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23. Alexander Nevski, Cloister or Monastery of. A famous foundation of Peter the Great at St. Petersburg. The large church, though by a Ru ian architect, is basilican in plan, with transepts and an Italian dome at the cro ing. The exterior is sober in design and ornament; the interior is of lavish richne in marbles, jewels, and paintings. The shrine of the saint, in ma ive silver, is 15 feet high without the angel supported canopy. Alexander of the North. An epithet of Charles XII. of Sweden. Alexander Severus (sē-vē'rus), Marcus Aurelius. Born at Arca Cæsarea in Phœnicia about 205 A. D.: died in 235 A. D. Roman emperor the isthmus connecting it with where the ancient city stood. Alexandria was the capital of Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, and became an important seat of Greek culture and learning. In 30 в. с. it was annexed by Rome. It ranked as the second city of the Roman Empire, and continued to be the chief commercial city under the Byzantine empire. It was an west in the governments of Semiryetchensk and Syr-Daria, Asiatic Ru ia. Its greatest height is about 12,000 to 13,000 feet. Alexas (a-lek's as). A minor character in Shakspere's "Antony and Cleopatra," an attendant of Cleopatra. important center of Christianity, and the seat of a patriarchate. In 641 it was taken by the Saracens under Amru, Alexei. See Alexis . and was entered by the French in 1798, who were defeated near here by the British in 1801. (See Abukir .) The present city was largely rebuilt under Mehemet Ali. It was bombarded by a British fleet of eight ironclads under Sir Frederick Seymour, July 11, 1882, and defended by the insurgents, and was taken by the British July 12. Population (1882), 208,755. After the time of Alexander, Grecian literature flourished nowhere so conspicuously as at Alexandria in Egypt, under the auspices of the Ptolemies. Here all the sects of philosophy had established themselves; numerous schools were opened; and, for the advancement of learning, a library was collected, which was supposed, at one time, to have contained 700,000 volumes, in all languages. Connected with the library there were extensive offices, in which the busine of transcribing books was carried on very largely, and with every po ible advantage which royal munificence on the one hand, and learned a iduity on the other, could insure. Nor did the literary fame of Alexandria decline under the Roman emperors. Domitian, as Suet on i us reports, sent scribes to Alexandria to copy books for the restoration of those libraries that had been destroyed by fire. And it seems to have been for some centuries afterwards a common practice for those who wished to form a library, to main tain copyists at Alexandria. The conquest of Egypt by the Saracens, A. D. 640, who burned the Alexandrian Library, banished learning for a time from that, as from other countries, which they occupied. Taylor, Hist. Anc. Books, p. 69. [This library (according to many writers who discredit its sacking by the Arabs) was entirely destroyed under Theophilus, A. D. 391.] Alexandria. A small town on the coast of Asia Minor, near the island of Tenedos. It contains important ruins of Roman thermæ. The structure Alexiad (a-lek'si-ad), The. See the extract. By the command of the Empre Irene, Nicephorus Byrennius, who had married her daughter the celebrated Anna Comnena, undertook a history of the house of Comneni, which has come down to us with the title "Materials of History. Anna herself continued her husband's work when she retired after his death to the leisure of a convent. The imperial authore entitled her book "The Alexiad." As its epic name denotes, it is mainly a prolix biography of her father Alexis I. It is in fifteen books, and includes the period from 1069 to 1118. The work is interesting in itself to the student of history, but it is most generally known as having supplied Sir Walter Scott with the subject and some of the materials for the last and feeblest of his romances. K. O. Müller , Hist. of the Lit. of Anc. Greece, III. 399. [( Donald son .) Alexin. See Aleksin . Alexinatz (ä-lek'si-näts). A town in Servia, situated near the Morava in lat. 43° 31′ N., long. 21° 41' E., the scene of several contests between the Turks and Servians in 1876. Population (1890), 5,762. Alexios. See Alexius . Alexis (a-lek's is). [Gr. Ἄλεξις .] Born at Thurii, Magna Græcia, Italy, about 390 B. c.: died about 288 в. с. A Greek dramatist, a master of the "middle comedy." He was a prolific writer, the author of 245 plays. Fragments of these, amounting to 1,000 lines, are extant. He was brought as a youth to Athens, and was a citizen of that city. Alexis, or Alexei. Born in 1629: died in 1676.! Czar of Ru ia, son of Michael Féodorovitch, Alexis the founder of the house of Roman off, whom he succeeded in 1645. He waged a war with Poland from 1064 to 1667, acquiring po e ion of Smolensk and eastern Ukraine. In a war with Sweden from 1655 to 1658 he conquered a part of Livonia and In german land, but was forced by domestic troubles to relinquish this territory at the treaty of Cardis, June 21, 1661. He extended his conquests to eastern Siberia, codified the laws of the various prov inces of Ru ia, and, by beginning to introduce European civilization, prepared the way for his son Peter the Great. Alexis, or Alexei. Born at Moscow, Feb. 18, 1690: died in prison at St. Petersburg, July 7, 1718. The eldest son of Peter the Great and father of Peter II. He was condemned for high treason and imprisoned. Alexis. An amorous shepherd in Fletcher's pastoral "The Faithful Shepherde ." Alexis I.-V. See Alexius . Alex is bad (ä-lek'sēs-bäd). id). A health-resort in the Harz, Anhalt, Germany, 18 miles south of Halberstadt, noted for mineral springs. Alexius (a-lek'si-us), Saint. A saint (probably mythical) said to have been born at Rome about 350 A. D. According to the legend, he fled from his bride, a lady of high rank, on the wedding evening to the porch of the Church of Our Lady of Ede a, where he lived in chastity for seventeen years. He afterward returned to Rome and lived unrecognized in his father's house. He is commemorated in the Roman Church on July 17, and in the Greek on March 17. Alexius, Saint. A Roman saint of the 5th century, said to have been a senator. He was the founder of the Alexians or Cellites. Alexius I. Comnenus (kom-nē'nus), Gr. Alexios Komnenos. Born at Constantinople in 1048: died in 1118. Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118, nephew of Isaac Comnenus. He supplanted, by the aid of the soldiery, the emperor Ni cephorus, who retired to a monastery, and defended the empire against the Petchenegs, the Turks, and the Nor mans. In his reign occurred the first Crusade. His life has been written by his daughter Anna Comnena. See Alexiad . Alexius II. Comnenus, Gr. Alexios Kom Alfana (al-fä'nä). The horse of Grada o in "Orlando Furioso." Al-Farabi (al-fä-räʼbi), Abu Nasr Mohammed ibn Tarkhan. Born at Farab, Turkestan, about 870: died at Damascus about 950. An Arabian philosopher of the school of Bagdad, famous for his great learning. He wrote an encyclo- pedia of the sciences and numerous treatises on the works Alfarache, Guzman de. See Guzman. Alfaro (äl-fä'rō). A town in the province of Logroño, Spain, situated near the Ebro 60 miles northwest of Sarago a. Population (1887), 5,938. Alfaro, Francisco de. Born at Seville about lawyer. He was succe ively fiscal of the Audience of Panama (1594), member of the Audience of Lima (about member of the Council of the Indies for some years before 1601), president of the Audience of Charcas (1632), and his death. The viceroy Montes claros commi ioned him to inquire into the condition of the Indians of Peru, and the re- sult was a set of laws called the Ordinances of Alfaro, pro- mulgated in 1612 and intended to prevent Indian slavery. Alfasi (äl-fä'si), Isaac ben Jacob. [Ar. Al- fas i , Fez.] Born in Kala Hamad, near Fez, 1013: died at Tucena, 1103. A celebrated Jewish scholar and authority on the Talmud. He composed a sort of abbreviated Talmud which was much used by the Spanish Jews in place of the Talmud itself. Also called, after the initials of his name, Rif . Alfeld (äl'felt). A small town in the province of Hanover, Pru ia, situated on the Leine 28 miles south of Hanover. Alfeta (al'fe-tä). The name given in the "Al- magest" and Alphonsine tables to the second- magnitude star a Coronæ Borealis. The star is more generally known as Alphecca or Gemта . heimr , world.] In Old Norse mythology, the abode Alfheim (älf' him). [ON. Alfheimr : alfr , elf, and of the light Elves. It conceived to be near the sacred well of the Norns, at the foot of the ash Yggdrasil. Alexius III. Angelus (an'je-lus), Gr. Alexios Angelos. Died in 1210. Byzantine emperor from 1195 to 1203. He usurped the throne of his brother Isaac II., but was deposed by an army of Crusaders succeeded. and builds Castle Corbenic, which is to be the repository and shrine of the Holy Cup, as Vespas i an was healed by looking on the Veronica,