ALEXANDRIAN Manuscript, a famous copy of the Scriptures, consisting of four volumes, in a large quart size; which contains the whole Bible in Greek, including the Old and New Testament, with the Apocrypha, and some smaller pieces, but not quite complete. This manuscript is now preserved in the British Museum. It was sent as a present to King Charles I. from Cyrilus Lucaris, patriarch of Constantinople, by Sir Thomas Rowe, ambassador from England to the Grand Signior, about the year 1628. Cyrilus brought it with him from Alexandria, where probably it was written. In a schedule annexed to it, he gives this account: That it was written, as tradition informed them, by Thecla, a noble Egyptian lady, about 1300 years ago, not long after the council of Nice. But this high antiquity, and the authority of the tradition to which the patriarch refers, have been disputed; nor are the most accurate Biblical writers agreed about its age. Grabe thinks that it might have been written before the end of the fourth century; others are of opinion, that it was not written till near the end of the fifth century, or somewhat later.

or Alexandrine, in Poetry, a kind of verse consisting of twelve, or of twelve and thirteen syllables alternately; so called from a poem on the life of Alexander written in this kind of verse by some French poet. Alexandrines are peculiar to modern poetry, and seem well adapted to epic poems. They are sometimes used by most nations of Europe; but chiefly by the French, whose tragedies are generally composed of Alexandrines.