1856. Mrs. Matthews (madame Vestris), long a celebrated dancer and pantomimist, died in England, aged 59. Her maiden name was Lucia Elizabeth Bartolozzi; she married Armand Vestris in 1813, and it was under this name that she was well known in Europe and America. She married Matthews in 1838.
AUGUST 9.
357 B. C. An eclipse of the moon which preceded the departure of Dion from Zacynthus (Zante) upon his celebrated expedition against the tyrant Dionysius the Younger. He entered Syracuse with his little band of 800 veterans in September, and in three days became master of the empire. The deaths of Democritus and
Hippocrates, each 104 years old, and of Timotheus, the Milesian poet and musician, took place in that year.
378. The great and disastrous battle of Adrianople, second only to that of Cannæ, in which the Roman legions under Valens, were for the first time defeated by the Cythian Goths. The wounded emperor was removed to a cottage, which was fired, and he perished in the flames.
1342. Sir Walter Manny raised the siege of Hennebon in Brittany, so nervously and heroically defended by Jane, countess of Montford, against the power of France.
1611. John Blagrave died; an early English mathematician of considerable eminence and a laborious author on his favorite science.
1634. Noy, attorney-general to Charles I of England, died at London. He is supposed to have devised the plan of levying ship money, which went into operation the day after his death.
1641. David Baker, an English Benedictine monk and ecclesiastical historian, died. He collected the records of the ancient congregation of the black or Benedictine monks in England, 6 vols. folio, and his religious treatises filled 9 folio vols. in manuscript.
1694. Anthony Arnauld, a French theological and philosophical writer, died. He was one of the most learned men of his age, and did much for the improvement of morality in the catholic church. His works were printed in more than 100 volumes of various sizes.