(William), an English divine, was born at Hadley in the county of Suffolk. He was one of the doctors of Trinity college in Cambridge; and he attended the earl of Essex as his chaplain in the expedition to Cadiz in the reign of queen Elizabeth. Alabaster is said, that his first resolutions of changing his religion were occasioned by his seeing the pomp of the churches of the Roman communion, and the respect with which the priests seemed to be treated amongst them; and appearing thus to waver in his mind, he soon found persons who took advantage of this disposition of his, and of the complaints which he made of not being advanced according to his deserts in England, in such a manner, that he did not scruple to go over to the Popish religion, as soon as he found that there was no ground to hope for greater encouragement in his own country. However that matter is, he joined himself to the Romish communion, but was disappointed in his expectations. He was soon displeased at this; he could not reconcile himself to the discipline of that church, which made no consideration of the degrees which he had taken before. It is probable too that he could not approve of the worship of creatures, which protestants used to look upon with horror. Upon this he returned to England, in order to resume his former religion. He obtained a prebend in the cathedral of St Paul, and after that the rectory of Thetford in Hertfordshire. He was well skilled in the Hebrew tongue; but he gave a wrong turn to his genius by studying the Cabala, with which he was strangely infatuated. He gave a proof of this in a sermon which he preached upon taking his degree of doctor of divinity at Cambridge. He took for his text the beginning of the first book of Chronicles, Adam, Seth, Enos; and having touched upon the literal sense, he turned immediately to the mystical, asserting, that Adam signified misfortune and misery, and so of the rest. His verses were greatly esteemed. He wrote a Latin tragedy, intitled Roxana; which, when it was acted in a college at Cambridge, was attended with a very remarkable accident. There was a lady who was so terrified at the last word of the tragedy, Seguar, Seguar, which was pronounced with a very shocking tone, that she lost her senses all her lifetime after. Alabaster was living in 1630. His Apparatus in Revelationem Jesu Christi was printed at Antwerp in 1607. As for his Spiraculum tubarum, seu fons Spiritualium Expositionum ex aquivoci Pentaglotti significationibus, and his Ecce Sponsus venit, seu tuba pulchritudinis, hoc est demonstratio quod non fit illicitum nec impossibile computare durationem mundi et tempus fecundi adventus Christi, they were printed at London. We may judge from these titles what the taste and genius of the author was.

natural history, a species of that genus of stones whose base is calcareous earth. It differs from marble in being combined, not with the aerial, but with vitriolic acid; therefore, when mixed with any acid, no effervescence appears. It is soluble in about 500 times its weight of water at the temperature of 60°. It is fusible alone in a long-continued porcelain heat, or by the blow-pipe. Specific gravity 1.87. Texture granular, with shining particles. In composition, and consequently in its chemical properties, it does not differ from gypsum, selenite, and plaster of Paris.

There are three species of alabaster. 1. The snow-white shining alabaster, or lygdinum of the ancients, is found in Taurus, in pieces large enough to make dishes, or the like. It cuts very freely, and is capable of a fine polish. 2. The yellowish alabaster, or phenites of Pliny, is found in Greece; and is of a soft alabaster, loose open texture, pretty heavy, and nearly of the colour of honey. This species has likewise been found in Germany, France, and in Derbyshire in England. 3. Variegated, yellow, and reddish alabaster. This species is the common alabaster of the ancients, and is so soft that it may be cut with a knife; it is remarkably bright, and almost transparent; admits of a fine polish, and consists of large angular flaky concretions. It is not proof against water; it ferments violently with aqua-fortis, and burns to a pale yellow. The colour of this species is a clear pale yellow resembling amber, and variegated with undulated veins; some of which are pale red, others whitish, and others of a pale brown. It was formerly brought from Egypt, but is now to be met with in several parts of England. The alabasters are frequently used by statuaries for small statues, vases, and columns. After being calcined and mixed with water, they may be cast in any mould like plaster of Paris. See Gypsum.

Alabaster, Mr Boyle observes, being finely powdered, and thus set in a bason over the fire, will, when hot, assume the appearance of a fluid, by rolling in waves, yielding to the smallest touch, and emitting vapour; all which properties it loses again on the departure of the heat, and discovers itself a mere incoherent powder. The fineness and cleanness of this stone renders it in some measure transparent; whence it has been sometimes also employed for windows. There is a church at Florence still illuminated by alabaster-windows; instead of panes of glass, there are slabs of alabaster near 15 feet high, each of which forms a single window, through which the light is conveyed. The countries in Europe which abound most in alabaster are Germany, toward Coblenz; the province of Maconnois, in the neighbourhood of Cluny in France; Italy, toward Rome; where that of Montaigu is particularly remarkable not only for its white-nefs, but also for the bigness of its blocks, some of which are so large, that statues as big as the life may easily be cut out of them. F. Labat, in his journey to Italy, observes, that there are quarries of alabaster in the neighbourhood of the village called de la Toffa, near Civita Vecchia: there is also alabaster to be found in some places of Lorraine; but it is not much esteemed. A new manufacture of basso relievo, from a singular species of factitious alabaster, has been some time ago established by M. Letapie, at the baths of St Philip in Tuscany. The stream at these baths deposits a peculiar kind of sand, which, when collected and condensed in the cavities of any body employed to oppose its current, acquires the nature, hardness, and colour of alabaster, and assumes the forms of those cavities in which it is thus lodged.

antiquity, a term used for a vase wherein odoriferous liquors were anciently put. The reason of the denomination is, that vessels for this purpose were frequently made of the alabaster-stone, which Pliny and other ancients represent as peculiarly proper for this purpose. Several critics will have the box mentioned in the Gospels as made of alabaster to have been of glass: And though the texts say that the woman broke it, yet the pieces seem miraculously to have been united, since we are told the entire box was purchased by the emperor Constantine, and preserved as a relic of great price. Others will have it, that the name alabafter denotes the form rather than the matter of this box: In this view they define alabafter by a box without a handle, deriving the word from the privative α, and ἀσάνης, ansa, handle.

Alabafter is also said to have been used for an ancient liquid measure, containing ten ounces of wine, or nine of oil. In this sense, the alabafter was equal to half the sextary.