improved the methods and instruments of observation as to
earn the title of the Ptolemy of the Arabs.

ALBATROSS, the largest and strongest of sea-birds, that ranges over
the southern seas, often seen far from land; it is a superstition among
sailors that it is disastrous to shoot one.

ALBERO`NI, an Italian of humble birth, became a Cardinal of the
Church and Prime Minister to Philip V. of Spain, wrought hard to restore
Spain to its ancient grandeur, was defeated in his project by the
quadruple alliance of England, France, Austria, and Holland, and obliged
to retire (1664-1752).

ALBERT, archbishop of Mainz, a dignity granted him by Pope Leo X. at
the ransom of L15,000, which he was unable to pay, and which, as the
Pope needed it for building St. Peter's, he borrowed, the Pope granting
him the power to sell indulgences in order to repay the loan, in which
traffic Tetzel was his chief salesman, a trade which roused the wrath of
Luther, and provoked the German Reformation (1450-1545).

ALBERT, the last Grandmaster of the Teutonic knights, who being
"religious in an eminent degree and shaken in his belief" took zealously
to Protestantism and came under the influence of Luther, who advised him
to declare himself Duke of Prussia, under the wing of Sigismund of
Poland, in defiance of the Teutonic order as no longer worthy of bed and
board on the earth, and so doing, became founder of the Prussian State
(1490-1568).

ALBERT, markgrave of Brandenburg, defined by Carlyle "a failure of a
Fritz," with "features" of a Frederick the Great in him, "but who burnt
away his splendid qualities as a mere temporary shine for the able
editors, and never came to anything, full of fire, too much of it
wildfire, not in the least like an Alcibiades except in the change of
fortune he underwent" (1522-1557).

ALBERT, PRINCE, second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,
born Aug. 26, 1819, an accomplished man with a handsome presence, who
became the consort of Queen Victoria in 1840, and from his prudence and
tact was held in the highest honour by the whole community, but died at
Windsor of typhoid fever, Dec. 14, 1861, to the unspeakable sorrow of
both Queen and country.

ALBERT, ST., bishop of Liege, was assassinated by the emissaries of
the Emperor Henry VI. in 1195. Festival, Nov. 21.

ALBERT EDWARD. See WALES, PRINCE OF.

ALBERT I., emperor of Germany from 1298 to 1308, eldest son of
Rudolf of Hapsburg, "a mo