[Au`ersperg, Count von], an Austrian lyrical and satirical poet, of liberal politics, and a pronounced enemy of the absolutist party headed by Metternich (1806-1876).
[Auf`recht, Theodor], eminent Sanskrit scholar, born in Silesia; was professor of Sanskrit in Edinburgh University; returning to Germany, became professor at Bonn; b. 1822.
[Aufklärung, The], or Illuminationism, a movement, conspicuously of the present time, the members of which pique themselves on ability to disperse the darkness of the world, if they could only persuade men to forego reason, and accept sense, common-sense, as the only test of truth, and who profess to settle all questions of reason, that is, of faith, by appeal to private judgment and majorities, or as Dr. Stirling defines it, "that stripping of us naked of all things in heaven and upon earth, at the hands of the modern party of unbelief, and under the guidance of so-called rationalism."
[Auge`as], a legendary king of Elis, in Greece, and one of the Argonauts; had a stable with 3000 oxen, that had not been cleaned out for 30 years, but was cleansed by Hercules turning the rivers Peneus and Alpheus through it; the act a symbol of the worthless lumber a reformer must sweep away before his work can begin, the work of reformation proper.
[Auger], a French littérateur, born at Paris, renowned as a critic (1772-1829).
[Au`gereau, Pierre François Charles], marshal of France and duke of Castiglione, born at Paris; distinguished in the campaigns of the Republic and Napoleon; executed the coup d'état of the 4th Sept. 1797; his services were rejected by Napoleon on his return from Elba, on account of his having supported the Bourbons during his absence. He was simply a soldier, rude and rough-mannered, and with no great brains for anything else but military discipline (1757-1816).
[Au`gier, Émile], able French dramatist, produced brilliant comedies for the French stage through a period of 40 years, all distinctly on the side of virtue. His only rivals were Dumas fils and M. Sardou (1820-1889).
[Augs`burg] (75), a busy manufacturing and trading town on the Lech, in Bavaria, once a city of great importance, where in 1531 the Protestants presented their Confession to Charles V., and where the peace of Augsburg was signed in 1555, ensuring religious freedom.
[Augsburg Confession], a document drawn up by Melanchthon in name of the Lutheran reformers, headed by the Elector of Saxony in statement of their own doctrines, and of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, against which they protested.
[Augurs], a college of priests in Rome appointed to forecast the future by the behaviour or flight of birds kept for the purpose, and which were sometimes carried about in a coop to consult on emergencies.