[Anschar] or Ansgar, St., a Frenchman born, the first to preach Christianity to the pagans of Scandinavia, was by appointment of the Pope the first archbishop of Hamburg (801-864).
[Anselm, St.], archbishop of Canterbury, a native of Aosta, in Piedmont, monk and abbot; visited England frequently, gained the favour of King Rufus, who appointed him to succeed Lanfranc, quarrelled with Rufus and left the country, but returned at the request of Henry I., a quarrel with whom about investiture ended in a compromise; an able, high-principled, God-fearing man, and a calmly resolute upholder of the teaching and authority of the Church (1033-1109). See [Carlyle's] "Past and Present."
[Anson, Lord], a celebrated British naval commander, sailed round the world, during war on the part of England with Spain, on a voyage of adventure with a fleet of three ships, and after three years and nine months returned to England, his fleet reduced to one vessel, but with £500,000 of Spanish treasure on board. Anson's "Voyage Round the World" contains a highly interesting account of this, "written in brief, perspicuous terms," witnesses Carlyle, "a real poem in its kind, or romance all fact; one of the pleasantest little books in the world's library at this time" (1697-1762).
[Anstruther, East and West], two contiguous royal burghs on the Fife coast, the former the birthplace of Tennant the poet, Thomas Chalmers, and John Goodsir the anatomist.
[Antæus], a mythical giant, a terræ filius or son of the earth, who was strong only when his foot was on the earth, lifted in air he became weak as water, a weakness which Hercules discovered to his discomfiture when wrestling with him. The fable has been used as a symbol of the spiritual strength which accrues when one rests his faith on the immediate fact of things.
[Antal`cidas], a Spartan general, celebrated for a treaty which he concluded with Persia whereby the majority of the cities of Asia Minor passed under the sway of the Persians, to the loss of the fruit of all the victories gained over them by Athens (387 B.C.).
[Antananari`vo] (100), the capital of Madagascar, in the centre of the island, on a well-nigh inaccessible rocky height 5000 ft. above the sea-level.
[Antar], an Arab chief of the 6th century, a subject of romance, and distinguished as a poet.
[Ant-eaters], a family of edentate mammals, have a tubular mouth with a small aperture, and a long tongue covered with a viscid secretion, which they thrust into the ant-hills and then withdraw covered with ants.
[Antelope], an animal closely allied to the sheep and the goat, very like the latter in appearance, with a light and elegant figure, slender, graceful limbs, small cloven hoofs, and generally a very short tail.