made great use of conscious accommodation--intending moral
commonplaces when they seemed to be enunciating Christian
dogmas. Another expression for this, used, e.g., by J. S.
Semler, is ``economy,'' which also occurs in the kindred
sense of ``reserve'' (or of Disciplina Arcani--a modern term
for the supposed early Catholic habit of reserving esoteric
truths). Isaac Williams on Reserve in Religious Teaching,
No. 80 of Tracts for the Times, made a great sensation; see
R. W. Church's comments in The Oxford Movement. Strictly,
accommodation (2) or (3) modifies, in form or in substance,
the content of religious belief; reserve, from prudence or
cunning, withholds part. ``Economy'' is used in both senses.
ACCOMMODATION BILL. An accommodation bill, as its name implies,
is a bill of exchange accepted and sometimes endorsed without
any receipt of value in order to afford temporary pecuniary
aid to the person accommodated. (See BILL OF EXCHANGE.)
ACCOMPANIMENT (i.e. that which ``accompanies''), a
musical term for that part of a vocal or instrumental
composition added to support and heighten the principal vocal
or instrumental part; either by means of other vocal parts,
single instruments or the orchestra. The accompaniment
may be obbligato or ad libitum, according as it forms
an essential part of the composition or not. The term
obbligato or obbligato accompaniment is also used
for an independent instrumental solo accompanying a vocal
piece. Owing to the early custom of only writing the
accompaniment in outline, by means of a ``figured bass,''
to be filled in by the performer, and to the changes in the
number, quality and types of the instruments of the orchestra,
``additional'' accompaniments have been written for the
works of the older masters; such are Mozart's ``additional''
accompaniments to Handel's Messiah or those to many of the
elder Bach's works by Robert Franz. In common parlance any
support given, e.g. by the piano, to a voice or instrument
is loosely called an accompaniment, which may be merely
``vamped'' by the introduction of a few chords, or may rise
to the dignity of an artistic composition. In the history
of song the evolution of the art side of an accompaniment is
important, and in the higher forms the vocal and instrumental
parts practically constitute a duet, in which the instrumental
part may be at least as important as that of the voice.
ACCOMPLICE (from Fr. complice, conspirator, Lat. complex,
a sharer, associate, complicare, to fold together; the
ac- is possibly due to confusion with ``accomplish,'' to
complete, Lat. complere, to fill up), in law, one who is
associated with another or others in the commission of a
crime, whether as principal or accessory. The term is
chiefly important where one of those charged with a crime
turns king's evidence in the expectation of obtaining a
pardon for himself. Accordingly, as his evidence is tainted
with self-interest, it is a rule of practice to direct
a jury to acquit, where the evidence of an accomplice is
not corroborated by independent evidence both as to the
circumstances of the offence and the participation of the
accused in it. An accomplice who has turned king's evidence
usually receives a pardon, but has no legal right to
exemption from punishment till he has actually received it.
ACCORAMBONI, VITTORIA (1557--1585), an Italian lady famous
for her great beauty and accomplishments and for her tragic
history. She was born in Rome of a family belonging to the
minor noblesse of Gubbio, which migrated to Rome with a
view to bettering their fortunes. After refusing several
offers of marriage for Vittoria, her father betrothed her to
Francesco Peretti (1573), a man of no position, but a nephew
of Cardinal Montalto, who was regarded as likely to become
pope. Vittoria was admired and worshipped by all the
cleverest and most brilliant men in Rome, and being luxurious
and extravagant although poor, she and her husband were soon
plunged in debt. Among her most fervent admirers was P. G.
Orsini, duke of Bracciano, one of the most powerful men in
Rome, and her brother Marcello, wishing to see her the
duke's wife, had Peretti murdered (1581). The duke himself
was suspected of complicity, inasmuch as he was believed
to have murdered his first wife, Isabella de' Medici. Now
that Vittoria was free he made her an offer of marriage,
which she willingly accepted, and they were married shortly
after. But her good fortune aroused much jealousy, and attempts
were made to annul the marriage; she was even imprisoned,
and only liberated through the interference of Cardinal Carlo
Borromeo. On the death of Gregory XIII., Cardinal Montalto,
her first husband's uncle, was elected in his place as Sixtus
V. (1585); he vowed vengeance on the duke of Bracciano and
Vittoria, who, warned in time, fled first to Venice and
thence to Salo in Venetian territory. Here the duke died
in November 1585, bequeathing all his personal property (the
duchy of Bracciano he left to his son by his first wife) to his
widow. Vittoria, overwhelmed with grief, went to live in
retirement at Padua, where she was followed by Lodovico
Orsini, a relation of her late husband and a servant of the
Venetian republic, to arrange amicably for the division of the
property. But a quarrel having arisen in this connexion Lodovico
hired a band of bravos and had Vittoria assassinated (22nd of
December 1585). He himself and nearly all his accomplices
were afterwards put to death by order of the republic.
About Vittoria Accoramboni much has been written, and she
has been greatly maligned by some biographers. Her story
formed the basis of Webster's drama, The Tragedy of Paolo
Giordano Ursini (1612), and of Ludwig Tieck's novel,
Vittoria Accoramboni (1840); it is told more accurately in
D. Gnoli's volume, Vittoria Accoramboni (Florence, 1870),
and an excellent sketch of her life is given in Countess E.
Martinengo-Cesaresco's Lombard Studies (London, 1902). (L. V.*)
ACCORD (from Fr. accorder, to agree), in law, an agreement
between two parties, one of whom has a right of action against the
other, to give and accept in substitution for such Iight any good
legal consideration. Such an agreement when executed discharges
the cause of action and is called Accord and Satisfaction.
ACCORDION (Fr. aeeordeoni Ger. Handharmonica,
Ziehharmonica), a small portable reed wind instrument
with keyboard, the smallest representative of the
organ family, invented in 1829 by Damian, in Vienna.
The accordion consists of a bellows of many folds, to which
is attached a keyboard with from 5 to 50 keys. The keys on
being depressed, while the bellows are being worked, open
valves admitting the wind to free reeds, consisting of narrow
tongues of metal riveted some to the upper, some to the
lower board of the bellows, having their free ends bent, some
inwards, some outwards. Each key produces two notes, one
from the inwardly bent reed when the bellows are compressed,
the other from the outwardly bent reed by suction (as in
the American organ; see HARMONIUM) when the bellows are
expanded. The pitch of the note is determined by the length
and thickness of the reeds, reduction of the length tending
to sharpen the note, while reduction of the thickness lowers
it. The right hand plays the melody on the keyboard, while
the left works the bellows and manipulates the two or three
bass harmony keys, which sound the simple chords of the tonic
and dominant. The archetype of the accordion is the cheng
(q.v.), or Chinese organ, between which and the harmonium
it forms a connecting link structurally, although not invented
for some thirty years after the harmonium. The timbre of the
accordion is coarse and devoid of beauty, but in the hands
of a skilful performer the best instruments are not entirely
without artistic merit. Improvements in the construction of
the accordion produced the concertina (q.v.), melodion and
melophone. las Accordion in kurzer Zeit richtig spielen zu
erlernen (Wien, 1834). See also FREE REED VIBRATOR. (K. S.)
ACCORSO (ACCURSIUS), MARIANOELO (c. 1490-1544),
Italian critic, was born at Aquila, in the kingdom of
Naples. He was a great favourite with Charles V., at whose
court he resided for thirty-three years, and by whom he was
employed on various foreign missions. To a perfect knowledge
of Greek and Latin he added an intimate acquaintance with
several modern languages. In discovering and collating ancient
manuscripts, for which his travels abroad gave him special
opportunities, he displayed uncommon diligence. His work
entitled Diatribae in Ausonium, Solinum et Ovidium (1524)
is a monument of erudition and critical skill. He was the
first editor of the Letters of Gassiodorus, with his
Treatise on the Soul (1538); and his edition of Ammianus
Marcellinus (1533) contains five books more than any former
one. The affected use of antiquated terms, introduced by
some of the Latin writers of that age, is humorously ridiculed
by him, in a dialogue in which an Oscan, a Volscian and a
Roman are introduced as interlocutors (1531). Accorso was
accused of plagiarism in his notes on Ausonius, a charge
which he most solemnly and energetically repudiated.
ACCOUNT (through O. Fr. acont, Late Lat. comptum,
computare, to calculate), counting, reckoning, especially of
moneys paid and received, hence a statement made as to the
receipt and payment of moneys; also any statement as to acts or
conduct, or quite simply any narrative report of events, &c.
A further sense-development is that of esteem, consideration.
As a stock-exchange term ``account'' is used in several
senses. (1) The periodical settlements occurring, in London,
monthly for British government and a few other first-class
securities, and fortnightly for all others. The settlement
extends over four days in mining shares and three days in other
securities. The first day is the carry-over, ``contango,'' or
making-up, day, on which speculative commitments are carried
over, or continued: that is, the bulls, who have bought
stock for the rise, arrange the rate of interest that they
have to give on their stock to a moneylender, or bear, who
will pay for it or take it in for them; and the bears, who
have sold for the fall, arrange the rate that they receive
from the bulls or, if the stock is scarce and oversold, the
backwardation or rate that they have to pay to holders of the
stock who will lend it them to enable them to complete their
bargains. On the second day, called ticket-day or name
day, a ticket giving the name and address of the ultimate
buyer and the firm which will pay for the stock is passed
through the various intermediaries to the ultimate seller,
so that the actual transfer of the stock can be made
directly. In the mining market the passing of names takes two
days. On the last day, account day, pay day or settling
day, cheques are paid to meet speculative differences, or
against the delivering of stock. (2) The period between two
settlements. A nineteen-day account is one in which nineteen
days elapse between one pay-day and another. (3) The volume or
condition of commitments. A speculator is said to have a large
account open when he has dealt heavily either for the rise or
fall. A bull account exists in a stock or group of stocks
when it or they have been bought for the rise by a Iarge
number of operators; in the contrary case, when there have
been heavy sales for the fall, a bear account is developed.
ACCOUNTANT-GENERAL, formerly an officer in the English
Court of Chancery, who received all moneys lodged in court,
