Painting, is the harmony that reigns among the lights and shades of a picture.

Accords, Stephen Tabourot, Seigneur des, advocate in the parliament of Dijon in France, and king's advocate in the bailiwick and chancery of that city, was born in 1549. He was a man of genius and learning; but too much addicted to trifles, as appears from his piece, entitled "Les Bigarrures," printed at Paris in 1582. This was not his first production, for he had before printed some sonnets. His work, entitled Les Touches, was published at Paris in 1585; which is indeed a collection of witty poems, but worked up in a loose manner, according to the licentious taste of that age. His Bigarrures are written in the same strain. He was censured for this way of writing, which obliged him to publish an apology. The lordship of Accords is an imaginary fief or title from the device of his ancestors, which was a drum, with the motto à tous accords, "chiming with all." He had sent a sonnet to a daughter of M. Begat, the great and learned president of Burgundy, "who (says he) did me the honour to love me." And inasmuch (continues he), I had subscribed my sonnet with only my device à tous accords, this lady first nicknamed me, in her answer, Seigneur des Accords; by which title her father also called me several times. For this reason I chose this surname, not only in all my writings composed at that time, but even in these books." He died in 1595, in the 46th year of his age.

Accorsio (in Latin Accursius), Francis, the elder, an eminent lawyer, was born at Bagno, near Florence, in 1182. He began the study of law at a late period of life; but such were his affluency and proficiency, that he soon distinguished himself. He was appointed professor at Bologna, and became a very eminent teacher. He undertook the great work of uniting and arranging into one body the almost endless comments and remarks upon the Code, the Institutes, and Digests, which, he observed, only tended to involve the subjects in obscurity and contradiction. When he was employed in this work, it is said, that hearing of a similar one proposed and begun by Odofred, another lawyer of Bologna, he feigned indisposition, interrupted his public lectures, and shut himself up, till he had, with the utmost expedition, accomplished his design. His work, entitled "A Perpetual Commentary," was much esteemed. It was printed with the "Body of Law," published at Lyons in 1627. He died in 1260, and left very great riches. His son, the younger Francis Accorso, succeeded him in his professorship, and accompanied Edward I. to England, on his return from the crusade in 1237. (Gent. Biog.)

Accorsio, Mariangelo, a learned and ingenious critic, was a native of Aquila, in the kingdom of Naples, and lived about the beginning of the sixteenth century. To a perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin, he added an intimate acquaintance with several modern languages. Classical literature was much improved and promoted by his labours. In discovering and collating ancient manuscripts he displayed uncommon affluency and diligence. His work, entitled "Diatribes," printed at Rome, in folio, in 1524, is a singular monument of erudition and critical skill. He bestowed, it is said, unusual pains on Claudian, and made above seven hundred corrections in the works of that poet, from different manuscripts. Unfortunately the world has been deprived of the advantage of these criticisms; for they were never published. These corrections were made while he travelled on horseback during a tour through Germany, a circumstance which is strongly characteristic of his industry and affluency. An edition of Ammianus Marcellinus, which he published at Augsburg in 1533, contains five books more than any former one. He was the first editor of the "Letters of Cassiodorus," with his "Treatise on the Soul." The affected use Account use of antiquated terms introduced by some of the Latin writers of that age, is humorously ridiculed in a dialogue published in 1531, entitled, "Ofco, Volso, Romanoque, Eloquentia, Interlocutoribus, Dialogus Ludis Romanis actus." He composed a book on the invention of printing. On the first leaf of a grammar of Donatus, printed on vellum, there is written with his own hand: "This Donatus, with another book entitled 'Confessionalia,' were the first books printed; and John Paulus, citizen of Mentz, inventor of the art, had put them to the press in the year 1450." He had been accused of plagiarism in his notes on Aufonius; and the solemn and determined manner in which he repelled this charge of literary theft, presents us with a singular instance of his anxiety and care to preserve his literary reputation untainted and pure.

It is in the following oath: "In the name of gods and men, of truth and sincerity, I solemnly swear, and, if any declaration be more binding than an oath, I in that form declare, and I declare that my declaration may be received as strictly true, that I have never read or seen any author, from which my own lucubrations have received the smallest affluence or improvement; nay, that I have even laboured, as far as possible, whenever any writer has published any observations which I myself had before made, immediately to blot them out of my own works. If in this declaration I am forsworn, may the pope punish my perjury; and may an evil genius attend my writings, so that whatever in them is good, or at least tolerable, may appear to the unkindful multitude exceedingly bad, and even to the learned trivial and contemptible; and may the small reputation I now possess be given to the winds, and regarded as the worthless boon of vulgar levity." (Gen. Biog.)