STARWORT: A genus of the polygamia superflua order, belonging to the synangia class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 49th order, Compositae-oppitiflorae. The characters are: The common calyx is imbricated and roundish: The compound corolla is radiated; the hermaphrodite corolllets numerous in the disk; the female numerous in the ray: Proper corolla of the hermaphrodites are tubular and quinqued; of the females, tongued, loose, and two or three toothed: The stamina in the hermaphrodites consist of five short capillary filaments; the anthera cylindric and tubular: The pistillum has an ovate germen; a filiform stylas the length of the stamina; and two filiform figmata: There is no pericarpium, but the calyx unchanged: The seeds are ovate and foliary; the pappus is hairy; the receptaculum chaffy.—Of this there are two species.

Species. 1. The lynchitis, with one flower on each footstalk. This is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. It is a perennial plant, rising about three feet high, sending out many branches on each side, so as to form a bushy plant; the branches are garnished with obtuse spear-shaped leaves placed opposite, and are terminated by single naked flower-stalks, each supporting one violet-coloured flower, having a yellow dish, which is succeeded by oblong seeds. 2. The umbellatus, with flowers growing in umbels, is a native of Jamaica; and rises from two to three feet high, sending out many branches cloathed with opposite leaves, which are terminated by small flowers in umbels.

Culture. The first is easily propagated, either by cuttings planted in the summer-months, or by seeds sown on a moderate hot-bed in the spring; but the plants require a slight shelter in winter. The second is much more tender, and therefore requires to be preserved in a stove during the winter season.

AMELOT DE LA HOUSSAI (Nicholas), born at Orleans in 1634, was much esteemed at the court of France, and appointed secretary of an embassy which that court sent to the commonwealth of Venice, as appears by the title of his translation of Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent; but he afterwards published writings which gave such offence, that he was imprisoned in the Bastile. The first works he printed were the History of the Government of Venice, and that of the Ustocks, a people of Croatia. In 1683 he published his translations into French of Machiavel's Prince, and Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent, and Political Discourses of his own upon Tacitus. These performances were well received by the public. He did not prefix his own name to the two last mentioned works, but concealed himself under that of La Mothe Josselin. His translation of Father Paul was attacked by the partisans of the pope's unbounded power and authority. In France, however, it met with great success; all the advocates for the liberty of the Gallican church promoting the success of it to the utmost of their power, though at the same time there were three memorials presented presented to have it suppressed. When the second edition of this translation was published, it was violently attacked by the Abbé St Real, in a letter he wrote to Mr Bayle, dated October 17, 1685. Amelot defended himself, in a letter to the same gentleman. In 1684, he printed at Paris a French translation of Baltasar Gracian's Oraculo manual, with the title of l'Homme de Cour. In 1686, he printed La Morale de Tacite de la flatterie; in which work he collected several particular facts and maxims, which represent in a strong light the artifices of court-flatterers, and the mischievous effect of their poisonous discourses. Frederick Leonard, a bookseller at Paris, having proposed, in the year 1692, to print a collection of all the treaties of peace between the kings of France and all the other princes of Europe, since the reign of Charles VII. to the year 1690, Amelot published a small volume in duodecimo, containing a preliminary discourse upon these treaties; wherein he endeavours to show, that most princes, when they enter into a treaty, think more how to evade than how to perform the terms they subscribe to. He published also an edition of Cardinal d'Ossat's Letters in 1697, with several observations of his own; which, as he tells us in his advertisement, may serve as a supplement to the history of the reigns of Henry III. and Henry IV. kings of France. He wrote several other works; and died at Paris in 1706, being then almost 73 years of age.