[Ullswater], second largest of the English lakes, lies between Cumberland and Westmorland, 8 m. long, and its average breadth 1 m.; is looked down upon by Helvellyn, on the SW.
[Ulm] (36), city of Würtemberg, on the Danube, 46 m. SE. of Stuttgart; was an imperial free city, and is a place of great importance; is famed for its cathedral, which for size ranks next to Cologne, as well as for its town hall; has textile manufactories and breweries, and is famed for its confectionery; here General Mack, with 28,000 Austrians, surrendered to Marshal Key in 1805.
[Ulotrichi], name given to the races that have crisp or woolly hair.
[Ulphilas], Gothic bishop; famous for his translation of the Scriptures into Gothic, the part which remains being of great philological value; was an Arian in theology (311-381).
[Ulrici, Hermann], German philosopher and literary critic, born in Lower Lusatia; professor at Halle; wrote against the Hegelian philosophy as pantheistic, and also studies in Shakespeare (1806-1884).
[Ulster] (1,617), the northern province of Ireland, is divided into the nine counties of Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone, and has an area of 8560 sq. m.; became an English settlement in 1611, and was largely colonised from Scotland; it is the most Protestant part of the island, though the Catholics predominate, and is the most enterprising and prosperous part; the land is extensively cultivated, and flax growing and spinning the chief industries.
[Ultimus Romanorum] (the last of the Romans), name given by Cæsar to Brutus, as one with whom the old Roman spirit would become extinct; applied to the last of any sturdy race.
[Ultramontanism], name given to extreme views in the matter of the prerogatives and authority of the Pope, so called in France as prevailing on the other side of the Alps.
[Ulugh-Beg], a Tartar prince, grandson of Tamerlane; astronomy was a favourite study of his, and in the patronage of it he founded an observatory at Samarcand; after a reign of 40 years conjointly with his father and by himself, he was put to death by a son who had rebelled against him (1394-1449).
[Ulysses] (i. e. Greek Odysseus), chieftain of Ithaca, one of the Greek heroes in the Trojan War, in which he was with difficulty persuaded to join, but in which, however, he did good service both by his courage and his counsels; he is less famed for what he did before Troy than for what befell him in his ten years' wandering homeward after, as recorded by Homer in a separate poem called after him the "[Odyssey]" (q. v.), which relates his stay among the [lotus-eaters] (q. v.), his encounter with [Polyphemus] (q. v.), the enchantments of [Circe] (q. v.), the [Sirens] (q. v.), and [Calypso] (q. v.), and his shipwreck, &c. Tennyson represents him as impatient of the humdrum life of Ithaca on his return, and as longing to join his Trojan comrades in the Isles of the Blessed. See [Penelope] and [Telemachus].