AELFRIC, “the Grammarian,” as he has been called, is one of the most voluminous of our old English writers before the Conquest. He flourished at the latter end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th. Of his personal history little can be learned, and his birth and death are alike involved in obscurity. We know that he was a. pupil of Ethelwold, the friend of Dunstan, at Abingdon. On Ethelwold’s advancement to the see of Winchester, Aelfric accompanied him, and filled the office of chief instructor in the diocese. For the use of his scholars he wrote his Latin and English Grammar and Glossary and his Colloquium. The last of these is in Latin, with an old English interlinear translation, in which the Latin is rendered word for word. It is interesting for its account of ancient manners, and shows that Aelfric made use of the conversational method in his teaching. The words in his Glossary are not arranged alphabetically, but grouped together into classes. Aelfric afterwards removed to Cerne Abbey, in Dorsetshire, where he composed his Homilies, the work on which his fame as an author chiefly depends. They are 80 in number, and were edited by Thorpe in 1844-46 for the Aelfric Society. In composing them, Aelfric drew largely from the fathers. Their style is very simple and pleasing, and obscure words are carefully avoided in order to adapt them to the capacity even of the most ignorant. Subsequent writers made great use of them, and not a few are to be found unabridged in the transition (semi-Saxon) English of the succeeding centuries. They excited great attention about the time of the Reformation, and were appealed to—especially the “Paschal Homily”—to prove that the doctrines of the English Church before the Conquest were at variance with those ...

AELIA CAPITOLINA, a name given to the city built by the Emperor Hadrian, a.d. 134, near the spot where the ancient Jerusalem stood, which he found in ruins when he visited the eastern parts of the Roman empire. A Roman colony was settled here, and a temple was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus. Hence the name Capitolina, to which Hadrian prefixed that of his own family.

AELIANUS, Claudius, born at Praeneste, in Italy. He taught rhetoric at Rome, under the Emperor Alexander Severus, according to Perizonius, but more probably under Hadrian. He was surnamed M∈λίγλωσσoς, "Honey-tongued,” on account of the ease and accuracy with which he spoke and wrote Greek; and he was also named “the Sophist,” from his being a teacher of rhetoric. He loved retirement, and devoted himself to study. He greatly admired and studied Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, Plutarch, Homer, Anacreon, Archilochus, &c.; and, though a Roman, gives preference to the writers of the Greek nation, and employs the Greek language in his works. His curious and entertaining work entitled Varia Historia has been frequently republished, as well as his treatise De Natura Animalium. A very useful edition of the latter was published by Schneider, at Leipsic, in 1784, in 8vo; another at Jena, in 1832, by Fr. Jacobs. The collected edition of his works, by Gesner, 1556, fol., contains another work ascribed to him, named Epistolae Rusticae.