likewise, a Celtic academy was established at Paris, the objects of which were the elucidation of the history, manners, antiquities and monuments of the Celts, especially those in France; also, researches into the etymology of all European languages by the aid of the Celto-Breton, Welsh and Erse dialects; together with investigations respecting the Druidical worship. Lenoir is its president. Its transactions appear under the title Mémoires de l'Académie Celtique.-7. For the improvement of language. The Accademia della Crusca, or Academia Furfuratorum, was formed in 1582, and first attracted attention by its attacks on Tasso. Its principal merit consists in having compiled an excellent dictionary, and edited with care several of the ancient poets of Italy. The Académie Française, formed in 1629, was then a private association; six years after, it was raised by Richelieu to the dignity of an academy of the French language, grammar, poetry and eloquence. The number of members was fixed at 40, and from them a director and a chancellor were elected every two months, and a secretary for life. Besides many other valuable works, it has published a dictionary of the French language, (first edition in 1694.) At Madrid, the duke of Escalona founded an academy for the improvement of the Spanish language, in 1714, which the king endowed with various privileges. It has done much towards purifying and perfecting the language, especially by the compilation of a dictionary. In Petersburg, an academy for the improvement of the Russian language was founded in 1783, and united with the academy of sciences. In Sweden, also, a royal academy of language was instituted in 1789.-Many literary societies are distinguished only by name from academies. Such are the Royal Society of Sciences, at Göttingen, founded in 1750; the Royal Society of England, founded in 1645. This society has made observations and experiments on most of the works of nature; has improved agriculture, navigation, naval, civil and military architecture, &c. It has registered experiments, observations, &c., and, from time to time, published the most valuable, under the title of Philo sophical Transactions. The Royal Society of Dublin, for the encouragement of husbandry and the arts, established in 1731, has been one of the most active establishments of the kind in Europe. The Royal Society of Edinburgh was established in 1783 Besides these, there are the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1751; the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 1781; the literary associations of Haarlem, Flushing, Rotterdam, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Upsal, &c. From Europe they have spread to the other quarters of the globe. In Asia there has been a society of arts and sciences, at Batavia, since 1778; a society of sciences at Calcutta, in Bengal, since 1784; and one at Bombay, to which we are indebted for the most important information respecting India and other parts of the East. The principal learned academies and societies in the U. S. of America, are the following: 1. The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, founded in 1769. This society has published nine volumes, 4to., of Transactions. In 1815, it appointed a large committee to superintend a historical department, which has published one vol. 8vo. 2. The Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, founded in 1791. It has printed 22 vols., 8vo., of Collections. 3. The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Haven, founded in 1799, has published one vol. of Transactions. 4. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, founded in 1780, has published four vols., 4to., of Transactions. 5. The Historical Society of New York, founded in 1809, has published four vols., 8vo., of Collections. 6. The Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, founded in 1815, has published two vols., 4to., of Transactions. 7. The Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia, founded in 1818, has published five vols., 8vo. 8. The Lyceum of Natural History, New York, founded in 1818, has published two vols., 8vo. There are, besides, the Historical Society of Concord, New Hampshire, the Essex Historical Society, Salem, Massachusetts, the Columbian Institute, at Washington, D. C., and some others; but their publications have been few. Academies devoted to the promotion of the fine arts sprung up in the middle of the 16th century. The academy of Paris has been a model for many subsequent institutions of a similar character. The earliest union of painters, for objects similar to those of modern academies of art, was the fraternity, formed at Venice, in 1345, under the name of San Luca, which sprung from a society under the patronage of St. Sophia. However, neither this nor the society of San Luca, established at Florence, in 1350, bore the name of an academy. The Accademia di San Luca, founded at Rome, in 1593, by Frd. ACADEMY-ACAPULCO. Zucchero, first obtained a settled character in 1715. The academy at Milan may bave preceded the time of Leonardo da Vinci, who is generally regarded as its founder, The academies of Bologna, Parma, Padua, Mantua, Turin, are all of recent origin, and have never obtained the importance which such institutions acquire in large capitals, where the finest works of art serve as guides and incentives to genius. The Academy of Painting at Paris was established by Louis XIV, in 1648, and the Academy of Architecture by Colbert, in 1671., This latter now exists under the name of École Spéciale des Beaux Arts, and is divided into departments, in a way which might serve as a model. Since 1391, the painters of Paris have been united in a society called the Fraternity of St. Luke, which has received charters from several kings. Among the towns of France, Bordeaux had the earliest academy. We now find one in almost every town of consequence. The French academy at Rome, in the Villa Medici, is a branch of the academy of Paris. Nuremberg had the first establishment of this kind in Germany. Its academy, founded by Sandrart, 1662, and long conducted by him, gained new distinction from the celebrity of Preissler. The academy of Berlin was founded in 1694, was remodelled and received a fresh impulse in 1786; that of Dresden, established in 1697, was united with those of Leipzig and Meissen, in 1764, and has still the form given it by Hagedorn. The academy of Vienna was founded by Joseph I, and completed by Charles VI, in 1726; that of Munich was established in 1770; those of Düsseldorf and Manheim are more valuable now than they were originally. Weimar, Cassel, Frankfort, Bern, should not be omitted in this enumeration. The Academy of Painting at Madrid had its origin in 1752; the Royal Academy of Painting at London, in 1768. Lately, a branch of the London academy has been established at Rome, which, we have reason to hope, will prove more useful than the parent society. Edinburgh has possessed a similar society since 1754. At Brussels, Amsterdam, Antwerp, there are distinguished academies. Stockholm has had, since 1733, an academy of the fine arts, founded by count Tessin. Since 1738, one has existed at Copenhagen, but its privileges were conferred on it in 1754. This academy has exercised an important influence. The academy of Petersburg was founded in 1757, and extended in 1764. Its 25 influence in awakening diligence and enterprise among the Russian artists has been lately very apparent.-For schools of music, see Conservatory. ACADEMY. (See Plato.) ACADIA, the English, and ACADIE, the French spelling of the Indian name of Nova Scotia. Shuben-acadie is the present name of the principal river of Nova Scotia; shuben, in the Indian dialect of the country, signifying river. (See Nova Scotia.) ACANTHUS; the name of an ancient town in Egypt, also of one in Caria, and another in Macedonia (near mount Athos), &c.-Also, a genus of plants (commonly called bear's-breech), of the order angiospermia, class didynamia. The leaves of the A. are large, and very beautiful. It grows wild in Italy.-In architecture, an ornament resembling the leaves of the acanthus, used in the capitals of the Corinthian and Composite orders. ACAPULCO is the best Mexican harbor on the Pacific ocean; lon. 98° 50′ W., lat. 16° 50′ N.; pop. mostly people of color. Both the harbor and the roadstead are deep, with a secure anchorage from storms. It is the most considerable port on the S. W. side of Mexico. Heav ily-laden ships can lie at anchor, close to the granite rocks, which environ the roadstead and harbor. On account of the steepness of these rocks, the coast has a wild and barren appearance. At the entrance of the harbor is situated an island, Roqueta or Grifo, which forms a western entrance of 700 or 800 feet broad, and an eastern, a mile or a mile and a half broad, and from 24 to 33 fathoms deep. On the north-west lies the city, defended by fort San Diego, situated on an eminence. It has not more than 4000 inhabitants, mostly people of color. The number used to increase much on the arrival of the galleon from Manilla. Few commercial places have a more unhealthy situation. The usual heat in the day is from 86 to 90° Fahrenheit; in the night, till 3 o'clock, A. M., 78', and from that time till sunrise, 64 to 62'. The sun's rays are reflected by the white rocks upon the city, where no creature is comfortable, except the musquitoes. To procure fresh air, the Spanish government caused a passage to be cut through the rocks on the east; but neglected, what was far more necessary, to drain and dike the morass, on the same side, situated most favorably for the culture of the sugar-cane. About the middle of the dry season, the water disappears, and the effluvia of putrid substances infect the air. Here the yellow fever of the West Indies, and the cholera morbus of the East Indies, sweep away many strangers, and especially young Europeans. The calms, under the line, which frequently continue for a long time, are a natural obstacle, which renders a voyage from Callao to Acapulco more difficult, and often longer, than one from Callao to Cadiz. Steam-boats would be of great advantage in this quarter. In order to take advantage of the trade-winds, it is especially necessary to keep at a distance from the line. This, however, is impracticable on a coasting voyage from Acapulco to Callao. The exports hitherto from Acapulco have been mostly silver, indigo, cochineal, Spanish cloth, and some peltry, which comes from California and the northern part of Mexico. The imports consist of all the valuable productions of Asia. ACARNANIA, now called Il Carnia and Il Despotato; an ancient country of Epirus, divided from Ætolia by the Achelous. ACATHOLICI are, in general, those who do not belong to the Catholic church. In certain Catholic countries, Protestants are distinguished by this name, which is considered less odious. ACBAR. (See Akbar.) ACCELERATION. (See Mechanics.) ACCENT; the law which regulates the rising and falling of sounds or tones. Music and language, which are subject to this law, both originate in the feelings; and, although they at last separate from each other, and music remains the language of the heart, while speech, or language, properly so called, becomes the language of the mind, yet the latter does not entirely cease to speak to the heart; and music and language thus retain certain qualities in common; these are partly internal and partly external. Both are adapted to the expression of emotions; and thence arise the movements, sometimes slow and sometimes quick, which we perceive in them. They thus become subject to quantity or time; and we distinguish sounds, with reference to quantity, into long and short. In order to express an emotion distinctly and plainly, there must be a suitable arrangement of the organs for the sounds intended to be produced; for, in a series of sounds measured by the relation of time, and regulated also by relation to some fundamental tone, there will be found a certain connexion and association, which represent the emotions in their various relations and gradations; it is this also, which distinguishes correctly what is of primary importance from what is secondary, renders the unimportant subordinate to the important, and gives proper weight to that which is significant. A succession of tones thus becomes a musical composition, which comprehends in itself a definite meaning or sense; and, to express this, particular regard must be had to the signification and importance of single tones in connexion. The stress, which is laid on the tones, according to the gradations of meaning, constitutes what we call accent. We distinguish the acute, or rising accent, the grave, or falling, and the circumflex. The circumflex accent falls on those syllables or tones which are long in themselves; the grave properly denotes merely the absence of any stress; and thus we have only the acute left, to give a designation to tones. The reasons for designating a tone by accent, and dwelling on it longer than its established quantity requires, are either mechanical, rhythmical, or emphatical. We divide accent into grammatical and rhetorical, or the accent of words and of sentences, which last is called emphasis. The former rests on physical or mechanical causes; the latter has for its object the relations of ideas. The laws which govern both are briefly the following: A syllable or tone of the natural length receives the grammatical or verbal accent; but there are two causes, which distinguish some syllables of a word from the rest-their mechanical formation and their signification. In the word strengthen, for instance, mechanical causes compel the voice to dwell longer on the first syllable than on the second, and hence a greater stress is laid on that syllable. Rhetorical accent, or emphasis, is designed to give to a sentence distinctness and clearness. In a sentence, therefore, the stress is laid on the most important word, and in a word, on the most important syllable. Without attaching itself, in language, to the quantity of a word, or, in music, to a certain part of a bar, the accentual force dwells on the important part; and, in order that this force may be rendered still more distinguishable, it hastens over those parts, which, though otherwise important, the context renders comparatively unimportant. It follows, from what has been said, that the accent of words and the accent of sentences, or emphasis, may be united or separated at pleasure. It may now he asked, ACCENT-ACCESSARY. whether emphasis destroys verbal accent and quantity; and whether, for this reason, euphony does not suffer from emphasis. In answering this question (in which lies the secret of prosody in general, and the difference between the modern and ancient), four points come under consideration: 1. If the accent coincides with a syllable which is long from mechanical causes, it elevates the syllable, and imparts stress to its prosodial length. 2. The accent does not render an invariably long syllable short, but deprives it, if it immediately follows the accented syllable, of a portion of its length. The quantity, therefore, if it does not coincide with the accent, may be somewhat weakened by it. 3. Although the accent cannot render an invariably long syllable short, it can change the relative quantity of common syllables. 4. The accent can never fall on syllables invariably short. These are the rules which are of the greatest importance, not only to the versifier, but also to the declaimer, and to the actor, so far as he is a declaimer. The grammatical and rhetorical nomenclature of the English language is very defective and unsettled; and hence has arisen a great degree of confusion among all our writers on the subject of accent and quantity in English. We have perverted the true meaning of long and short, as applied to syllables or vowels; and, by our peculiar application of those terms, we have made ourselves quite unintelligible to foreign nations, who still use them according to their signification in the ancient languages, from which they are derived. An English writer of some celebrity (Foster, on Accent and Quantity), whose own work, however, is not free from obscurity, observes, that he has found the word accent used by the same writer in four different senses-sometimes expressing elevation, sometimes prolongation of sound, sometimes a stress of voice compounded of the other two, and sometimes the artificial accentual mark. For a long series of years, however, accent, as Johnson has remarked, in English prosody, has been the same thing with quantity; and another English writer of celebrity, bishop Horsley, observes, that it is a peculiarity of the English language that quantity and accent always go together, the longest syllable, in almost every word, being that on which the accent falls. In other languages, as Mitford justly remarks (Essay on the Harmony of Language), generally, the vowel character, representing indifferently a long or a short 27 sound, still represents the same sound, long or short. A contrary method is peculiar to English orthography. With us, the same vowel sound, long and short, is rarely represented by the same character; but, on the contrary, according to the general rules of our orthography, each character represents the long sound of one vowel and the short sound of another. This is eminently observable, as Dr. Johnson has remarked, in the letter i, which likewise happens in other letters, that the short sound is not the long sound contracted, but a sound wholly different. In addition to the difficulties arising from an imperfect nomenclature, as above remarked, there is an intrinsic difficulty in the extreme delicacy of the distinctions of tone, pitch and inflections in language, and the want of an established notation, corresponding to that which we have in music; and, we may add, in the words of Hermann (De Emendanda Ratione Græc. Gram.), "Quam pauci vero sunt, qui vel aliqua polleant aurium subtilitate ut vocum discrimina celeriter notare apteque exprimere possint!"-The Chinese are said to have but 330 spoken words; but these, being multiplied by the different accents or tones which affect the vowels, furnish a language tolerably copious. ACCEPTANCE. (Law.) An acceptance is an engagement to pay a bill of exchange according to the tenor of the acceptance, and a general acceptance is an engagement to pay according to the tenor of the bill. What constitutes an acceptance is, in many cases, a nice question of law; but the general mode is for the acceptor to write his name on some conspicuous part of the bill, accompanied by the word accepted. In France, Spain, and the other countries of Europe, where oral evidence in matters of contract is not admitted to the same extent as in England, a verbal acceptance of a bill of exchange is not valid. ACCESSARY, or ACCESSORY; a person guilty of an offence by connivance or participation, either before or after the act committed, as by command, advice, or concealment, &c. In high treason, all who participate are regarded as principals. Abettors and accomplices also come, in some measure, under this name, though the former not strictly under the legal definition of accessaries. An abettor is one who procures another to commit an offence, and in many, indeed in almost all cases, is now considered as much a principal as the actual offender. An accomplice is one of many persons 28 ACCESSARY-ACCOMPANIMENT. the embrace or kiss, given by the person who conferred the honor of knighthood. It is more probable that it consisted in an imitation of a blow on the neck, or on the cheek, signifying that this should be the last blow which the new-made knight should endure. The ceremony of striking the candidate with the naked sword, which afterwards took the place of the blow with the hand, had the same meaning. The Roman master also gave a blow to his slave, at the time of his emancipation, which, therefore, was called manumission; and in those parts of Germany where the ancient corporations of mechanics still continue, the apprentice receives a blow from the oldest journeyman, when his apprenticeship is at an end. The blow or stroke was in use among all Christian nations of the middle ages in conferring knighthood. (See Chivalry.) ACCLAMATION (acclamatio); in Roman antiquity, a shouting of certain words by way of praise or dispraise. In ages when people were more accustomed to give full utterance to their feelings, acclamations were very common, wherevera mass of people was influenced by one common feeling. We find, therefore, acclamations in theatres, senates, ecclesiastical meetings, elections, at nuptials, triumphs, &c. The senate of Rome burst into contumelious acclamations after the death of Domitian and Commodus. The theatrical acclamations were connected with music. Nero, who was as fond of music as of blood, ordered 5000 soldiers to chant acclamations when he played in the theatre, and the spectators were obliged to ACCOMMODATION; properly, the adapjoin them. In the corrupt period of the tation of one thing to another; in philosRoman empire, the children and favor- ophy, the application of one thing by ites of the emperors were received with analogy to another. It is also used in theloud acclamations, as the French empe- ology; thus, a prophecy of Scripture is ror was greeted with Vive l'empereur! said to be fulfilled improperly, or by way and the French king is with Vive le roi! of accommodation when an event hapThe Turks have a custom somewhat sim- pens to any place or people similar to that ilar, at the sight of their emperor and predicted of another. Some theologians grand viziers. The form among the also say that Christ said many things to Jews was Hosanna! The Greek em- his disciples by way of accommodation, perors were received with Ayaðŋ tuṛn! viz. entering into their views, and telling (good luck), or other exclamations. Be- them only what they were capable of unfore a regular system of voting is adopt- derstanding. Others think this theory ined, we find its place supplied, among all consistent with the purity of Christ. A., nations, by acclamations. So Tacitus in- in law, is used for an amicable agreement forms us that the Germans showed their or composition between two contending approbation of a measure by clashing parties. These accommodations are fretheir shields and swords. The bishops, in quently effected by means of compromise the early times of Christianity, were long and arbitration. elected by acclamation. In the course of time, acclamations were admitted into the churches, and the people expressed their approbation of a favorite preacher by exclaiming, Orthodox! Third apostle! &c. They seem to have been sometimes used as late as the age of St. Bernard. The first German emperors were elected by acclamation at a meeting of the people in the open air; and the Indians, in North America, show their approbation or disapprobation of proposed public measures by acclamations. ACCOLADE, a word derived from barbarous Latin, is composed of ad, to, and collum, neck, meaning, originally, an embrace. It signifies an ancient ceremony used in conferring knighthood. Antiquaries are not agreed wherein the accolade consisted. Some think it signifies ACCOMPANIMENT, in music, (French, accompagnement; Italian, accompagnamento,) is that part of music which serves for the support of the principal melody (solo or obligato part). This can be executed either by many instruments, by a few, or even by a single one. We have, therefore, pieces of music with an accompaniment for several, or only for a single instrument. The principles on which the effect of the accompaniment rests are so little settled, that its composition is perhaps more difficult than even that of the melody, or principal part. Frequently, the same musical thought, according to the character of the accompaniment, produces a good or bad effect, without our being able to give a satisfactory reason for the difference. Hitherto, the Italians have been most distinguished for |