Aytoun
WILLIAM EDMOND- STOUNE, poet and prose writer, born at Edinburgh in 1813; studied at the University of Edinburgh, became a writer to the signet in 1835, and passed as advocate in 1840. He issued a volume of poems in 1832, by 1836 was a contributor to "Blackwood's Magazine," and he published the "Life and Times of Richard I." in 1845. In 1848 he published a collection of ballads entitled "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," which has proved the most popular of all his works. He also published the "Bon Gaultier Ballads" (parodies and other humorous pieces, in conjunction with Theodore Martin), 1855; in 1856 the poem "Bothwell," and in subsequent years by "Norman Sinclair," "The Glenmutchkin Railway," and other stories. In 1858 he edited a critical and annotated collection of the "Ballads of Scotland." A translation of the poems and ballads of Goethe was executed by him in conjunction with Theodore Martin.
AZEGLIO In 1845 he became Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh, a place he held till his death. In 1852 he was appointed sheriff of Orkney and Shetland. He died at Blackhills, Elgin, 1865.
AYUNTAMIENTO (ä-ön-tam-yen'to), the name given in Spain to the councils or governing bodies of towns. Sprung from the institutions of the Romans, and firmly established during the long struggles with the Moors, the ayuntamientos acquired great influence and political power, the nobility being admitted to them without their class privileges. The ayuntamiento, with the alcalde as president, was appointed by the free choice of the people. The government could provisionally annul its acts, but must afterward procure the ratification of the Cortes. The ayuntamientos were empowered to make up the lists of electors and jurors, to organize the national guards, to command the police within their own bounds, to direct the apportionment and raising of taxes, etc. The municipal law of 1870 deprived them of all political authority, and regulated them as administrative bodies, subject in certain respects to the authorities of the provinces, the law courts, and the Cortes.