otherwise MENELAUS.] In the year B.C. 167, the temple at Jerusalem was proclaimed to be the temple of Olympian Jupiter, and the prophecy of Daniel respecting the" Abomination of desolation" is said to have been fulfilled, when an idol altar with swine's flesh for a sacrifice was erected upon the altar of Jehovah. At the same time an edict was promulgated commanding the inhabitants of the whole country to refrain from circumcising their children, to eat swine's flesh, and to sacrifice to the heathen deities. Apelles, a king's officer, came to Modin, a small city on the sea-coast west of Jerusalem, to enforce the king's edict. Mattathias, who was then resident at Modin, repaired with his five sons, Joannan called Caddis, Simon called Thassi, Judas called Maccabæus, Eleazar called Avaran, and Jonathan called Apphus, to the place of sacrifice. Here the king's officers were endeavouring to induce the people to comply with the edict, and Apelles perceiving Mattathias to be a man of considerable influence, attempted to persuade him to sacrifice to the idol; but Mattathias indignantly refused, and when one of his countrymen came forward to sacrifice," he ran and slew him upon the altar." Apelles, the king's officer, was the next victim of his zeal: he then pulled down the altar, and crying out “Whosoever is zealous of the law and maintaineth the covenant, let him follow me," he escaped with his sons to the mountains. This was the glorious commencement of a struggle in behalf of the religion and liberties of the Jewish nation. A large body of Jews, more particularly the sect of the Assidæans, rallied round Mattathias and his sons, who now carried on a species of guerilla warfare, and by frequent incursions and cutting off the king's troops in small detachments, considerably harassed the enemy. Mattathias, who was advanced in years, died peaceably soon after. His sons continued the struggle, and by a series of brilliant victories, succeeded in rescuing their country from the persecution of the Syrian kings. [MACCABEES.] Simon Thassi, the last of the five sons of Mattathias, was treacherously killed with two of his sons, B.C. 135, by his son-in-law Ptolemy, governor of the castle of Docus. John Hyrcanus succeeded him in the highpriesthood, and, B.C. 126, assumed the title of king of Judæa. [HYRCANUS I.] Aristobulus I. succeeded, B.c. 107. [ARISTOBULUS I.] Alexander Jannæus, his brother, reigned from B.c. 106 to B.C. 79. His wife Alexandra created her son Hyrcanus II. highpriest, and governed the kingdom herself from B.c. 78 to B.C. 69. [ALEXANDRA.] Upon her death Aristobulus II., her second son, asserted his claim to the throne. Hyrcanus consented to resign the royal authority, but he afterwards appealed to Pompey to reinstate him. This dispute first brought the Jews into immediate contact with the Roman power. Cn. Pompeius decided in favour of Hyrcanus B.C. 63. Aristobulus shut himself up in the city, and, after a siege of three months, was carried prisoner to Rome. In B.c. 49, he was poisoned by the adherents of Pompey. [ARISTOBULUS II.; HYRCANUS II.] His son Alexander was shortly afterwards put to death by Metellus Scipio. [ALEXANDER, son of ARISTOBULUS II. His second son Antigonus obtained possession of Jerusalem by the assistance of the His son Parthians, and took Hyrcanus prisoner. He cut off his uncle's ears, and thus disabled him from again exercising the sacerdotal functions. Herod the Great was made king of Judæa by the Romans B.C. 40, and B.c. 37 he besieged Jerusalem, took the city by storm, and made Antigonus prisoner. Antigonus shortly afterwards was beheaded by M. Antonius. [ANTIGONUS, Son of ARISTOBULUS II.] He was the last of pure Asmonæan descent who held sovereign power in Judæa. Under the Asmonæan princes, the Jews as a nation resumed a comparatively independent position, which they had not occupied since the Babylonish captivity. The sons of Mattathias were the most illustrious of the family. Their foreign and domestic policy were alike admirable: they not only exacted respect from neighbouring princes, but they quelled the spirit of faction, and raised the standard of morals among their countrymen. Firm and united among themselves; exemplars of every virtue; religious, brave, and patriotic, as they were the benefactors of their country, they deserved to be its rulers. A grateful people confirmed the government to their descendants, and it was natural that in the course of time they should assume the dignity of kings. But these degenerated from the virtues of their ancestors, and the contention for the crown between Hyrcanus II. and Aristobulus II. paved the way for the usurpation of Herod the Great, who was only a half-Jew. Herod was maintained in his authority by the Romans, and Judæa became virtually a province of the Roman empire. After the death of Antigonus, it is melancholy to trace the calamities of the surviving members of the Asmonæan family. Aristobulus, the high-priest, son of Alexander and grandson of Aristobulus II., was treacherously murdered by Herod, B.C. 35. He was the idol of the populace, and only seventeen years old. [ARISTOBULUS, the son of ALEXANDER.] Hyrcanus II. was murdered B.C. 30. His grand-daughter, the beautiful and unfortunate Mariamne, was the second wife of Herod, who passionately loved her. But she also was murdered by him on an unfounded charge of adultery and treason, B.C. 29. Her mother Alexandra met a similar fate the following year. [ALEXANDRA, daughter of HYRCANUS II.] Aristobulus and Alexander, the two sons of Herod by Mariamne, were put to death by their father, B.C. 6. These were the last of the Asmonæan family that were slaughtered by Herod. In all, nine of the royal family of Judæa perished at his command or instigation. Grey hairs, youth, beauty, and innocence were sacrificed to maintain a tyrant on a usurped throne. [HEROD THE GREAT.] But the blood of the Asmonæan princes, though polluted with that of Herod, still flowed in the veins of Agrippa, the grandson of Mariamne, and in her great-grandson Agrippa II., the last of the Jewish kings. [AGRIPPA HERODES and AGRIPPA HERODES II.] |