James Van, a brewer of Ghent, in the fourteenth century, who, by means of his enormous wealth and popular talents, acquired such an ascendancy over his countrymen that he was enabled to expel the Count of Flanders, and assume absolute power. He formed a commercial alliance with Edward III. of England, and persuaded the English to lend him assistance in his war with France. The French, however, prevailed; and Artevelde, who now began to dread the vengeance of the Count of Flanders, en-

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1 The first artesian well in London was sunk in 1794. Examples of the same may be seen at the Bishop's palace at Falham, and several in the town of Brentford. Arthritic deavoured to secure the interest of the English in his favour by transferring the sovereignty of Flanders to the Prince of Wales. This he attempted to effect by force; but the people beset his house and assassinated him. After this event, which took place in 1345, the Prince of Wales returned to England.

Philip Van Artevelde, son of the preceding, was raised to the sovereignty during a revolt of the people in 1382. He defeated the Count of Flanders, and obtained possession of Bruges; but, in November of the same year, he was defeated and slain by the count, assisted by the French, in a battle fought near Rosbecq, and his body was ignominiously hung on a tree.

**ARTHritic**, a term applied by physicians, in a restricted sense, to painful affections of the joints arising from gout. The word is derived from *αγχος*, a joint.

**Arthur**, the celebrated hero of the Britons, is said to have been the son of Uther Pendragon, king of Britain, by Igerne, the wife of the Duke of Cornwall, and to have been born in 501. His life is a continued series of wonders. It is said that he killed 470 Saxons with his own hand in one day; and, after having subdued many mighty nations, and instituted the order of the Knights of the Round Table, died A.D. 542, of wounds which he received in battle. The most particular detail of his story and his exploits is that given by Geoffrey of Monmouth; but there the probable is so blended with the marvellous and extravagant, that not only the truth of the whole, but even the reality of Arthur's existence, has been called in question. In this controversy Mr Whittaker has taken much pains, in his *History of Manchester*, to vindicate the existence, and discriminate between the real and the fabulous transactions, of the British worthy. But a severe critic might be apt to say that it requires much faith in the author's judgment, not to suspect that he sometimes allows too much scope to fancy and conjecture. According to Mr Whittaker, Arthur's principal exploits were against the northern Saxons, whilst he was only prince of the Silures, and Ambrosius was the dictator or pendragon of the Britons.

"In a series probably of five campaigns, and in a succession certainly of eleven victories, this great commander had repelled the Saxons from the north of Flavia, dislodged them from all Maxima, and dispossessed them of all Valentia. And these were successes so unchequered with misfortunes, so great in themselves, and so beneficial to the public, that the name of Arthur claims the first rank in the list of military, and the better one of patriot, heroes." The twelfth battle of Arthur was fought in the south of England, after he was elected to the pendragonship, against Cerdic the Saxon.

"This," says Mr Whittaker, "was a most extraordinary victory, and completes the circle of Arthur's military glories."

In the author's account of this prince's conduct in peace, he asserts, that "Arthur saw that an appointment was wanted, which should at once be a more regular and more honourable signature of merit—by the certainty of the honour and the greatness of the dignity, call out all the worth of all the worthy in the nation, and collect it round the throne of the pendragon. Accordingly he established a military order. It was the first that had ever been instituted in the island; and it has since been imitated by all the nations on the Continent. By means of this association, Arthur raised among the provincials a general glow of ingenious heroism, the first spirit of chivalry that ever appeared in Europe; that manly and honourable gallantry of soul, which has made him and his worthies the subject of romantic histories over all the west of it. By this, and this alone, could he have been what history represents him, the Revered Father of the British Heroes in general; even to the conclusion of the sixth century, and nearly the middle of the seventh. The order naturally survived its founder; and the members of it were denominated the Warriors of Arthur, though the persons were born half a century after his death."—See also Sharon Turner's *History of the Anglo-Saxons*.

**Arthur's Round Table**, a round enclosure near Penrith, on the banks of the streamlet Loder. It is formed by a ditch and rampart of earth, 29 yards in diameter and is supposed to be an ancient place for tilting.—See Pennant's *Scottish Tour*, vol. i. p. 277.

**Arthur's Seat**, a hill in the immediate vicinity of Edinburgh, said to have been so called from a tradition that King Arthur surveyed the country from its summit, and also defeated the Saxons in its neighbourhood. It rises by a steep ascent till it terminates in a rocky point, 822 feet three inches above high-water mark at Leith, as given by Moffat in his Levels of Edinburgh. From its summit the traveller may survey the centre of the kingdom, and obtain a complete view of Edinburgh, the whole forming a landscape varied and beautiful in a very high degree. Its rocky summit has some curious magnetical properties.