Articles listed under letter "E"

[1907 edition]

EACUS. See AEACUS.


EADMER, a celebrated monk of Canterbury; flourished in the 12th
century; friend and biographer of St. Anselm, author of a History of His
Own Times, as also of many of the Lives of the Saints; elected to the
bishopric of St. Andrews in 1120; resigned on account of Alexander I.
refusing to admit the right of the English Archbishop of Canterbury to
perform the ceremony of consecration.




EADRIC, a Saxon, notorious for his treachery, fighting now with his
countrymen against the Danes and now with the Danes against them, till
put to death by order of Canute in 1017.


EADS, JAMES BUCHANAN, an American engineer, born in Laurenceburg,
Indiana; designed ingenious boats for floating submerged ships; built
with remarkable speed warships for the Federalists in 1861; constructed a
steel bridge spanning the Mississippi at St. Louis, noteworthy for its
central span of 520 ft. (1820-1887).


EAGLE, the king of birds, and bird of Jove; was adopted by various
nations as the emblem of dominant power, as well as of nobility and
generosity; in Christian art it is the symbol of meditation, and the
attribute of St. John; is represented now as fighting with a serpent, and
now as drinking out of a chalice or a communion cup, to strengthen it for
the fight.


EAGLE, ORDER OF THE BLACK, an order of knighthood founded by the
Elector of Brandenburg in 1701; with this order was ultimately
incorporated the ORDER OF THE RED EAGLE, founded in 1734 by the
Markgraf of Bayreuth.


EAGLE OF BRITTANY, DU GUESCLIN (q. v.).


EAGLE OF MEAUX, BOSSUET (q. v.).


EAGRE, a name given in England to a tidal wave rushing up a river or
estuary on the top of another, called also a BORE (q. v.).


EARL, a title of nobility, ranking third in the British peerage;
originally election to the dignity of earl carried with it a grant of
land held in feudal tenure, the discharge of judicial and administrative
duties connected therewith, and was the occasion of a solemn service of
investiture. In course of time the title lost its official character, and
since the reign of Queen Anne all ceremony of investiture has been
dispensed with, the title being conferred by letters-patent. The word is
derived from the Anglo-Saxon _eorls_ which signified the "gentle folk,"
as distinguished from the _ceorls_, the "churls" or "simple folk."


EARL MARSHAL, a high officer of State, an office of very ancient
institution, now the head of the college of arms, and hereditary in the
family of the Dukes of Norfolk; formerly one of the chief officers in the
court of chivalry, a court which had to do with all matters of high
ceremonial, such as coronations.


EARLOM, RICHARD, a mezzotint engraver, born in London; celebrated
for his series of 200 prints after the original designs of Claude de
Lorraine (1743-1822).


EARLSTON or ERCILDOUNE, a village in Berwickshire, with
manufactures of ginghams and other textiles. In its vicinity stand the
ruins of the "Rhymer's Tower," alleged to have been the residence of
Thomas the Rhymer.


EARLY ENGLISH, a term in architecture used to designate that
particular form of Gothic architecture in vogue in England in the 13th
century, whose chief characteristic was the pointed arch.


EARTH HOUSES, known also as Yird Houses, Weems and Picts' Houses,
underground dwellings in use in Scotland, extant even after the Roman
evacuation of Britain. Entrance was effected by a passage not much wider
than a fox burrow, which sloped downwards 10 or 12 ft. to the floor of
the house; the inside was oval in shape, and was walled with overlapping
rough stone slabs; the roof frequently reached to within a foot of the
earth's surface; they probably served as store-houses, winter-quarters,
and as places of refuge in times of war. Similar dwellings are found in
Ireland.


EARTHLY PARADISE, poem by William Morris, his greatest effort,
considered his masterpiece; consists of 24 tales by 24 travellers in
quest of an earthly paradise.


EAST INDIA COMPANY, founded in 1600; erected its first factories on
the mainland in 1612 at Surat, but its most profitable trade in these
early years was with the Spice Islands, Java, Sumatra, &c.; driven from
these islands by the Dutch in 1622, the Company established itself
altogether on the mainland; although originally created under royal
charter for purely commercial purposes, it in 1689 entered upon a career
of territorial acquisition, which culminated in the establishment of
British power in India; gradually, as from time to time fresh renewals of
its charter were granted, it was stripped of its privileges and
monopolies, till in 1858, after the Mutiny, all its powers were vested in
the British Crown.


EAST RIVER, the strait which separates Brooklyn and New York cities,
lying between Long Island Sound and New York Bay, about 10 m. long; is
spanned by a bridge.


EASTBOURNE (35), a fashionable watering-place and health resort on
the Sussex coast, between Brighton and Hastings, and 66 m. S. of London;
has Roman remains, and is described in "Domesday Book."


EASTER, an important festival of the Church commemorating the
resurrection of Christ; held on the first Sunday after the first full
moon of the calendar which happens on or next after 21st of March, and
constituting the beginning of the ecclesiastical year; the date of it
determines the dates of other movable festivals; derives its name from
Eastre, a Saxon goddess, whose festival was celebrated about the same
time, and to which many of the Easter customs owe their origin.

 

EASTERN STATES, the six New England States in N. America--Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.


EASTLAKE, SIR CHARLES LOCK, artist and author, born at Plymouth;
studied painting in London and in Paris; produced the last portrait of
Napoleon, which he executed from a series of sketches of the emperor on
board the _Bellerophon_ in Plymouth harbour; he travelled in Greece, and
from 1816 to 1830 made his home at Rome; "Christ Weeping over Jerusalem,"
his greatest work, appeared in 1841; was President of the Royal Academy;
wrote several works on subjects relating to his art, and translated
Goethe's "Farbenlehre" (1793-1865).


EASTWICK, EDWARD BACKHOUSE, Orientalist and diplomatist, born at
Warfield, in Berkshire; went to India as a cadet, acquired an extensive
knowledge of Indian dialects and Eastern languages, and passed an
interpretership examination, gaining the high proficiency reward of 1000
rupees; carried through peace negotiations with China in 1842; invalided
home, he became professor of Hindustani at Haileybury College; afterwards
studied law and was called to the bar; entered Parliament, and held
various political appointments, including a three years' embassy in
Persia; was a fellow of many antiquarian and philological societies;
amongst his numerous philological productions and translations his
"Gulistan" and "Life of Zoroaster" from the Persian are noted
(1814-1883).


EAU CREOLE, a liqueur from the distillation of the flowers of the
mammee apple with spirits of wine.


EAU-DE-COLOGNE, a perfume originally manufactured at Cologne by
distillation from certain essential oils with rectified spirit.


EBAL, MOUNT, a mountain with a level summit, which rises to the
height of 3077 ft. on the N. side of the narrow Vale of Shechem, in
Palestine, and from the slopes of which the people of Israel responded to
the curses which were pronounced by the Levites in the valley.


EBERHARD, JOHANN AUGUST, German philosophical writer, born at
Halberstadt; professor at Halle; rationalistic in his theology, and
opposed to the Kantian metaphysics; was a disciple of Leibnitz; wrote a
"New Apology of Socrates," in defence of rationalism in theology, as well
as a "Universal History of Philosophy," and a work on German synonyms
(1739-1809).


EBERS, GEORGE MORITZ, German Egyptologist, born at Berlin;
discovered an important papyrus; was professor successively at Jena and
Leipzig; laid aside by ill-health, betook himself to novel-writing as a
pastime; was the author of "Aarda, a Romance of Ancient Egypt,"
translated by Clara Bell (1837-1898).


EBERT, KARL EGON, a Bohemian poet, born at Prague; his poems,
dramatic and lyric, are collected in 7 vols., and enjoy a wide popularity
in his country (1801-1882).


EBIONITES, a sect that in the 2nd century sought to combine Judaism
and the hopes of Judaism with Christianity, and rejected the authority of
St. Paul and of the Pauline writings; they denied the divinity of Christ,
and maintained that only the poor as such were the objects of salvation.


EBLIS, in Mohammedan tradition the chief of the fallen angels,
consigned to perdition for refusing to worship Adam at the command of his
Creator, and who gratified his revenge by seducing Adam and Eve from
innocency.


EBONY, a name given to Blackwood by James Hogg, and eventually
applied to his magazine.


EBRO, a river of Spain, rises in the Cantabrian Mountains, flows SE.
into the Mediterranean 80 m. SW. of Barcelona, after a course of 422 m.


ECBATANA, the ancient capital of Media, situated near Mount Orontes
(now Elvend); was surrounded by seven walls of different colours that
increased in elevation towards the central citadel; was a summer
residence of the Persian and Parthian kings. The modern town of Hamadan
now occupies the site of it.


ECCE HOMO (i. e. Behold the Man), a representation of Christ as He
appeared before Pilate crowned with thorns and bound with ropes, as in
the painting of Correggio, a subject which has been treated by many of
the other masters, such as Titian and Vandyck.


ECCHYMOSIS, a discolouration of the skin produced by extravasated
blood under or in the texture of the skin, the result of a blow or of
disease.


ECCLEFECHAN, a market-town of Dumfriesshire, consisting for the most
part of the High Street, 5 m. S. of Lockerbie, on the main road to
Carlisle, 16 m. to the S.; noted as the birth and burial place of Thomas
Carlyle.


ECCLESIASTES (i. e. the Preacher), a book of the Old Testament,
questionably ascribed to Solomon, and now deemed of more recent date as
belonging to a period when the reflective spirit prevailed; and it is
written apparently in depreciation of mere reflection as a stepping-stone
to wisdom. The standpoint of the author is a religious one; the data on
which he rests is given in experience, and his object is to expose the
vanity of every source of satisfaction which is not founded on the fear,
and has not supreme regard for the commandments, of God, a doctrine which
is the very ground-principle of the Jewish faith; but if vanity is
written over the whole field of human experience, he argues, this is not
the fault of the system of things, but due, according to the author, to
the folly of man (chap. vii. 29).


ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY, THE LAW OF, a vindication of the Anglican
Church against the Puritans, written by Richard Hooker; the most splendid
and stately piece of literary prose that exists in the language.


ECCLESIASTICAL STATES, territories in Italy once subject to the Pope
as a temporal prince as well as ecclesiastically.


ECCLESIASTICUS, one of the books of the Apocrypha, ascribed to
Jesus, the son of Sirach, admitted to the sacred canon by the Council of
Trent, though excluded by the Jews. It contains a body of wise maxims, in
imitation, as regards matter as well as form, of the Proverbs of Solomon,
and an appendix on the men who were the disciples of wisdom. Its general
aim, as has been said, is "to represent wisdom as the source of all
virtue and blessedness, and by warnings, admonitions, and promises to
encourage in the pursuit of it." It was originally written in Hebrew, but
is now extant only in a Greek translation executed in Egypt, professedly
by the author's grandson.


ECCLESIOLOGY, the name given in England to the study of church
architecture and all that concerns the ground-plan and the internal
arrangements of the parts of the edifice.


ECGBERHT, archbishop of York; was a pupil of Bede, and the heir to
his learning; founded a far-famed school at York, which developed into a
university; flourished in 766.


ECHIDNA, a fabulous monster that figures in the Greek mythology,
half-woman, half-serpent, the mother of Cerberus, the Lernean Hydra, the
Chimaera, the Sphinx, the Gorgons, the Nemean Lion, the vulture that
gnawed the liver of Prometheus, &c.


ECHO, a wood-nymph in love with Narcissus, who did not return her
love, in consequence of which she pined away till all that remained of
her was only her voice.


ECK, JOHN, properly MAIER, a German theologian, of Swabian
birth, professor at Ingolstadt; a violent, blustering antagonist of
Luther and Luther's doctrines; in his zeal went to Rome, and procured a
papal bull against both; undertook at the Augsburg Diet to controvert
Luther's doctrine from the Fathers, but not from the Scriptures; was
present at the conferences of Worms and Regensburg (1486-1543).


ECKERMANN, JOHANN PETER, a German writer, born at Winsen, in
Hanover; friend of Goethe, and editor of his works; the author of
"Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life, 1823-32," a
record of wise reflections and of Goethe's opinions on all subjects, of
the utmost interest to all students of the German sage (1792-1854).


ECKHART, MEISTER, a German philosopher and divine, profoundly
speculative and mystical; entered the Dominican Order, and rapidly
attained to a high position in the Church; arraigned for heresy in 1325,
and was acquitted, but two years after his death his writings were
condemned as heretical by a papal bull; died in 1327.


ECKMUeHL, a village in Bavaria where Napoleon defeated the Austrians
in 1809, and which gave the title of Duke to DAVOUT (q. v.), one
of Napoleon's generals.


ECLECTICS, so-called philosophers who attach themselves to no
system, but select what, in their judgment, is true out of others. In
antiquity the Eclectic philosophy is that which sought to unite into a
coherent whole the doctrines of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, such as
that of Plotinus and Proclus was. There is an eclecticism in art as well
as philosophy, and the term is applied to an Italian school which aimed
at uniting the excellencies of individual great masters.


ECLIPTIC, the name given to the circular path in the heavens round
which the sun appears to move in the course of the year, an illusion
caused by the earth's annual circuit round the sun, with its axis
inclined at an angle to the equator of 231/2 degrees; is the central line
of the ZODIAC (q. v.), so called because it was observed that
eclipses occurred only when the earth was on or close upon this path.


ECONOMY, "the right arrangement of things," and distinct from
Frugality, which is "the careful and fitting use of things."


ECORCHEURS (lit. flayers properly of dead bodies), armed bands who
desolated France in the reign of Charles VII., stripping their victims of
everything, often to their very clothes.


ECSTATIC DOCTOR, Jean Ruysbroek, a schoolman given to mysticism
(1294-1381).


ECUADOR (1,271), a republic of S. America, of Spanish origin,
created in 1822; derives its name from its position on the equator; lies
between Columbia and Peru; is traversed by the Andes, several of the
peaks of which are actively volcanic; the population consists of Peruvian
Indians, negroes, Spanish Creoles; exports cocoa, coffee, hides, and
medicinal plants; the administration is vested in a president, a
vice-president, two ministers, a senate of 18, and a house of deputies of
30, elected by universal suffrage.


ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, an ecclesiastical council representative, or
accepted as representative, of the Church universal or Catholic. See
COUNCILS.


ECZEMA, a common skin disease, which may be either chronic or acute;
develops in a red rash of tiny vesicles, which usually burst and produce
a characteristic scab; is not contagious, and leaves no scar.


EDDA (lit. grandmother), the name given to two collections of
legends illustrative of the Scandinavian mythology: the Elder, or Poetic,
Edda, collected in the 11th century by Saemund Sigfusson, an early
Christian priest, "with perhaps a lingering fondness for paganism," and
the Younger, or Prose, Edda, collected in the next century by Snorri
Sturleson, an Icelandic gentleman (1178-1241), "educated by Saemund's
grandson, the latter a work constructed with great ingenuity and native
talent, what one might call unconscious art, altogether a perspicuous,
clear work, pleasant reading still."


EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE, situated on a low reef of rocks submerged at
high tide, 14 m. SW. of Plymouth; first built of wood by Winstanley,
1696; destroyed by a storm in 1703; rebuilt of wood on a stone base by
Rudyard; burnt in 1755, and reconstructed by Smeaton of solid stone; the
present edifice, on a different site, was completed by Sir James Douglas
in 1882, is 133 ft. in height, and has a light visible 171/2 m. off.


EDELINCK, GERARD, a Flemish copper-plate engraver, born at Antwerp;
invited to France by Colbert, and patronised by Louis XIV.; executed in a
masterly manner many works from historical subjects (1640-1707).


EDEN (i. e. place of delight), Paradise, the original spot
referred to by tradition wholly uncertain, though believed to have been
in the Far East, identified in Moslem tradition with the moon.


EDESSA (40), an ancient city in Mesopotamia; figures in early Church
history, and is reputed to have contained at one time 300 monasteries; it
fell into the hands of the Turks in 1515; is regarded as the sacred city
of Abraham by Orientals.


EDFU, a town in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile; has
unique ruins of two temples, the larger founded by Ptolemy IV. Philopater
before 200 B.C.


EDGAR, a king of Saxon England from 959 to 975, surnamed the
Peaceful; promoted the union and consolidation of the Danish and Saxon
elements within his realm; cleared Wales of wolves by exacting of its
inhabitants a levy of 300 wolves' heads yearly; eight kings are said to
have done him homage by rowing him on the Dee; St. Dunstan, the
archbishop of Canterbury, was the most prominent figure of the reign.


EDGAR THE ATHELING, a Saxon prince, the grandson of Edmund Ironside;
was hurriedly proclaimed king of England after the death of Harold in the
battle of Hastings, but was amongst the first to offer submission on the
approach of the Conqueror; spent his life in a series of feeble attempts
at rebellion, and lived into the reign of Henry I.


EDGEHILL, in the S. of Warwickshire, the scene of the first battle
in the Civil War, in 1642, between the royal forces under Charles I. and
the Parliamentary under Essex; though the Royalists had the worst of it,
no real advantage was gained by either side.


EDGEWORTH, HENRY ESSEX, known as the "Abbe" Edgeworth, born in
Ireland, son of a Protestant clergyman; educated at the Sorbonne, in
Paris; entered the priesthood, and became the confessor of Louis XVI.,
whom he attended on the scaffold; exclaimed as the guillotine came down,
"Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!" left France soon after; was
subsequently chaplain to Louis XVIII. (1745-1807).


EDGEWORTH, MARIA, novelist, born at Blackbourton, Berks; from her
fifteenth year her home was in Ireland; she declined the suit of a
Swedish count, and remained till the close of her life unmarried; amongst
the best known of her works are "Moral Tales," "Tales from Fashionable
Life," "Castle Rackrent," "The Absentee," and "Ormond"; her novels are
noted for their animated pictures of Irish life, and were acknowledged by
Scott to have given him the first suggestion of the Waverley series; the
Russian novelist, Turgenief, acknowledges a similar indebtedness; "in her
Irish stories she gave," says Stopford Brooke, "the first impulse to the
novel of national character, and in her other tales to the novel with a
moral purpose" (1766-1849).


EDGEWORTH, RICHARD LOVELL, an Irish landlord, father of Maria
Edgeworth, with a genius for mechanics, in which he displayed a
remarkable talent for invention; was member of the last Irish Parliament;
educated his son in accordance with the notions of Rousseau; wrote some
works on mechanical subjects in collaboration with his daughter
(1744-1817).


EDICT OF NANTES, an edict issued in 1598 by Henry IV. of France,
granting toleration to the Protestants; revoked by Louis XIV. in 1685.


EDIE OCHILTREE, a character in Scott's "Antiquary."


EDINA, poetic name for Edinburgh.


EDINBURGH (263), the capital of Scotland, on the Firth of Forth,
picturesquely situated amid surrounding hills; derives its name from
Edwin, king of Northumbria in the 7th century; was created a burgh in
1329 by Robert the Bruce, and recognised as the capital in the 15th
century, under the Stuarts; it has absorbed in its growth adjoining
municipalities; is noted as an educational centre; is the seat of the
Supreme Courts; has a university, castle, and royal palace, and the old
Scotch Parliament House, now utilised by the Law Courts; brewing and
printing are the chief industries, but the upper classes of the citizens
are for the most part either professional people or living in retirement.


EDINBURGH REVIEW, a celebrated quarterly review started in October
1802 in Edinburgh to further the Whig interest; amongst its founders and
contributors were Horner, Brougham, Jeffrey, and Sidney Smith, the latter
being editor of the first three numbers; Jeffrey assumed the editorship
in 1803, and in his hands it became famous for its incisive literary
critiques, Carlyle and Macaulay contributing some of their finest essays
to it.


EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY, founded in 1583; was the last of the Scotch
Universities to receive its charter; was raised to an equal status with
the others in 1621; its site was the famous Kirk o'Field, the scene of
the Darnley tragedy; now consists of two separate buildings, one entirely
devoted to medicine, and the other to arts and training in other
departments; has an average matriculation roll of about 3000.


EDISON, THOMAS ALVA, a celebrated American inventor, born at Milan,
Ohio; started life as a newsboy; early displayed his genius and
enterprise by producing the first newspaper printed in a railway train;
turning his attention to telegraphy, he revolutionised the whole system
by a series of inventions, to which he has since added others, to the
number of 500, the most notable being the megaphone, phonograph,
kinetoscope, a carbon telegraph transmitter, and improvements in electric
lighting; _b_. 1847.


EDITH, the alleged name of Lot's wife.


EDITHE, ST., an English princess, the natural daughter of Edgar,
king of England (961-984). Festival, Sept. 16.


EDMUND, ST., king or "landlord" of East Anglia from 855 to 870;
refused to renounce Christianity and accept heathenism at the hands of a
set of "mere physical force" invading Danes, and suffered martyrdom
rather; was made a saint of and had a monastery called "Bury St.
Edmunds," in Norfolk, raised to his memory over his grave.


EDMUND, ST., Edmund Rich, archbishop of Canterbury, born at
Abingdon; while still at school made a vow of celibacy and wedded the
Virgin Mary; sided as archbishop with the popular party against the
tyranny of both Pope and king; coming into disfavour with the papal court
retired to France, where, on his arrival, the mother of St. Louis with
her sons met him to receive his blessing, and where he spent his last
days in a monastery; died in 1240, and was canonised six years after by
Innocent IV., somewhat reluctantly it is said.


EDMUND IRONSIDE, succeeded to the throne of England on the death of
his father Ethelred the Unready in 1016, but reigned only seven months;
he struggled bravely, and at first successfully, against Canute the Dane,
but being defeated, the kingdom ultimately was divided between them
(981-1016).


EDOM, or IDUMAEA, a mountainous but not unfertile country,
comprising the S. of Judaea and part of the N. of Arabia Petraea, 100 m.
long by 20 m. broad, peopled originally by the descendants of Esau, who
were ruled by "dukes," and were bitterly hostile to the Jews.


EDRED, king of the Anglo-Saxons, son of Edward the Elder; subdued
Northumbria; had in the end of his reign St. Dunstan for chief adviser;
_d_. 955.


EDRISI, an Arabian geographer, born at Ceuta, in Spain; by request
of Roger II. of Sicily wrote an elaborate description of the earth, which
held a foremost place amongst mediaeval geographers (1099-1180).


EDUCATION, as conceived of by Ruskin, and alone worthy of the name,
"the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of
them"; and attained, "not by telling a man what he knew not, but by
making him what he was not."


EDUI, an ancient Gallic tribe, whose capital was Bibracte (Autun).


EDWARD, THOMAS, naturalist, born at Gosport; bred a shoemaker;
settled in Banff, where he devoted his leisure to the study of animal
nature, and collected numerous specimens of animals, which he stuffed and
exhibited, but with pecuniary loss; the Queen's attention being called to
his case, settled on him an annual pension of L50, while the citizens of
Aberdeen presented him in March 1877 with a gift of 130 sovereigns, on
which occasion he made a characteristic speech (1814-1886).


EDWARD I., surnamed Longshanks, king of England, born at
Westminster, son of Henry III., married ELEANOR (q. v.) of
Castile; came first into prominence in the Barons' War; defeated the
nobles at Evesham, and liberated his father; joined the last Crusade in
1270, and distinguished himself at Acre; returned to England in 1274 to
assume the crown, having been two years previously proclaimed king;
during his reign the ascendency of the Church and the nobles received a
check, the growing aspiration of the people for a larger share in the
affairs of the nation was met by an extended franchise, while the right
of Parliament to regulate taxation was recognised; under his reign Wales
was finally subdued and annexed to England, and a temporary conquest of
Scotland was achieved (1239-1307).


EDWARD II., king of England (1307-1327), son of the preceding; was
first Prince of Wales, being born at Carnarvon; being a weakling was
governed by favourites, Gaveston and the Spencers, whose influence, as
foreigners and unpatriotic, offended the barons, who rose against him; in
1314 Scotland rose in arms under Bruce, and an ill-fated expedition under
him ended in the crushing defeat at Bannockburn; in 1327 he was deposed,
and was brutally murdered in Berkeley Castle (1284-1327).


EDWARD III., king of England (1327-1377), son of the preceding,
married Philippa of Hainault; during his boyhood the government was
carried on by a council of regency; in 1328 the independence of Scotland
was recognised, and nine years later began the Hundred Years' War with
France, memorable in this reign for the heroic achievements of EDWARD
THE BLACK PRINCE (q. v.), the king's eldest son; associated with
this reign are the glorious victories of Crecy and Poitiers, and the
great naval battle at Sluys, one of the earliest victories of English
arms at sea; these successes were not maintained in the later stages of
the war, and the treaty of Bretigny involved the withdrawal of Edward's
claim to the French crown; in 1376 the Black Prince died.


EDWARD IV., king of England (1461-1483), son of Richard, Duke of
York, and successor to the Lancastrian Henry VI., whom he defeated at
Towton; throughout his reign the country was torn by the Wars of the
Roses, in which victory rested with the Yorkists at Hedgeley Moor,
Hexham, Barnet, and Tewkesbury; in this reign little social progress was
made, but a great step towards it was made by the introduction of
printing by Caxton (1442-1483)


EDWARD V., king of England for three months in 1483, son of the
preceding; deposed by his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester; was
ultimately murdered in the Tower, along with his young brother
(1470-1483).


EDWARD VI., king of England (1547-1553), son of Henry VIII. and Jane
Seymour; his reign, which was a brief one, was marked by a victory over
the Scots at Pinkie (1547), Catholic and agrarian risings, and certain
ecclesiastical reforms (1537-1553).


EDWARD VII., king of Great Britain and Ireland and "all the British
Dominions beyond the Seas," born 9th November 1841, succeeded his mother,
Queen Victoria, 22nd Jan. 1901. On 10th March 1863 he married Princess
Alexandra, eldest daughter of Christian IX. of Denmark, and has four
surviving children: George, Prince of Wales, _b_. 1865; Louise, Duchess
of Fife, _b_. 1867; Victoria, _b_. 1868; and Maud, _b_. 1869, who married
Prince Charles of Denmark. The king's eldest son, Albert Victor, _b_.
1864, died January 14, 1892.


EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, king of England, married Edith, daughter of
the great EARL GODWIN (q. v.); was a feeble monarch of ascetic
proclivities; his appeal to the Duke of Normandy precipitated the Norman
invasion, and in him perished the royal Saxon line; was canonised for his
piety (1004-1066).


EDWARD THE ELDER, king of the Anglo-Saxons from 901 to 925; was the
son and successor of Alfred the Great; extended the Anglo-Saxon
dominions.


EDWARDES, SIR HERBERT BENJAMIN, soldier and administrator in India,
born at Frodesley, Shropshire; was actively engaged in the first Sikh War
and in the Mutiny; served under Sir Henry Lawrence, whose Life he partly
wrote (1819-1868).


EDWARDS, BRYAN, historian, born at Westbury; traded in Jamaica;
wrote a "History of British Colonies in the West Indies" (1743-1800).


EDWARDS, JONATHAN, a celebrated divine, born at E. Windsor,
Connecticut; graduated at Yale; minister at Northampton, Mass.;
missionary to Housatonnuck Indians; was elected to the Presidency of
Princeton College; wrote an acute and original work, "The Freedom of the
Will," a masterpiece of cogent reasoning; has been called the "Spinoza of
Calvinism" (1703-1758).


EDWIN, king of Northumbria in the 6th century; through the influence
of his wife Ethelburga Christianity was introduced into England by St.
Augustine; founded Edinburgh; was defeated and slain by the Mercian King
Penda in 634.


EDWY, king of the Anglo-Saxons from 955 to 957; offended the
clerical party headed by Dunstan and Odo, who put his wife Elgiva to
death, after which he soon died himself at the early age of 19.


EECKHOUT, a Dutch portrait and historical painter, born at Antwerp;
the most eminent disciple of Rembrandt, whose style he successfully
imitated (1621-1674).


EFFEN, VAN, a Dutch author, who wrote chiefly in French; imitated
the _Spectator_ of Addison, and translated into French Swift's "Tale of a
Tub" and Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1684-1735).


EFFENDI, a title of honour among the Turks, applied to State and
civil officials, frequently associated with the name of the office, as
well as to men of learning or high position.


EGALITE, PHILIPPE, Duke of Orleans, born April 13th, 1787, father of
Louis Philippe; so called because he sided with the Republican party in
the French Revolution, and whose motto was "Liberte, Fraternite, et
Egalite." See ORLEANS, DUKE OF.


EGATES, three islands on the W. coast of Sicily.


EGBERT, king of Wessex, a descendant of Cedric the founder; after an
exile of 13 years at the court of Charlemagne ascended the throne in 800;
reigned till 809, governing his people in tranquillity, when, by
successful wars with the other Saxon tribes, he in two years became
virtual king of all England, and received the revived title of Bretwalda;
_d_. 837.


EGEDE, HANS, a Norwegian priest, founder of the Danish mission in
Greenland, whither he embarked with his family and a small colony of
traders in 1721; leaving his son to carry on the mission, and returning
to Denmark, he became head of a training school for young missionaries to
Greenland (1686-1758).


EGEDE, PAUL, son of Hans; assisted his father in the Greenland
mission, and published a history of the mission; translated part of the
Bible into the language of the country, and composed a grammar and a
dictionary of it; _d_. 1789.


EGER (17), a town in Bohemia, on the river Eger, 91 m. W. of Prague,
a centre of railway traffic; Wallenstein was murdered here in 1634; the
river flows into the Elbe after a NE. course of 190 m.


EGERIA, a nymph who inhabited a grotto in a grove in Latium,
dedicated to the Camenae, some 16 m. from Rome, and whom, according to
tradition, Numa was in the habit of consulting when engaged in framing
forms of religious worship for the Roman community; she figures as his
spiritual adviser, and has become the symbol of one of her sex, conceived
of as discharging the same function in other the like cases.


EGERTON, FRANCIS. See BRIDGEWATER, EARL OF.


EGGER, EMILE, a French Hellenist and philologist (1813-1885).


EGHAM (10), a small town in Surrey, on the Thames, 20 m. W. of
London; has in its vicinity Runnymede, where King John signed _Magna
Charta_ in 1215.


EGINHARD, or EINHARD, a Frankish historian, born in Mainyan, in
East Franconia; a collection of his letters and his Annals of the Franks,
as well as his famous "Life of Charlemagne," are extant; was a favourite
of the latter, who appointed him superintendent of public buildings, and
took him with him on all his expeditions; after the death of Charlemagne
he continued at the Court as tutor to the Emperor Louis's son; died in
retirement (770-840).


EGLANTINE, MADAME, the prioress in the "Canterbury Tales" of
Chaucer.


EGLINTON AND WINTON, EARL OF, Archibald William Montgomerie, born at
Palermo; became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Rector of Glasgow University;
was a noted sportsman and patron of the turf; is chiefly remembered in
connection with a brilliant tournament given by him at Eglinton Castle in
1839, in which all the splendour and detail of a mediaeval tourney were
spectacularly reproduced (1812-1861).


EGMONT, LAMORAL, COUNT OF, born in Hainault; became attached to the
Court of Charles V., by whom, for distinguished military and diplomatic
services, he was appointed governor of Flanders; fell into disfavour for
espousing the cause of the Protestants of the Netherlands, and was
beheaded in Brussels by the Duke of Alva; his career and fate form the
theme of Goethe's tragedy "Egmont," a play nothing as a drama, but
charming as a picture of the two chief characters in the piece, Egmont
and Claerchen.


EGMONT, MOUNT, the loftiest peak in the North Island, New Zealand,
is 8270 ft. in height, and of volcanic origin.


EGO and NON-EGO (i. e. I and Not-I, or Self and Not-Self),
are terms used in philosophy to denote respectively the subjective and
the objective in cognition, what is from self and what is from the
external to self, what is merely individual and what is universal.


EGOISM, the philosophy of those who, uncertain of everything but the
existence of the Ego or I, resolve all existence as known into forms or
modifications of its self-consciousness.


EGOIST, a novel by George Meredith, much admired by R. L. Stevenson,
who read and re-read it at least five times over.


EGYPT (8,000), a country occupying the NE. corner of Africa, lies
along the W. shore of the Red Sea, has a northern coast-line on the
Mediterranean, and stretches S. as far as Wady Halfa; the area is nearly
400,000 sq. m.; its chief natural features are uninhabitable desert on
the E. and W., and the populous and fertile valley of the Nile. Cereals,
sugar, cotton, and tobacco are important products. Mohammedan Arabs
constitute the bulk of the people, but there is also a remnant of the
ancient Coptic race. The country is nominally a dependency of Turkey
under a native government, but is in reality controlled by the British,
who exercise a veto on its financial policy, and who, since 1882, have
occupied the country with soldiers. The noble monuments and relics of her
ancient civilisation, chief amongst which are the Pyramids, as well as
the philosophies and religions she inherited, together with the arts she
practised, and her close connection with Jewish history, give her a
peculiar claim on the interested regard of mankind. Nothing, perhaps, has
excited more wonder in connection with Egypt than the advanced state of
her civilisation when she first comes to play a part in the history of
the world. There is evidence that 4000 years before the Christian era the
arts of building, pottery, sculpture, literature, even music and
painting, were highly developed, her social institutions well organised,
and that considerable advance had been made in astronomy, chemistry,
medicine, and anatomy. Already the Egyptians had divided the year into
365 days and 12 months, and had invented an elaborate system of weights
and measures, based on the decimal notation.


EGYPTIAN NIGHT, such as in Egypt when, by judgment of God, a thick
darkness of three days settled down on the land. See Exodus x. 22.


EGYPTIANS, THE, of antiquity were partly of Asiatic and partly of
African origin, with a probable infusion of Semitic blood, and formed
both positively and negatively a no inconsiderable link in the chain of
world-history, positively by their sense of the divinity of nature-life
as seen in their nature-worship, and negatively by the absence of all
sense of the divinity of a higher life as it has come to light in the
self-consciousness or moral sense and destiny of man.


EGYPTOLOGY, the science, in the interest of ancient history, of
Egyptian antiquities, such as the monuments and their inscriptions, and
one in which of late years great interest has been taken, and much
progress made.


EGYPTUS, the brother of Danaues, whose 50 sons, all but one, were
murdered by the daughters of the latter. See DANAUeS.


EHKILI, a dialect of S. Arabia, interesting to philologists as one
of the oldest of Semitic tongues.


EHRENBERG, a German naturalist, born in Delitsch; intended for the
Church; devoted himself to medical studies, and graduated in medicine in
1818; acquired great skill in the use of the microscope, and by means of
it made important discoveries, particularly in the department of infusory
animals; contributed largely to the literature of science (1795-1878).


EHRENBREITSTEIN (5) (i. e. broad stone of honour), a strongly
fortified town in Prussia, on the Rhine, opposite Coblentz, with which it
has communication by a bridge of boats and a railway viaduct; the
fortress occupies the summit of the rock, which is precipitous; is about
500 ft. high, and has large garrison accommodation.


EICHHORN, JOHANN GOTTFRIED, a German theologian and Orientalist,
born at Dorrenzimmern, Franconia; a man of extensive scholarship; held
the chair of Oriental languages in Jena, and afterwards at Goettingen; was
the first to apply a bold rationalism to the critical treatment of the
Scriptures; he was of the old school of rationalists, now superseded by
the historico-critical; his chief works are a Universal Library of
Biblical Literature, in 10 vols., Introductions to the Old and to the New
Testament, each in 5 vols., and an Introduction to the Apocrypha
(1752-1827).


EICHTHAL, GUSTAVE D', a French publicist, born at Nancy; an adherent
of St. Simonianism; wrote "Les Evangiles"; Mrs. Carlyle describes him as
"a gentle soul, trustful, and earnest-looking, ready to do and suffer all
for his faith" (1804-1886).


EICHWALD, CHARLES EDWARD, an eminent Russian naturalist, born in
Mitau, Russia; studied science at Berlin and Vienna; held the chairs of
Zoology and Midwifery at Kasan and Wilna, and of Palaeontology at St.
Petersburg; his explorations, which led him through most of Europe,
Persia, and Algeria, and included a survey of the Baltic shores, as well
as expeditions into the Caucasus, are described in his various works, and
their valuable results noted (1795-1876).


EIFFEL, GUSTAVE, an eminent French engineer, born at Dijon; early
obtained a reputation for bridge construction; designed the great Garabit
Viaduct, and also the enormous locks for the Panama Canal; his most noted
work is the gigantic iron tower which bears his name; in 1893 became
involved in the Panama scandals, and was fined, and sentenced to two
years' imprisonment; _b_. 1832.


EIFFEL TOWER, a structure erected on the banks of the Seine in
Paris, the loftiest in the world, being 985 ft. in height, and visible
from all parts of the city; it consists of three platforms, of which the
first is as high as the towers of Notre Dame; the second as high as
Strasburg Cathedral spire, and the third 863 ft; it was designed by
Gustave Eiffel, and erected in 1887-1889; there are cafes and restaurants
on the first landing, and the ascent is by powerful lifts.


EIGG or EGG, a rocky islet among the Hebrides, 5 m. SW. of
Skye; St. Donnan and 50 monks from Iona were massacred here in 617 by the
queen, notwithstanding a remonstrance on the part of the islanders that
it would be an irreligious act; here also the Macleods of the 10th
century suffocated in a cave 200 of the Macdonalds, including women and
children.


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, "a sceptical century and a godless," according
to Carlyle's deliberate estimate, "opulent in accumulated falsities, as
never century before was; which had no longer the consciousness of being
false, so false has it grown; so steeped in falsity, and impregnated with
it to the very bone, that, in fact, the measure of the thing was full,
and a French Revolution had to end it"; which it did only symbolically,
however, as he afterwards admitted, and but admonitorily of a doomsday
still to come. See "FREDERICK THE GREAT," BK. I. CHAP, II., and
"HEROES."


EIKON BASILIKE (i. e. the Royal Likeness), a book containing an
account of Charles I. during his imprisonment, and ascribed to him as
author, but really written by Bishop Gauden, though the MS. may have been
perused and corrected by the king; it gives a true picture of his
character and possible state of mind.


EILDONS, THE, a "triple-crested eminence" near Melrose, 1385 ft.,
and overlooking Teviotdale to the S., associated with Sir Walter Scott
and Thomas the Rhymer; they are of volcanic origin, and are said to have
been cleft in three by the wizard Michael Scott, when he was out of
employment.


EIMEO, one of the French Society Islands; is hilly and woody, but
well cultivated in the valleys; missionary enterprise in Polynesia first
found a footing here.


EINSIEDELN (8), a town in the canton of Schwyz, Switzerland; has a
Benedictine abbey, containing a famous black image of the Virgin,
credited with miraculous powers, which attracts, it is said, 200,000
pilgrims annually.


EISENACH (21), a flourishing manufacturing town in Saxe-Weimar,
close to the Thuringian Forest and 48 m. W. of Weimar; is the birthplace
of Sebastian Bach; in the vicinity stands the castle of Wartburg, the
hiding-place for 10 months of Luther after the Diet of Worms.


EISLEBEN (23), a mining town in Prussian Saxony, 24 m. NW. of Halle;
the birthplace and burial-place of Luther.


EISTEDDFOD, a gathering of Welsh bards and others, now annual, at
which, out of a patriotic motive, prizes are awarded for the
encouragement of Welsh literature and music and the preservation of the
Welsh language and ancient national customs.


EKATERINBURG (37), a Russian town on the Isset, on the E. side of
the Ural Mountains, of the mining industry in which it is the chief
centre; has various manufactures, and a trade in the cutting and sorting
of precious stones.


EKRON, a town in N. Palestine, 30 m. N. from Gaza and 9 m. from the
sea.


ELAINE, a lady of the court of King Arthur in love with Lancelot,
and whose story is related by Malory in his "History" and by Tennyson in
his "Idylls of the King."


ELATERIUM, a drug obtained from the mucus of the fruit of the
squirting cucumber; is a most powerful purgative, and was known to the
ancients.


ELBA, a small and rocky island in the Mediterranean between Corsica
and Tuscany, with a bold precipitous coast; belongs to Italy; has trade
in fish, fruits, and iron ore; famous as Napoleon's place of exile from
May 1814 to February 1815.


ELBE, the most important river in N. Germany; rises in the
Riesengebirge, in Austria, flows NW. through Germany, and enters the
North Sea at Cuxhaven, 725 m. long, navigable 520 m.; abounds in fish.


ELBERFELD (126), an important manufacturing commercial centre, 16 m.
NE. of Duesseldorf; noted for its textiles and dye-works.


ELBOEUF (21), a town on the Seine, 75 m. NW. of Paris; has
flourishing manufactures in cloths, woollens, &c.


ELBURZ, a lofty mountain range in N. Persia, S. of the Caspian; also
the name of the highest peak in the Caucasus (18,571 ft.).


ELDER, a name given to certain office-bearers in the Presbyterian
Church, associated with the minister in certain spiritual functions short
of teaching and administering sacraments; their duties embrace the
general oversight of the congregation, and are of a wider nature than
those of the deacons, whose functions are confined strictly to the
secular interests of the church; they are generally elected by the church
members, and ordained in the presence of the congregation; their term of
office is in some cases for a stated number of years, but more generally
for life.


ELDON, JOHN SCOTT, LORD, a celebrated English lawyer, born at
Newcastle, of humble parentage; educated at Oxford for the Church, but
got into difficulties through a runaway marriage; he betook himself to
law, rose rapidly in his profession, and, entering Parliament, held
important legal offices under Pitt; was made a Baron and Lord Chancellor,
1801, an office which he held for 26 years; retired from public life in
1835, and left a large fortune at his death; was noted for the shrewd
equity of his judgments and his delay in delivering them (1751-1838).


EL DORADO (lit. the Land of Gold), a country which Orellana, the
lieutenant of Pizzaro, pretended to have discovered in S. America,
between the Amazon and Orinoco, and which he represented as abounding in
gold and precious gems; now a region of purely imaginary wealth.


ELEANOR, queen of Edward I. of England and sister of ALFONSO
X. (q. v.) of Castile, surnamed the Wise, accompanied her husband
to the Crusade in 1269, and is said to have saved him by sucking the
poison from a wound inflicted by a poisoned arrow; was buried at
Westminster (1244-1290).


ELEATICS, a school of philosophy in Greece, founded by Xenophanes of
Elia, and of which Parmenides and Zeno, both of Elia, were the leading
adherents and advocates, the former developing the system and the latter
completing it, the ground-principle of which was twofold--the affirmation
of the unity, and the negative of the diversity, of being--in other
words, the affirmation of pure being as alone real, to the exclusion of
everything finite and merely phenomenal. See "SARTOR," BK. I. CHAP.
8.


ELECTION, THE DOCTRINE OF, the doctrine that the salvation of a man
depends on the election of God for that end, of which there are two chief
phases--the one is election _to be_ Christ's, or unconditional election,
and the other that it is election _in_ Christ, or conditional election.


ELECTORS, THE, or KURFUeRSTS, OF GERMANY, German princes who
enjoyed the privilege of disposing of the imperial crown, ranked next the
emperor, and were originally six in number, but grew to eight and finally
nine; three were ecclesiastical--the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and
Treves, and three secular--the Electors of Saxony, the Palatinate, and
Bohemia, to which were added at successive periods the Electors of
Brandenburg, of Bavaria, and Hanover. "There never was a tenth; and the
Holy Roman Empire, as it was called, which was a grand object once, but
had gone about in a superannuated and plainly crazy state some centuries,
was at last put out of pain by Napoleon, August 6, 1806, and allowed to
cease from the world."


ELECTRA (i. e. the Bright One), an ocean nymph, the mother of
ISIS (q. v.).


ELECTRA, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who, with her
brother Orestes, avenged the death of her father on his murderers.


ELECTRIC LIGHT, a brilliant white light due to positive and negative
currents rushing together between two points of carbon or (the
"incandescent" light) to the intense heat in a solid body, caused by an
electric current passing through it.


ELECTRICITY, the name given to a subtle agent called the electric
fluid, latent in all bodies, and first evolved by friction, and which may
manifest itself, under certain conditions, in brilliant flashes of light,
or, when in contact with animals, in nervous shocks more or less violent.
It is of two kinds, negative and positive, and as such exhibits itself in
the polarity of the magnet, when it is called MAGNETIC (q. v.),
and is excited by chemical action, when it is called VOLTAIC (q. v.).


ELEGY, a song expressive of sustained earnest yearning, or mild
sorrow after loss.


ELEMENTAL SPIRITS, a general name given in the Middle Ages to
salamanders, undines, sylphs, and gnomes, spirits superstitiously
believed to have dominion respectively over, as well as to have had their
dwelling in, the four elements--fire, water, air, and earth.


ELEMENTS, originally the four forms of matter so deemed--fire, air,
earth, and water, and afterwards the name for those substances that
cannot be resolved by chemical analysis, and which are now found to
amount to sixty-seven.


ELEPHANT, a genus of mammals, of which there are two species, the
Indian and the African; the latter attains a greater size, and is hunted
for the sake of its tusks, which may weigh as much as 70 lbs.; the former
is more intelligent, and easily capable of being domesticated; the white
elephant is a variety of this species.


ELEPHANT, ORDER OF THE WHITE, a Danish order of knighthood,
restricted to 30 knights, the decoration of which is an elephant
supporting a tower; it was instituted by Canute IV., king of Denmark, at
the end of the 12th century.


ELEPHANTA, an island 6 m. in circuit in Bombay harbour, so called
from its colossal figure of an elephant which stood near the
landing-place; it contains three temples cut out of solid rock, and
covered with sculptures, which, along with the figure at the landing, are
rapidly decaying.


ELEPHANTIASIS, a peculiar skin disease, accompanied with abnormal
swelling; so called because the skin becomes hard and stiff like an
elephant's hide; attacks the lower limbs and scrotum; is chiefly confined
to India and other tropical countries.


ELEPHANTINE, a small island below the first cataract of the Nile;
contains interesting monuments and ruins of the ancient Roman and
Egyptian civilisations.


ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES, rites, initiation into which, as religiously
conducive to the making of good men and good citizens, was compulsory on
every free-born Athenian, celebrated annually at Eleusis in honour of
Demeter and Persephone, and which lasted nine days.


ELEUSIS, a town in ancient Attica, NW. of Athens, with a temple for
the worship of Demeter, the largest in Greece; designed by the architect
of the PARTHENON (q. v.).


ELEUTHERIA, the goddess of liberty, as worshipped in ancient Greece.


ELF-ARROWS, arrow-heads of flint used in hunting and war by the
aborigines of the British Isles and of Europe generally, as they still
are among savages elsewhere; derived their name from the superstitious
belief that they were used by the fairies to kill cattle and sometimes
human beings in their mischief-joy; they were sometimes worn as
talismans, occasionally set in silver, as a charm against witchcraft.


ELGIN or MORAY (43), a northern Scottish county, fronting the
Moray Firth and lying between Banff and Nairn, mountainous in the S. but
flat to the N., watered by the Spey, Lossie, and Findhorn; agriculture,
stone-quarrying, distilling, and fishing are the staple industries; has
some imposing ruins and interesting antiquities.


ELGIN (8), the county town of above, on the Lossie; created a royal
burgh by David I.; has ruins of a fine Gothic cathedral and royal castle.


ELGIN (17), a city in Illinois, on the Fox, 35 m. NW. of Chicago;
watchmaking the chief industry.


ELGIN, JAMES BRUCE, 8TH EARL OF, statesman and diplomatist, born in
London; governor of Jamaica and Canada; negotiated important treaties
with China and Japan; rendered opportune assistance at the Indian Mutiny
by diverting to the succour of Lord Canning an expedition that was
proceeding to China under his command; after holding office as
Postmaster-General he became Viceroy of India (1861), where he died; his
Journal and Letters are published (1811-1863).


ELGIN MARBLES, a collection of ancient sculptured marbles brought
from Athens by the Earl of Elgin in 1812, and now deposited in the
British Museum, after purchase of them by the Government for L35,000;
these sculptures adorned certain public buildings in the Acropolis, and
consist of portions of statues, of which that of Theseus is the chief, of
alto-reliefs representing the struggle of the Centaurs and Lapithae, and
of a large section of a frieze.


ELIA, the _nom de plume_ adopted by Charles Lamb in connection with
his Essays.


ELIAS, MOUNT, a mountain in NW. coast of N. America; conspicuous far
off at sea, being about 18,000 ft. or 31/2 m. above it.


ELIJAH, a Jewish prophet, born at Tishbe, in Gilead, near the
desert; prophesied in the reign of Ahab, king of Israel, in the 10th
century B.C.; revealed himself as the deadly enemy of the worship of
Baal, 400 of whose priests he is said to have slain with his own hand;
his zeal provoked persecution at the hands of the king and his consort
Jezebel, but the Lord protected him, and he was translated from the earth
in a chariot of fire, "went up by a whirlwind into heaven." See
PROPHETS, THE.


ELIOT, GEORGE, the _nom de plume_ of Mary Ann Evans, distinguished
English novelist, born at Arbury, in Warwickshire; was bred on
evangelical lines, but by-and-by lost faith in supernatural Christianity;
began her literary career by a translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus";
became in 1851 a contributor to the _Westminster Review_, and formed
acquaintance with George Henry Lewes, whom she ere long lived with as his
wife, though unmarried, and who it would seem discovered to her her
latent faculty for fictional work; her first work in that line was
"Scenes from Clerical Life," contributed to _Blackwood_ in 1856; the
stories proved a signal success, and they were followed by a series of
seven novels, beginning in 1858 with "Adam Bede," "the finest thing since
Shakespeare," Charles Reade in his enthusiasm said, the whole winding up
with the "Impressions of Theophrastus Such" in 1879; these, with two
volumes of poems, make up her works; Lewes died in 1878, and two years
after she formally married an old friend, Mr. John Cross, and after a few
months of wedded life died of inflammation of the heart; "she paints,"
says Edmond Scherer, "only ordinary life, but under these externals she
makes us assist at the eternal tragedy of the human heart... with so much
sympathy," he adds, "the smile on her face so near tears, that we cannot
read her pages without feeling ourselves won to that lofty toleration of
hers" (1819-1880).


ELIOT, JOHN, the apostle of the Indians, born in Hertfordshire;
entered the Church of England, but seceded and emigrated to New England;
became celebrated for his successful evangelistic expeditions amongst the
Indians during his lifelong occupancy of the pastorate at Roxbury
(1604-1690).


ELIS, a district of Greece, on the W. coast of the Peloponnesus,
sacred to all Hellas as the seat of the greatest of the Greek festivals
in connection with the Olympian Games, a circumstance which imparted a
prestige to the inhabitants.


ELISA or ELISSA, Dido, queen of Carthage, in love with AEneas.


ELISHA, a Jewish prophet, the successor of Elijah, who found him at
the plough, and consecrated him to his office by throwing his mantle over
him, and which he again let fall on him as he ascended to heaven. He
exercised his office for 55 years, but showed none of the zeal of his
predecessor against the worship of Baal; was, however, accredited as a
prophet of the Lord by the miracles he wrought in the Lord's name.


ELIZABETH, sister of Louis XVI.; was guillotined (1764-1794).


ELIZABETH FARNESE, queen of Spain, a daughter of Odoardo II. of
Parma; in 1714 she married Philip V. of Spain, when her bold and
energetic nature soon made itself felt in the councils of Europe, where
she carried on schemes for territorial and political aggrandisement; was
an accomplished linguist; is called by Carlyle "the Termagant of Spain";
her Memoirs are published in four volumes (1692-1766).


ELIZABETH, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA, daughter of Peter the Great and
Catharine I.; assisted Maria Theresa in the war of the Austrian
Succession; opposed Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War; indolent
and licentious, she left the affairs of the State mainly in the hands of
favourites (1709-1762).


ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA, daughter of James VI. of Scotland and
I. of England; married Frederick V., Elector Palatine, who for a brief
time held the throne of Bohemia; her daughter Sophia, by marrying the
Elector of Hanover, formed a tie which ultimately brought the crown of
England to the House of Brunswick (1596-1662).


ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND (1658-1603), daughter of Henry VIII. and
Anne Boleyn, born in Greenwich Palace; was an indefatigable student in
her youth; acquired Greek and Latin, and a conversational knowledge of
German and French; the Pope's opposition to her succession on the ground
of being judged illegitimate by the Church strengthened her attachment to
the Protestant faith, which was her mother's, and contributed to its firm
establishment during the reign; during it the power of Spain was crushed
by the defeat of the Armada; maritime enterprise flourished under Drake,
Raleigh, and Frobisher; commerce was extended, and literature carried to
a pitch of perfection never before or since reached; masterful and
adroit, Elizabeth yet displayed the weakness of vanity and
vindictiveness; the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, is a blot upon her
fame, and her intrigues with Seymour, Leicester, and Essex detract from
her dignity; her wisdom was manifested in her wise choice of counsellors
and leaders, and her patriotism won her a secure place in the hearts of
her people (1533-1608).


ELIZABETH, ST., "a very pious, but also a very fanciful young woman;
her husband, a Thuringian landgraf, going to the Crusade, where he died
straightway," Carlyle guesses, "partly the fruit of the life she led him;
lodging beggars, sometimes in her very bed; continually breaking his
night's rest for prayer and devotional exercises of undue length,
'weeping one moment, then smiling in joy the next'; meandering about,
capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly; went to
live at Marburg after her husband's death, and soon died there in a most
melodiously pious sort" in 1231, aged 24.


ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE, a term applied to the style of
architecture which flourished in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.,
and which was characterised by a revival of classic designs wrought into
the decadent Gothic style. Lord Salisbury's house at Hatfield is a good
specimen of this mixed style.


ELIZABETHAN ERA, according to Carlyle, "the outcome and flowerage of
all which had preceded it... in that old age lies the _only_ true
_poetical_ literature of England. The poets of the last ago took to
pedagogy (Pope and his school), and shrewd men they were; those of the
present age to ground-and-lofty tumbling; and it will do your heart
good," he adds, "to see how they vault."


ELKARGEH (4), a town in the great oasis in the Libyan Desert; has
ancient remains, and is an important resting stage in crossing the
desert.


ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, EARL OF, an English Conservative
statesman, son of Baron Ellenborough, Lord Chief-Justice of England;
entered Parliament in 1813; held office under the Duke of Wellington and
Sir Robert Peel; appointed Governor-General of India (1841); recalled in
1844; subsequently First Lord of the Admiralty and Indian Minister under
Lord Derby (1790-1871).


ELLENRIEDER, MARIE, a painter of great excellence, born at
Constance; studied in Rome; devoted herself to religious subjects, such
as "Christ Blessing Little Children," "Mary and the Infant Jesus," &c.
(1771-1863).


ELLESMERE, FRANCIS EGERTON, EARL OF, statesman and author, born in
London, second son of the Duke of Sutherland; was Secretary for Ireland
and War Secretary; author of some books of travel, and a translation of
"Faust" (1800-1857).


ELLIOT, GEORGE AUGUSTUS. See HEATHFIELD.


ELLIOTSON, JOHN, an English physician, born in London; lost his
professorship in London University on account of employing mesmerism for
medical purposes; promoted clinical instruction and the use of the
stethoscope; founded the Phrenological Society (1791-1868).


ELLIOTT, EBENEZER, poet, known popularly as the "Corn-Law Rhymer,"
born in Rotherham parish, Yorkshire; an active worker in iron; devoted
his leisure to poetic composition; proved a man that could handle both
pen and hammer like a man; wrote the "Corn-Law Rhymes" and other pieces;
his works have been "likened to some little fraction of a rainbow, hues
of joy and harmony, painted out of troublous tears; no full round bow
shone on by the full sun, and yet, in very truth, a little prismatic
blush, glowing genuine among the wet clouds, ... proceeds from a sun
cloud-hidden, yet indicates that a sun does shine...; a voice from the
deep Cyclopean forges where Labour, in real soot and sweat, beats with
his thousand hammers, doing personal battle with Necessity and her brute
dark powers to make _them_ reasonable and serviceable" (1781-1849).


ELLIS, ALEXANDER J., an eminent English philologist, born at
Horeton; published many papers on phonetics and early English
pronunciation; was President of the Philological Society; his name,
originally Sharpe, changed by royal license (1814-1890).


ELLIS, GEORGE, literary critic, born in London; did much to promote
the study of early English literature; contributed to the _Anti-Jacobin_,
and was joint-author of the "Rolliad," a satire on Pitt, and of
"Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances"; Scott declared him to be
the best conversationalist he had ever met (1753-1815).


ELLIS, SIR HENRY, chief librarian of the British Museum from 1827 to
1856, born in London; edited various works on antiques; wrote an
"Introduction to Domesday Book"; knighted in 1833 (1777-1869).


ELLIS, WILLIAM, a missionary and author, born in London; laboured in
the South Sea Islands, and afterwards in Madagascar; wrote various works
descriptive of these islands; he married Sarah Stickney, who is the
authoress of a number of popular works, including "The Women of England,"
"The Daughters of England," &c. (1794-1872).


ELLISTON, ROBERT WILLIAM, a celebrated actor, born in London; ran
away from home and joined the stage, rose to the front rank both as
comedian and tragedian (1774-1831).


ELLORA, an Indian village in Hyderabad, 12 m. NW. of Aurungabad,
famed for its Buddhist and Hindu cave and monolithic temples, the most
magnificent of which is hewn out of a solid hill of red stone, the most
beautiful being the Hindu temple of Kailas.


ELLWOOD, THOMAS, a celebrated Quaker, born at Crowell, Oxfordshire;
the intimate friend of Milton, to whom he suggested the idea of "Paradise
Regained" by remarking to him, "Thou hast said much of Paradise Lost, but
what hast thou to say of Paradise Found?" his Autobiography is still read
(1639-1713).


ELMO'S FIRE, ST., a popular name for the display of electric fire
which sometimes plays about the masts of ships, steeples, &c.,
accompanied at times with a hissing noise; commoner in southern climates,
known by other names, e. g. Fire of St. Clara, of St. Elias.


ELOGE, a discourse in panegyric of some illustrious person deceased,
in which composition Fontenelle took the lead, and in which he was
followed by D'Alembert, Condorcet, Flourens, and others.


ELOHIM, a Hebrew word in the plural number, signifying God or one as
God, but with a verb in the singular, signifying generally the one true
God; according to the Talmud it denotes God as just in judgment to all in
contradistinction to Jehovah, which denotes God as merciful to His
people.


ELOHIST, a name given by the critics to the presumed author of the
earlier part of the Pentateuch, whose work in it they allege is
distinguished by the use of the word Elohim for God; he is to be
distinguished from the Jehovist, the presumed author of the later
portions, from his use, on the other hand, of the word Jehovah for God.


ELPHINSTONE, GEORGE KEITH, ADMIRAL. See KEITH.


ELPHINSTONE, MOUNTSTUART, a noted Indian civil servant and
historian; co-operated with Wellesley in firmly establishing British rule
in India; was governor of Bombay, where he accomplished many useful
reforms, and issued the Elphinstone Code of Laws; wrote a "History of
India," which earned for him the title of the "Tacitus of India"
(1779-1859).


ELPHINSTONE, WILLIAM, an erudite and patriotic Scottish ecclesiastic
and statesman, born in Glasgow; took holy orders; went to Paris to study
law, and became a professor in Law there, and afterwards at Orleans;
returned to Scotland; held several high State appointments under James
III. and James IV.; continued a zealous servant of the Church, holding
the bishoprics of Ross and of Aberdeen, where he founded the university
(1431-1514).


ELSASS (French ALSACE), a German territory on the left bank of
the Rhine, traversed by the Vosges Mountains; taken from the French in
1870-71.


ELSINORE, a seaport on the island of Zeeland, in Denmark, 20 m. N.
of Copenhagen; has a good harbour; the scene of Shakespeare's "Hamlet."


ELSWICK (53), a town in the vicinity of Newcastle, noted for the
great engineering and ordnance works of Sir W. G. (now Lord) Armstrong.


ELTON, a salt lake of SE. Russia, in the government of Astrakhan;
has an area of about 65 sq. m., but is very shallow; yields annually some
90,000 or 95,000 tons of salt, which is shipped off _via_ the Volga.


ELTON, CHARLES ISAAC, jurist and ethnologist, born in Somerset; held
a Fellowship in Queen's College, Oxford; called to the bar in 1865, and
in 1884 was returned to Parliament as a Conservative; his first works
were juridical treatises on the tenure of land, but in 1882 he produced a
learned book on the origins of English history; _b_. 1839.


ELVAS, a strongly fortified town in Portugal, in the province of
Alemtejo, 12 m. W. of Badajoz; is a bishop's see; has a Moorish aqueduct
31/2 m. long and 250 ft. high.


ELY (8), a celebrated cathedral city, in the fen-land of
Cambridgeshire, on the Ouse, 30 m. SE. of Peterborough; noted as the
scene of Hereward's heroic stand against William the Conqueror in 1071;
the cathedral, founded in 1083, is unique as containing specimens of the
various Gothic styles incorporated during the course of 400 years.


ELY, ISLE OF, a name given to the N. portion of Cambridgeshire on
account of its having been at one time insulated by marshes; being
included in the region of the Fens, has been drained, and is now fertile
land.


ELYOT, SIR THOMAS, author and ambassador, born in Wiltshire;
ambassador to the court of Charles V.; celebrated as the author of "The
Governour," the first English work on moral philosophy, and also of the
first Latin-English dictionary (1490-1546).


ELYSIUM the abode of the shades of the virtuous dead in the nether
world as conceived of by the poets of Greece and Rome, where the
inhabitants live a life of passive blessedness, which, however, is to
such a man as Achilles a place of woe rather and unrest, where he would
fain exchange places with the meanest hind that breathes in the upper
world.


ELZE, FREDERICK CARL, a German Shakespearian scholar, born at
Dessau; early devoted himself to the study of English literature; lived
some time in England and Scotland; in 1875 became professor of English
Literature at Halle; his various publications on Shakespeare and the
Elizabethan dramatists are full of excellent criticisms; also wrote Lives
of Scott and Byron (1821-1889).


ELZEVIR, the name of an eminent family of printers residing in
Amsterdam and Leyden, Louis the first of them, who started in Leyden;
their publications date from 1594 to 1680.


ELZEVIR EDITIONS, editions of the classics printed at Amsterdam and
Leyden during the 16th and 17th centuries by a family of the Elzevirs,
and considered to be immaculate.


EMANATION, THE DOCTRINE OF, a doctrine of Eastern origin, which
derives everything that exists from the divine nature by necessary
process of emanation, as light from the sun, and ascribes all evil and
the degrees of it to a greater and greater distance from the pure ether
of this parent source, or to the extent in consequence to which the being
gets immersed in and clogged with matter.


EMANCIPATION, originally a term in Roman law and name given to the
process of the manumission of a son by his father; the son was sold to a
third party and after the sale became _sui juris_; it is now applied to
the remission of old laws in the interest of freedom, which Carlyle
regards in his "Shooting Niagara," as the sum of nearly all modern recent
attempts at Reform.


EMANUEL I., king of Portugal from 1495 to 1521; his reign
inaugurated the golden period of Portuguese history, during which
Portugal became the first maritime and commercial power in Europe; was
the patron of Vasco da Gama and Albuquerque; issued an edict for the
expulsion of the Jews from his kingdom, and wrote to the Elector of
Saxony begging him to get rid of Luther (1469-1521).


EMBALMING, the art of preserving dead bodies from decay by means of
antiseptic agents applied both externally and internally; although known
to other people, e. g. the Peruvians, the art was chiefly practised
among the Egyptians, and the practice of it dates back to 4000 B.C.; the
thoroughness of the process depended on the money expended, but it
usually involved the removal of the viscera, save the heart and kidneys,
the extraction of the brain, the introduction of drugs to the cavities,
and the pickling of the body in native carbonate of soda, and the
wrapping of it in linen; experiments in embalming, more or less
successful, have been made in recent times, and even still are.


EMBER DAYS, four annually recurring periods of three days each,
appointed by the Romish and English Churches to be devoted to fasting and
praying; they are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the first
Sunday in Lent, after Pentecost, after the 14th September, and after the
13th December.


EMBRYO, the scientific term for the young of an animal while yet in
the initial stage of development in the womb; also applied to the plant
in its rudimentary stage within the seed.


EMBRYOLOGY, the section of biology which treats of the development
of the embryo.


EMDEN (14), the chief part of the province of Hanover, in Prussia,
situated at the outlet of the river Ems; is intersected by canals;
shipbuilding and brewing are the chief industries.


EMERALD, a precious stone of great value, allied in composition to
the beryl; is of a beautiful transparent green colour; the finest
specimens are found in Colombia and Venezuela.


EMERALD ISLE, Ireland, from the fresh verdure of its herbage.


EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, an American philosophic thinker and poet, of
English Puritan descent, born at Boston, where he started in life as a
Unitarian preacher and pastor, an office he resigned in 1832 for
literature, in which he found he would have freer and fuller scope to
carry out his purpose as a spiritual teacher; in 1833 he paid a visit to
England, and in particular a notable one to CRAIGENPUTTOCK (q. v.),
with the inmates of which he formed a lifelong friendship; on his
return the year after, he married, a second time as it happened, and,
settling down in Concord, began his career as a lecturer and man of
letters; by his "Essays," of which he published two series, one in 1841
and a second in 1844, he commended himself to the regard of all thinking
men in both hemispheres, and began to exercise an influence for good on
all the ingenuous youth of the generation; they were recognised by
Carlyle, and commended as "the voice of a man"; these embraced subjects
one and all of spiritual interest, and revealed transcendent intellectual
power; they were followed by "Representative Men," lectures delivered in
Manchester on a second visit to England in 1847, and thereafter, at
successive periods, by "Society and Solitude," "English Traits," "The
Conduct of Life," "Letters and Social Aims," besides a long array of
poems, as well as sundry remarkable Addresses and Lectures, which he
published; he was a man of exceptional endowment and great speculative
power, and is to this day the acknowledged head of the literary men of
America; speculatively, Carlyle and he were of the same school, but while
Carlyle had "descended" from the first "into the angry, noisy Forum with
an argument that could not but exasperate and divide," he continued
pretty much all his days engaged in little more than in a quiet survey
and criticism of the strife; Carlyle tried hard to persuade him to
"descend," but it would appear Emerson never to his dying day understood
what Carlyle meant by the appeal, an appeal to take the devil by the
throat and cease to merely speculate and dream (1803-1882).


EMERSON TENNENT, SIR JAMES, bred for the bar; was from 1845 to 1852
colonial secretary and lieutenant-governor of Ceylon, and became on his
return joint-secretary to the Board of Trade; wrote "Christianity in
Ceylon" and "Ceylon: an Account of the Island" (1804-1869).


EMERY, a dull, blue-black mineral, allied in composition to the
sapphire, but containing a varying quantity of iron oxide; is found in
large masses; is exceedingly hard, and largely used in polishing metals,
plate-glass, and precious stones.


EMIGRANTS, THE (_Les Emigres_), the members of the French
aristocracy and of the partisans of the ancient regime who at the time of
the Revolution, after the fall of the Bastille, fled for safety to
foreign lands, congregating particularly in Coblenz, where they plotted
for its overthrow, to the extent of leaguing with the foreigner against
their country, with the issue of confiscation of their lands and
properties by the republic that was set up.


EMILE, the hero of a philosophic romance by Rousseau of the same
name, in which the author expounds his views on education, and presents
his reasons, with his ideal of what, according to him, a good education
is, a theory practically adopted by many would-be educationists with
indifferent fruit.


EMIR, a title bestowed on the descendants of Mahomet's daughter
Fatima, the word denoting a "prince" or "ruler"; has lost this its
primary meaning; the emirs, of whom there are large numbers in Turkey,
enjoying no privileges save the sole right to wear a green turban, the
supposed favourite colour of Mahomet, though they hold a high social
position; the title is also given to chieftains of N. Africa.


EMMET, ROBERT, a patriotic Irishman, born in Dublin; bred for the
bar; took part in the Irish rebellion; was hanged for his share in
attempting to seize Dublin Castle (1778-1803).


EMPE`DOCLES, a philosopher of Agrigentum, in Sicily; "extolled in
antiquity as a statesman and orator, as physicist, physician, and poet,
and even as prophet and worker of miracles," who flourished about the
year 440 B.C.; he conceived the universe as made up of "four eternal,
self-subsistent, mutually underivative, but divisible, primal material
bodies, mingled and moulded by two moving forces, the uniting one of
friendship and the disuniting one of strife"; of him it is fabled that,
to persuade his fellow-citizens, with whom he had been in high favour as
their deliverer from the tyranny of the aristocracy, of his bodily
translation from earth to heaven, he threw himself unseen into the crater
of Etna, but that at the next eruption of the mountain his slipper was
cast up and revealed the fraud.


EMPIRES: the ROMAN, capital Rome, dates from the reign of
Augustus, 25 B.C., to that of Theodosius, A.D. 395; OF THE EAST,
or Low Empire, capital Constantinople, being part of the Roman empire,
dates from 295 to 1453; OF THE WEST, capital Rome, dates from 295 to
476; the HOLY, or Second Empire of the West, founded by Charlemagne,
dates from 800 to 911; the LATIN, capital Constantinople, founded by
the Crusaders, dates from 1204 to 1261; the GERMAN, founded by Otho
the Great in 962, ended by abdication of Francis II. of Austria in 1806,
and restored under William I. in 1870; the FRENCH, founded by
Napoleon I., dates from 1804 to 1815, and as established by Napoleon III.
dates from 1852 to 1870; OF THE INDIES, founded in 1876 under the
crown of England.


EMPIRIC, the name given to any who practises an art from the mere
experience of results, apart from all reference to or knowledge of the
scientific explanation.


EMPIRICISM, a philosophical term applied to the theory that all
knowledge is derived from the senses and experience alone, to the
rejection of the theory of innate ideas; Locke, in modern times, is the
great representative of the school that advocates this doctrine supported
by Aristotle.


EMPSON, SIR RICHARD, a lawyer in the reign of Henry VII.; was
Speaker of the House of Commons; incurred the hatred of the populace by
acting as the king's agent in forcing payment of taxes and penalties; was
convicted of tyranny and treason, and beheaded in 1510.


EMPYEMA, a medical term signifying a diseased condition of the
chest, in which pus accumulates in the pleura, cures of which are
sometimes effected by drawing off the pus by means of tubes.


EMPYREAN, the highest heaven, or region of pure elemental fire,
whence everything of the nature of fire has been conceived to emanate,
whether in the phenomena of nature or the life of man.


EMS, 1, a river of NW. Germany, rises in Westphalia, and after a
course of 205 m. discharges into Dollart Bay, an inlet of the North Sea;
is navigable, and is joined to the Lippe by means of a canal, and also
similarly to Dortmund. 2, A celebrated German watering-place, on the
Lahn, near Coblenz; its mineral springs, known to the Romans, vary in
warmth from 80 deg. to 135 deg. F.


ENAMEL, a vitreous compound, easily fusible, and coloured in various
tints by the admixture of different metallic oxides; is fused to the
surface of metals for utility and ornament; was known to the European and
Asiatic ancients, and has maintained its popularity to the present day.
Various schools have been formed, of which the Byzantine, Rhenish, and
Limoges are the most noted.


ENCAUSTIC PAINTING, an ancient style of decorative art somewhat
similar to enamelling, which consisted in overlaying the surface (e. g.
of walls) with wax, then inlaying a coloured design, the whole being
subsequently polished.


ENCELADUS, one of the chief giants that revolted against Zeus, and
who, as he fled and took refuge in Sicily, was transfixed by a
thunderbolt, and buried under Etna. The fiery eruptions of the mountain
are his breath, and the shaking of it ascribed to his shifting from one
side to another. In the latter regard he serves in literature as the
symbol of a blind, often impotent, struggle to throw off some oppressive
incubus.


ENCELADUS, MANUEL BLANCO, a distinguished Chilian statesman and
soldier, born in Buenos Ayres; trained for the navy in Spain, but joined
the Chilian revolutionaries; served with distinction under Lord Cochrane,
and rose to high rank both in the army and navy; was commander of the
Chilian forces in 1825, and for two months in the following year
President of the Republic; was subsequently Governor of Valparaiso, and
minister to France (1790-1876).


ENCHIRIDION OF EPICTETUS. See EPICTETUS.


ENCINA or ENZINA, JUAN DE LA, a Spanish dramatist, whose works
mark the rise of the Spanish drama, born at Salamanca; was at one time
secretary to the Duke of Alva, and afterwards conductor of music in the
chapel of Leo X. at Rome (1469-1534).


ENCKE, JOHANN FRANZ, a celebrated German astronomer, born at
Hamburg; determined the sun's distance, and the orbit of the comet of
1680; calculated the time of the revolution of the comet which now bears
his name, and which appeared in 1818; determined also the distance of the
sun by the two transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769 (1791-1865).


ENCYCLICAL LETTER, a letter addressed by the Pope to the bishops of
the Church, condemnatory of prevailing errors or counselling them how to
act in connection with public questions of the day.


ENCYCLOPAEDIA, a name of Greek derivation, given to works which
embrace within their pages a more or less complete account, in
alphabetical order, of the whole round of human knowledge, or of some
particular section of it. Attempts in this direction were made as far
back as Aristotle's day, and various others have since been made from
time to time, according as the circle of knowledge widened. Amongst
famous encyclopaedias which have appeared, mention may be made of the
French "ENCYCLOPEDIE" (q. v.); the "Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
Edinburgh (1708-1771), now in its ninth edition (1889); the German
"Encyclopedie," begun in 1818 by Ersch and Gruber, and not yet completed,
although 170 volumes have appeared; while the largest of all is the
Chinese encyclopaedia, in 5020 vols., printed in Pekin in 1726.


ENCYCLOPEDIE, a French encyclopaedia consisting of 28 vols., to which
a supplement of 5 vols. was added; edited by D'Alembert and Diderot;
contributed to by a number of the eminent savants of France, and issued
in 1751-1777, and which contributed to feed, but did nothing to allay, or
even moderate, the fire of the Revolution.


ENCYCLOPEDIST, generally a man of encyclopedic knowledge, or who
conducts or contributes to an encyclopaedia; specially one who has, as the
French encyclopedists, an overweening, false, and illusory estimate of
the moral worth and civilising power of such knowledge. See CARLYLE'S
"SARTOR," BK. I. CHAP. 10, ON THE "ENCYCLOPEDIC HEAD."


ENDEMIC, a term applied to diseases which affect the inhabitants of
certain countries and localities, and which arise from strictly local
causes, _e. g_. neighbouring swamps, bad sanitation, impure water,
climate, &c.


ENDOGENS, those plants in which the new fibrous matter is developed
in the centre of the stem, and which is pushed outward by the formation
of new tissue within, thus developing the stem outwards from the inside.
See EXOGENS.


ENDOR, a place on the S. of Mount Tabor, in Palestine, where the
sorceress lived who was consulted by Saul before the battle of Gilboa,
and who professed communication with the ghost of Samuel (1 Sam, xxviii.
7).


ENDOSMOSE, a word used in physics to describe the intermingling of
two liquids of different densities, in close juxtaposition, but separated
by a thin membranous tissue. The liquid of lesser density passes more
rapidly through the dividing tissue, and raises the level of the liquid
in the other vessel, this action is named endosmose; while the flowing of
the liquid of greater density into the vessel whose level is falling, is
called exosmose.


ENDYMION, a beautiful shepherd, son of Zeus, whom SELENE (q. v.)
carried off to Mount Lemnos, in Caria, where, as she kissed him, he
sank into eternal sleep. This is one version of the story.


ENEID, an epic poem of Virgil, the hero of which is AEneas of Troy.


ENERGY, CONSERVATION OF, the doctrine that, however it may change in
form and character, or be dissipated, no smallest quantity of force in
the universe is ever lost.


ENFANTIN, BARTHELEMY PROSPER, a Socialist and journalist, born in
Paris, adopted the views of SAINT-SIMON (q. v.); held subversive
views on the marriage laws, which involved him in some trouble; wrote a
useful and sensible book on Algerian colonisation, and several works,
mainly interpretative of the theories of Saint-Simon (1796-1864).


ENFIELD (32), a town in Middlesex, 10 m. NE. of London, has a
celebrated Government rifle factory; was for six years the dwelling-place
of Charles Lamb.


ENGADINE, a noted Swiss valley in the canton of the Grisons,
stretches about 65 m. between the Lepontine or Rhaetian Alps; is divided
into the Lower Engadine, wild and desolate, and the Upper Engadine,
fertile and populous, and a favourite health resort; the river Inn flows
through it, its waters collected here and there into lakes.


ENGEDI, an oasis, a spot of rare beauty, once a place of palm-trees,
23 m. W. of the N. end of the Dead Sea.


ENGHIEN, LOUIS DE BOURBON, DUC D', an ill-fated French Royalist,
born at Chantilly; joined the Royalists under his grandfather, Prince of
Conde, and took part in the Rhine campaign against the Republicans; was
suspected of being concerned in a Bourbon plot to assassinate the Emperor
Napoleon; was seized in the neutral territory of Baden, brought to
Vincennes, and, after an inconclusive and illegal trial, shot by
Napoleon's orders, a proceeding which gave rise to Fouche's remark, "It
is worse than a crime--it is a blunder" (1772-1804).


ENGINEERS, ROYAL NAVAL, since 1848 have ranked as commissioned
officers; salaries vary from L110 to L639 a year; admission is by
examination; duties include the entire oversight and management of the
ship-machinery; there are three ranks--inspectors of machinery, chief
engineers, and assistants, the latter being of three grades; in 1888
engineer studentships were created.


ENGINEERS, THE CORPS OF ROYAL, in the British army, instituted in
1763, consists of about 900 officers and 5000 non-commissioned officers
and men, usually recruited from skilled artisans; their duties comprise
the undertaking of all engineering operations necessary in the conduct of
war, e. g. bridging and mining, road and railway and telegraph
construction, building of fortifications, &c.; their term of service is 7
years in the active army and 5 in the reserve, or maybe 3 in the former
and 9 in the latter.


ENGLAND (27,000), the "predominant partner" of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, comprises along with Wales the southern, and
by far the greater, portion of Great Britain, the largest of the European
islands; it is separated from the Continent on the E. and S. by the North
Sea and English Channel, and from Ireland on the W. by St. George's
Channel, while Scotland forms its N. boundary; its greatest length N. and
S. is 430 m., and greatest breadth (including Wales) 370. It is of an
irregular triangular shape; has a long and highly-developed coast-line
(1800 m.); is divided into 40 counties (with Wales 52); has numerous
rivers with navigable estuaries, while transit is facilitated by a
network of railways and canals; save the highlands in the N., and the
Pennine Range running into Derby, England is composed (if we except the
mountainland of Wales) of undulating plains, 80 per cent, of which is
arable; while coal and iron are found in abundance, and copper, lead,
zinc, and tin in lesser quantities; in the extent and variety of its
textile factories, and in the production of machinery and other hardware
goods, England is without an equal; the climate is mild and moist, and
affected by draughts; but for the Gulf Stream, whose waters wash its
western shores, it would probably resemble that of Labrador. Under a
limited monarchy and a widely embracing franchise, the people of England
enjoy an unrivalled political freedom. Since Henry VIII.'s time, the
national religion has been an established Protestantism, but all forms
are tolerated. In 1896 education was made free. The name England is
derived from Engle-land, or land of the Angles, a Teutonic people who,
with kindred Saxons and Jutes, came over from the mainland in the 5th
century, and took possession of the island, driving Britons and Celts
before them. Admixtures to the stock took place during the 11th century
through the Danish and Norman conquests. E. annexed Wales in 1284, and
was united with Scotland under one crown in 1603, and under one
Parliament in 1707.


ENGLAND, THE WANT OF, "England needs," says Ruskin, "examples of
people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the
world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have
resolved to seek, not greater wealth, but simpler pleasures; not higher
fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions
self-possession, and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm
pursuits of peace."


ENGLES, FRIEDRICH, a Socialist, the friend of Karl Marx; an active
propagandist of socialistic theories; author of several works on
Socialism (1820-1895).


ENID, the daughter of Yniol and the wife of Geraint; one of the
ladies of the court of King Arthur; celebrated for her steadfast conjugal
affection, the story regarding whom is given in Tennyson's "Idylls of the
King."


ENNISKILLEN (5), the county town of Fermanagh, Ireland, on an isle
in the river which joins Lower and Upper Loughs Erne; the scene of the
defeat of James II.'s troops by those of William of Orange; gives its
name to a well-known dragoon regiment.


ENNIUS, an early Roman poet, the father of Roman epic poetry, born
in Rudiae, Calabria; promoted the study of Greek literature in Rome; of
his poems, dramatic and epic, only a few fragments are extant
(239-169 B.C.).


ENOCH, a godly man, who lived in antediluvian times among a race
gone godless, and whom the Lord in judgment removed from the earth to
return Himself by-and-by with a flood in order to clear the world of the
ungodly.


ENOCH, THE BOOK OF, an apocryphal book, quoted from by Jude,
discovered over a century ago, composed presumably about the 2nd century,
though subsequently enlarged and ascribed to Enoch; it professes to be a
series of revelations made to the patriarch bearing upon the secrets of
the material and spiritual universe and the course of Providence, and
written down by him for the benefit of posterity.


ENOCH ARDEN, a poem of Tennyson, and one of his happiest efforts to
translate an incident of common life into the domain of poetry; the story
is: A sailor, presumed to be lost, and whose wife marries another,
returns, finds her happily wedded, and bears the sorrow rather than
disturb her felicity by revealing himself.


ENTABLATURE, a term in classic architecture applied to the
ornamented portion of a building which rests in horizontal position upon
supporting columns; is subdivided into three parts, the lower portion
being called the _architrave_, the middle portion the _frieze_, and the
uppermost the _cornice_; the depth assigned to these parts varies in the
different schools, but the whole entablature generally measures twice the
diameter of the column.


ENTAIL, a term in law which came to be used in connection with the
practice of limiting the inheritance of estates to a certain restricted
line of heirs. Attempts of the kind, which arise naturally out of the
deeply-seated desire which men have to preserve property--especially
landed estates--in their own families, are of ancient date; but the
system as understood now, involving the principle of primogeniture, owes
its origin to the feudal system. Sometimes the succession was limited to
the male issue, but this was by no means an invariable practice; in
modern times the system has been, by a succession of Acts of Parliaments
(notably the Cairns Act of 1882), greatly modified, and greater powers
given to the actual owner of alienating the estates to which he has
succeeded, a process which is called "breaking the entail."


ENTSAGEN, the renunciation with which, according to Goethe, life,
strictly speaking, begins, briefly explained by Froude as "a resolution,
fixedly and clearly made, to do without pleasant things--wealth,
promotion, fame, honour, and the other rewards with which the world
recompenses the services it appreciates," or, still more briefly, the
renunciation of the flesh symbolised in the Christian baptism by water.


ENVIRONMENT, a term of extensive use in biological science,
especially employed to denote the external conditions which go to
determine modifications in the development of organic life to the extent
often of producing new species.


EOLUS. See AEOLUS.


EON. See AEON.


EON DE BEAUMONT, CHARLES D', the "Chevalier d'Eon," a noted French
diplomatist, born at Tonnerre, Burgundy; notorious as having, while on
secret missions, adopted a woman's dress for purposes of disguise; was
ambassador at the English Court, but degraded and recalled by Louis XVI.,
and condemned to wear feminine garb till the close of his life; died in
destitution, when the popular doubt as to his real sex was set at rest
(1728-1810).


EOS, the goddess of the dawn, the daughter of Hyperion, and the
sister of Helios and Selene. See AURORA.


EOeTVOeS, JOZSEF, Hungarian statesman and author, born at Buda;
adopted law as a profession, but devoted himself to literature, and
eventually politics; Minister of Public Instruction, and then of Worship
and Education; published some powerful dramas and novels, notably "The
Village Notary," a work pronounced equal in many respects to the best of
Scott's novels; also vigorous political essays (1813-1871).


EPACT, a name given to the excess of the solar month over the lunar,
amounting to 1 day 11 hours 11 minutes and 57 seconds, and of the solar
year over the lunar amounting to 11 days.


EPAMINONDAS, a famous Theban statesman and soldier, defeated Sparta
in the great victory of Leuctra, and during his lifetime raised Thebes to
a position of dominant power; was slain in the battle of Mantinea when
again successfully engaging the Spartans; blameless in his private life
as he was heroic in the field, he figures as the great hero of Theban
history; born about the close of the 5th century B.C.


EPEE, CHARLES MICHEL, ABBE DE L', a noted philanthropist, born at
Versailles; took holy orders, but was divested of them on account of
Jansenist views; devoted his life to the instruction of deaf-mutes, for
whom he founded an institute, and invented a language of signs
(1712-1789).


EPEIUS, the contriver of the wooden horse, by means of which the
Greeks entered and took possession of Troy, and who was assisted by
Athena in the building of it.


EPERNAY (18), a French town on the Marne, 20 m. NW. of Chalons; the
chief emporium of the champagne district.


EPHESIANS, THE EPISTLE TO, a presumably circular letter of St. Paul
to the Church at Ephesus, among other Churches in the East, written to
show that the Gentile had a standing in Christ as well as the Jew, and
that it was agreeable to the eternal purpose of God that the two should
form one body in Him; it contains Paul's doctrine of the Church, and
appears to have been written during his first imprisonment in Rome
(61-63); it appears from the spirit that breathes in it and the similar
thoughts and exhortations, contained to have been written at the same
time as the Epistle to the Colossians.


EPHIALTES, one of the giants who revolted against Zeus and
threatened to storm heaven; he appears to have been maimed by Apollo and
Hercules.


EPHIALTES, a Malian Greek who led the Persians across a pass in the
mountains, whereby they were able to surround and overcome Leonidas and
his Spartans at Thermopylae.


EPHOD, a richly and emblematically embroidered vestment worn by the
high-priest of the Jews, and consisting of two parts, one covering the
breast and supporting the breastplate, and the other covering the back,
these being clasped to the shoulders by two onyx stones, with names
inscribed on them, six on each, of the 12 tribes, and the whole bound
round the waist with a girdle of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and
fine-twined linen.


EPH`ORI (i. e. overseers), the name of five magistrates annually
elected in ancient Sparta from among the people as a countercheck to the
authority of the kings and the senate; had originally to see to the
execution of justice and the education of youth; their authority, which
resembled that of the tribunes in Rome, was at last destroyed in 225 B.C.


EPHRAEM SYRUS, the most famous of the Church Fathers in Syria, and
called "prophet of the Syrians," also "Pillar of the Church" and "Help of
the Holy Ghost," born at Nisibis, Mesopotamia; lived a hermit's life in a
cave near Edessa; left exegetical writings, homilies, and poems, and so
great was his piety and self-denial, that he was looked upon as a saint,
and is still so reverenced in several Churches (320-370).


EPHRAIM, one of the 12 tribes of Israel, the one to which Joshua
belonged, located in the centre of the land; powerful in the days of the
Judges, the chief of the 10 tribes that revolted under Jeroboam after the
death of Solomon, and is found often to give name to the whole body of
them.


EPIC, a poem that treats of the events in the life of a nation or a
race or the founder of one, agreeably to the passion inspiring it and in
such form as to kindle and keep alive the heroism thereof in the
generations thereafter; or a poem in celebration of the thoughts,
feelings, and feats of a whole nation or race; its proper function is to
_disimprison_ the soul of the related facts and give a noble rendering of
them; of compositions of this kind the "Iliad" of Homer, the "AEneid" of
Virgil, and the "Divine Comedy" of Dante take the lead.


EPIC MELODY, melody in accord with the feeling of the whole race or
the subject as a whole.


EPICHARIS, a Roman lady who conspired against Nero and strangled
herself rather than reveal her accomplices after undergoing the cruellest
tortures.


EPICHARMUS, a Greek philosopher and poet in the island of Cos;
studied philosophy under Pythagoras; conceived a taste for comedy; gave
himself up to that branch of the drama, and received the name of the
"Father of Comedy"; lived eventually at the court of Hiero of Syracuse
(540-430 B.C.).


EPICTETUS, a celebrated Stoic philosopher of the 1st century,
originally a slave; lived and taught at Rome, but after the expulsion of
the philosophers retired to Nicopolis, in Epirus; was lame, and lived in
poverty; his conversations were collected by Arrian, and his philosophy
in a short manual under the Greek name of "Enchiridion of Epictetus,"
written, as is alleged, in utter obliviousness of the fact that "the end
of man is an action, not a thought."


EPICUREANS, a sect of philosophers who derived their name from
Epicurus, and who divided the empire of philosophy with the STOICS
(q. v.), at the birth of Christ; they held that the chief end of man
was happiness, that the business of philosophy was to guide him in the
pursuit of it, and that it was only by experience that one could learn
what would lead to it and what would not; they scouted the idea of reason
as regulative of thought, and conscience as regulative of conduct, and
maintained that our senses were our only guides in both; in a word, they
denied that God had implanted in man an absolute rational and moral
principle, and maintained that he had no other clue to the goal of his
being but his experience in life, while the distinction of right and
wrong was only a distinction of what was found conducive to happiness and
what was not; they had no faith in or fear of a divine Being above man
any more than of a divine principle within man, and they scorned the idea
of another world with its awards, and concerned themselves only with
this, which, however, in their hands was no longer a cosmos but a chaos,
out of which the quickening and ordinative spirit had fled.


EPICURUS, a Greek philosopher, born at Samos, of Athenian origin;
settled at Athens in his thirty-sixth year, and founded a philosophical
school there, where he taught a philosophy in opposition to that of the
Stoics; philosophy he defined as "an activity which realises a happy life
through ideas and arguments," summing itself up "in ethics, which are to
teach us how to attain a life of felicity"; his system comprised "the
three branches included in philosophy, viz., logic, physics, and ethics,"
but he arranges them in reverse order, logic and physics being regarded
only as the handmaids of ethics; for he "limited logic to the
investigation of the criterion of truth," and physics he valued as
disillusioning the mind of "the superstitious fear that went to disturb
happiness"; he was a man of a temperate and blameless life, and it is a
foul calumny on him to charge him with summing up happiness as mere
self-indulgence, though it is true he regarded "virtue as having no value
in itself, but only in so far as it offered us something--an agreeable
life."


EPICYCLE, an expression used in the PTOLEMAIC (q. v.)
system of astronomy; the old belief that the celestial bodies moved in
perfect circles round the earth was found to be inadequate to explain the
varying position of the planets, a difficulty which led Ptolemy to invent
his theory of epicycles, which was to the effect that each planet
revolved round a centre of its own, greater or less, but that all these
centres themselves moved in procession round the earth, a theory which
fell to pieces before the investigations of Kepler and Newton.


EPIDAURUS, a town of ancient Greece, in Argolis, on the eastern
shore of the Peloponnesus; was at one time an independent State and an
active centre of trade, but was chiefly noted for its famous temple of
AEsculapius, to which people flocked to be cured of their diseases, and
which bore the inscription "Open only to pure souls"; ruins of a
magnificent theatre are still extant here.


EPIDEMIC, a name given to contagious diseases which, arising
suddenly in a community, rapidly spread through its members, often
travelling from district to district, until often a whole country is
affected; the theory of the transmission of disease by microbes has
largely explained the spread of such scourges, but the part which
atmospheric and other physical, and perhaps psychic, causes play in these
disorders is still matter of debate, especially as regards epidemic
mental diseases. See ENDEMIC.


EPIGONI (the Descendants), the name given to the sons of the Seven
who perished before Thebes; they avenged the death of their fathers by
razing Thebes to the ground; the war first and last has been made the
subject of epic and tragic poems.


EPIGRAM, in modern usage, is a neat, witty, and pointed utterance
briefly couched in verse form, usually satiric, and reserving its sting
to the last line; sometimes made the vehicle of a quaintly-turned
compliment, as, for example, in Pope's couplet to Chesterfield, when
asked to write something with that nobleman's pencil;--

    "Accept a miracle; instead of wit,
    See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ."

The Latin epigrammatists, especially Martial and Catullus, were the first
to give a satirical turn to the epigram, their predecessors the Greeks
having employed it merely for purposes of epitaph and monumental
inscriptions of a laudatory nature.


EPILEPSY, a violent nervous affection, manifesting itself usually in
sudden convulsive seizures and unconsciousness, followed by temporary
stoppage of the breath and rigidity of the body, popularly known as
"falling sickness"; origin as yet undecided; attributed by the ancients
to demoniacal possession.


EPIMENIDES, a philosopher of Crete of the 7th century B.C., of whom
it is fabled that he fell asleep in a cave when a boy, and that he did
not awake for 57 years, but it was to find himself endowed with all
knowledge and wisdom. He was invited to Athens during a plague to purify
the city, on which occasion he performed certain mysterious rites with
the effect that the plague ceased. The story afforded Goethe a subject
for a drama entitled "Das Epimenides Erwachen," "in which he symbolises
his own aloofness from the great cause of the Fatherland, the result of
want of faith in the miraculous power that resides in an enthusiastic
outbreak of patriotic feeling."


EPIMETHEUS (i. e. Afterthought), the brother of Prometheus
(Forethought), who in spite of the warnings of the latter opened
Pandora's box, and let loose a flood of evils on the earth, which oppress
it to this day.


EPINAL (21), the capital of the dep. of Vosges, in France,
charmingly situated at the foot of the Vosges Mountains, on the Moselle;
is elegantly built, and has ruins of an old castle, surrounded by fine
gardens, a 10th-century church, and a fine library, &c.; a suspension
bridge spans the Moselle; there is industry in cotton, paper, &c.


EPINAY, MADAME D', a French writer, unhappily married in her youth;
became notorious for her illicit intimacy with Rousseau and Grimm; her
"Memoires et Correspondence" give a lively picture of her times
(1725-1783).


EPIPHANIUS, ST., one of the Fathers of the Greek Church; of Jewish
descent; flourished in the 4th century; led a monastic life, and founded
a monastery in Eleutheropolis; was bishop of Constantia in 367; bigoted
and tyrannical, he became notorious for his ecclesiastical zeal, and for
his indictments of Origen and St. Chrysostom; left writings that show
great but indiscriminate learning (330-402).


EPIPHANY, as observed in the Christian Church, is a festival held on
the 12th day after Christmas, in commemoration of the manifestation of
Christ to the Magi of the East; but up to the close of the 4th century
the festival also commemorated the incarnation of Christ as well as the
divine manifestation at His baptism.


EPI`RUS, was the NW. portion of ancient Hellas, Dodona its capital,
and Acheron one of its rivers; in 1466 became part of the Ottoman empire,
but in 1881 a portion was ceded to Greece.


EPISCOPACY, the name given to the form of Church government in which
there are superior and inferior orders among the clergy, as between that
of bishop and that of a presbyter; called also Prelacy.


EPISCOPIUS, SIMON, a Dutch theologian, born at Amsterdam; the head
of the Arminian party after the death of Arminius; was unjustly
misrepresented, and tyrannically, even cruelly, treated by the opposite
party; he was a man of great ability, enlightened views, and admirable
temper, and set more store by integrity and purity of character than
orthodoxy of belief (1583-1643).


EPISTOLAE OBSCURORUM VIRORUM (i. e. letters of obscure men), a
celebrated collection of Latin letters which appeared in the 16th century
in Germany, attacking with merciless severity the doctrines and modes of
living of the scholastics and monks, credited with hastening the
Reformation.


EPITAPH, an inscription placed on a tombstone in commemoration of
the dead interred below. The natural feeling which prompts such
inscriptions has manifested itself among all civilised peoples, and not a
little of a nation's character may be read in them. The Greeks reserved
epitaphs for their heroes, but amongst the Romans grew up the modern
custom of marking the tombs of relatives with some simple inscription,
many of their sepulchres being placed on the side of the public roads, a
circumstance which explains the phrase, _Siste, viator_--Stay,
traveller--found in old graveyards.


EPITHALAMIUM, a nuptial song, sung before the bridal chamber in
honour of the newly-wedded couple, particularly among the Greeks and
Romans, of whom Theocritus and Catullus have left notable examples; but
the epithalamium of Edmund Spenser is probably the finest specimen extant
of this poetic form.


EPPING FOREST, as it now exists in the SE. of Essex, is a
remnant--5600 acres--of the famous Epping or Waltham Forest, which once
extended over all Essex, and which then served as a royal hunting-ground,
is now a favourite pleasure-ground and valuable field for explorations of
botanical and entomological collectors.


EPSOM, a market-town in Surrey, skirting Banstead Downs, 15 m. SW.
of London; formerly noted for its mineral springs, now associated with
the famous Derby races.


EQUINOCTIAL POINTS are the two points at which the celestial equator
intersects the ECLIPTIC (q. v.), so called because the days and
nights are of equal duration when the sun is at these points.


EQUINOXES, the two annually recurring times at which the sun arrives
at the EQUINOCTIAL POINTS (q. v.), viz., 21st March and 22nd
September, called respectively the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes in
the northern hemisphere, but vice versa in the southern; at these times
the sun is directly over the equator, and day and night is then of equal
length over the whole globe.


EQUITES, THE, a celebrated equestrian order in ancient Rome,
supposed to have been instituted by Romulus; at first purely military, it
was at length invested with the judicial functions of the Senate, and the
power of farming out the public revenues; gradually lost these privileges
and became defunct.


ERASMUS, DESIDERIUS, a famous scholar and man of letters, born at
Rotterdam; illegitimate son of one Gerhard; conceived a disgust for
monkish life during six years' residence in a monastery at Steyn;
wandered through Europe and amassed stores of learning at various
universities; visited Oxford in 1489, and formed a lifelong friendship
with Sir Thomas More; was for some years professor of Divinity and Greek
at Cambridge; edited the first Greek Testament; settled finally at Basel,
whence he exercised a remarkable influence over European thought by the
wit and tone of his writings, notably the "Praise of Folly," the
"Colloquia" and "Adagia"; he has been regarded as the precursor of the
Reformation; is said to have laid the egg which Luther hatched; aided the
Reformation by his scholarship, though he kept aloof as a scholar from
the popular movement of Luther (1467-1536).


ERASTIANISM, the right of the State to override and overrule the
decisions of the Church that happen to involve civil penalties. See
ERASTUS.


ERASTUS, an eminent physician, born at Baden, in Switzerland, whose
fame rests mainly on the attitude he assumed in the theological and
ecclesiastical questions of the day; he defended Zwingli's view of the
Eucharist as a merely symbolical ordinance, and denied the right of the
Church to inflict civil penalties, or to exercise discipline--the power
of the keys--that belonging, he maintained, to the province of the civil
magistrate and not to the Church (1534-1583).


ERATO (i. e. the Lovely), the muse of erotic poetry and elegy,
represented with a lyre in her left hand.


ERATOSTHENES, surnamed the Philologist, a philosopher of Alexandria,
born at Cyrene, 276 B.C.; becoming blind and tired of life, he starved
himself to death at the age of 80; he ranks high among ancient
astronomers; measured the obliquity of the ecliptic, and estimated the
size of the earth (276-194 B.C.).


ERCILLA Y ZUNIGA, a Spanish poet, born at Madrid; took part in the
war of the Spaniards with the Araucos in Chile, which he celebrated in an
epic of no small merit called "La Araucana"; he ended his days in poverty
(1553-1595).


ERDGEIST, the Spirit of the Earth, represented in Goethe's "Faust"
as assiduously weaving, at the Time-Loom, night and day, in death as well
as life, the earthly vesture of the Eternal, and thereby revealing the
Invisible to mortal eyes.


ERDMANN, a German philosopher, born at Wolmar, professor at Halle;
was of the school of Hegel, an authority on the history of philosophy
(1805-1892).


EREBUS, a region of utter darkness in the depths of Hades, into
which no mortal ever penetrated, the proper abode of Pluto and his Queen
with their train of attendants, such as the Erinnyes, through which the
spirits of the dead must pass on their way to Hades; equivalent to the
valley of the shadow of death.


ERECTHEUS or ERICHTHONIUS, the mythical first king of Athens;
favoured and protected from infancy by Athena, to whom accordingly he
dedicated the city; he was buried in the temple of Athena, and worshipped
afterwards as a god; it is fabled of him that when an infant he was
committed by Athena in a chest to the care of Agraulos and Herse, under a
strict charge not to pry into it; they could not restrain their
curiosity, opened the chest, saw the child entwined with serpents, were
seized with madness, and threw themselves down from the height of the
Acropolis to perish at the foot.


ERFURT (72), a town in Saxony, on the Gera, 14 m. W. of Weimar,
formerly capital of Thueringia, and has many interesting buildings,
amongst the number the 14th-century Gothic cathedral with its great bell,
weighing 131/2 tons, and cast in 1497; the monastery of St. Augustine
(changed into an orphanage in 1819), in which Luther was a monk; the
Academy of Sciences, and the library with 60,000 vols. and 1000 MSS.;
various textile factories flourish.


ERGOT, a diseased state of grasses, &c., but a disease chiefly
attacking rye, produced by a fungus developing on the seeds; the drug
"ergot of rye" is obtained from a species of this fungus.


ERIC, the name of several of the kings of Denmark, and Sweden, and
Norway, the most notorious being the son of the noble Swedish king
GUSTAVUS VASA (q. v.), who aspired to the hand of Elizabeth of
England and challenged his rival Leicester to a duel; afterwards sought
Mary of Scotland, but eventually married a peasant girl who had nursed
him out of madness brought on by dissipation; was deposed after a State
trial instigated by his own brothers, and ultimately poisoned himself in
prison eight years later (1533-1577).


ERIC THE RED, a Norwegian chief who discovered Greenland in the 10th
century, and sent out expeditions to the coast of North America.


ERICSSON, JOHN, a distinguished Swedish engineer, born at
Langbanshyttan; went to England in 1826 and to United States of America
in 1839, where he died; invented the screw propeller of steamships; built
warships for the American navy, and amongst them the famous _Monitor_;
his numerous inventions mark a new era in naval and steamship
construction (1802-1889).


ERIE, LAKE, the fourth in size among the giant lakes of North
America, lies between Lakes Huron and Ontario, on the Canadian border, is
240 m. long and varies from 30 to 60 m. in breadth; is very shallow, and
difficult to navigate; ice-bound from December till about April.


ERIGENA, JOHANNES SCOTUS, a rationalistic mystic, the most
distinguished scholar and thinker of the 9th century, of Irish birth;
taught at the court of Charles the Bald in France, and was summoned by
Alfred to Oxford in 877; died abbot of Malmesbury; held that "damnation
was simply the consciousness of having failed to fulfil the divine
purpose"; he derived all authority from reason, and not reason from
authority, maintaining that authority unfounded on reason was of no
value; _d_. 882.


ERIN, the ancient Celtic name of Ireland, used still in poetry.


ERINNA, a Greek poetess, the friend of Sappho, died at 19; wrote
epic poetry, all but a few lines of which has perished; born about
612 B.C.


ERINNYES, THE (i. e. the roused-to-anger, in Latin, the Furies),
the Greek goddesses of vengeance, were the daughters of Gaia, begotten of
the blood of the wounded Uranus, and at length reckoned three in number,
Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megara; they were conceived of as haunting the
wicked on earth and scourging them in hell; they were of the court of
Pluto, and the executioners of his wrath.


ERIS, the Greek goddess of strife or discord, sowing the seeds
thereof among the gods to begin with, which she has since continued to do
among men.


ERIVAN (15), a fortified town in Transcaucasia, situated 30 m. NE.
of Mount Ararat on an elevated plateau; was ceded to Russia in 1828 by
Persia.


ERLANGEN (13), a Bavarian town on the Regnitz, has a celebrated
Protestant university, founded by Wilhelmina, sister of Frederick the
Great, who was the Electress; was a place of refuge for the Huguenots in
1685; manufactures in gloves, mirrors, and tobacco are carried on, and
brewing.


ERLAU (22), an ecclesiastical city of Hungary, on the Erlau, 89 m.
NE. of Pesth; is the seat of an archbishop; has a fine cruciform
cathedral, built since 1837, several monasteries, a lyceum with a large
library and an observatory; is noted for its red wine.


ERL-KING, a Norse impersonation of the spirit of superstitious fear
which haunts and kills us even in the guardian embrace of paternal
affection.


ERMINIA, a Syrian, the heroine of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," in
love with the Christian prince Tancred.


ERNESTI, JOHANN AUGUST, a celebrated German classicist and
theologian, called the "German Cicero," born at Tennstaedt, Thueringia;
professor of Philology in Leipzig, and afterwards of Theology; edited
various classical works, his edition of Cicero specially noted; was the
first to apply impartial textual criticism to the Bible, and to him, in
consequence, we owe the application of a more correct exegesis to the
biblical writings (1707-1781).


ERNST, ELECTOR OF SAXONY, founder of the Ernestine line of Saxon
princes, ancestor of Prince Consort, born at Altenburg; was kidnapped
along with his brother Albert in 1455, an episode famous in German
history as the "Prinzenraub" (i. e. the stealing of the prince);
succeeded his father in 1464; annexed Thueringia in 1482, and three years
later shared his territory with his brother Albert (1441-1486).


ERNST I., Duke of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg; served in the Thirty
Years' War under Gustavus Adolphus, and shared in the victory of Luetzen;
was an able and wise ruler, and gained for himself the surname of "the
Pious" (1601-1675).


EROS (in Latin, Cupido), the Greek god of love, the son of
Aphrodite, and the youngest of the gods, though he figures in the
cosmogony as one of the oldest of the gods, and as the uniting power in
the life of the gods and the life of the universe, was represented at
last as a wanton boy from whose wiles neither gods nor men were safe.


EROSTRATUS, an obscure Ephesian, who, to immortalise his name, set
fire to the temple of Ephesus on the night, as it happened, when
Alexander the Great was born; the Ephesians thought to defeat his purpose
by making it death to any one who named his name, but in vain, the decree
itself giving wider and wider publicity to the act.


ERPENIUS (Thomas van Erpen), Arabic scholar, born at Gorkum, in
Holland; after completing his studies at Leyden and Paris, became
professor of Oriental Languages there; famed for his Arabic grammar and
rudiments, which served as text-books for upwards of 200 years
(1585-1624).


ERSCH, JOHANN SAMUEL, a bibliographer, born at Grossglogau; after a
college career at Halle devoted himself to journalism, and in 1800 became
librarian of the University of Jena; subsequently filled the chair of
Geography and Statistics at Halle; his "Handbook of German Literature"
marks the beginning of German bibliography; began in 1818, along with
Gruber, the publication of an encyclopaedia which is still unfinished
(1766-1828).


ERSKINE, EBENEZER, founder of the Secession Church of Scotland, born
at Chirnside, Berwickshire; minister at Portmoak for 28 years; took part
in the patronage dispute, and was deposed (1733), when he formed a church
at Gairney Bridge, near Kinross, the nucleus of the Secession Church
(1703-1754).


ERSKINE, HENRY, a famous Scotch lawyer, second son of the Earl of
Buchan, born at Edinburgh; called to the bar and became Lord Advocate; a
Whig in politics; brought about useful legal reforms; noted as a
brilliant wit and orator (1746-1817).


ERSKINE, JOHN, a Scottish jurist; called to the bar in 1719; became
professor of Scots Law in Edinburgh University in 1837, resigned 1763;
author of two important works on Scots Law, "The Institutes" and
"Principles" (1695-1768).


ERSKINE, JOHN, D.D., son of the preceding; a celebrated Scotch
preacher and author of various essays and pamphlets; a prominent leader
on the Evangelical side in the General Assemblies; was minister of the
Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, and the colleague of Principal Robertson; is
remembered for a retort in the pulpit and for another in the General
Assembly; the former was to a remark of his colleague, Principal
Robertson, "If perfect virtue were to appear on earth we would adore
it." ... "Perfect virtue did appear on earth and we crucified it"; and that
other in the General Assembly was "Rax (reach) me that Bible," as certain
Moderates in the court began derisively to scoff at the proposal to send
missions to the heathen (1721-1803).


ERSKINE, JOHN, OF DUN, a Scotch Reformer, supported Knox and
Wishart; was several times Moderator of the General Assembly, and
assisted in the formation of "The Second Book of Discipline" (1509-1591).


ERSKINE, RALPH, a Scotch divine, brother of EBENEZER (q. v.),
with whom he co-operated in founding the Secession Church; his
sermons and religious poems, called "Gospel Sonnets," were widely read;
one of the first of the Scotch seceders, strange to contemplate, "a long,
soft, poke-shaped face, with busy anxious black eyes, looking as if he
could not help it; and then such a character and form of human existence,
conscience living to the finger ends of him, in a strange, venerable,
though highly questionable manner ... his formulas casing him all round
like the shell of a beetle"; his fame rests chiefly on his "Gospel
Sonnets," much appreciated at one time (1685-1752).


ERSKINE, THOMAS, LORD, a famous lawyer, youngest son of the Earl of
Buchan, born in Edinburgh; spent his early years in the navy, and
afterwards joined the army; resigned in 1775 to enter upon the study of
law; called to the bar in 1778; a king's counsel in 1783; created a baron
and Lord Chancellor in 1806; was engaged in all the famous trials of his
time; an unrivalled orator in the law courts; his speeches rank as
masterpieces of forensic eloquence (1750-1823).


ERSKINE, THOMAS, OF LINLATHEN, member of the Scottish bar, but
devoted in an intensely human spirit to theological interests, "one of
the gentlest, kindliest, best bred of men," says Carlyle, who was greatly
attached to him; "I like him," he says, "as one would do a draught of
sweet rustic mead served in cut glasses and a silver tray ... talks
greatly of symbols, seems not disinclined to let the Christian religion
pass for a kind of mythus, provided one can retain the spirit of it"; he
wrote a book, much prized at one time, on the "Internal Evidences of
Revealed Religion," also on Faith; besides being the constant friend of
Carlyle, he corresponded on intimate terms with such men as Maurice and
Dean Stanley (1788-1870).


ERWIN, a German architect, born at Steinbach, Baden; the builder of
the western facade of the cathedral of Strasburg (1240-1318).


ERYMANTHUS, a mountain in Arcadia that was the haunt of the boar
killed by Hercules.


ERYSIPELAS, known popularly as St. Anthony's Fire and Rose, a
febrile disease, manifesting itself in acute inflammation of the skin,
which becomes vividly scarlet and ultimately peels; confined chiefly to
the head; is contagious, and recurrent.


ERYTHEMA, a medical term used loosely to designate a diseased
condition of the skin; characterised by a scarlet or dark-red rash or
eruption, distinct from erysipelas.


ERYTHREA (220), a colony belonging to Italy, extending from Cape
Kasar 670 m. along the western shore of the Red Sea to a point in the
Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb; Massowah the capital.


ERYTHREAN SEA, a name of the Red Sea.


ERZERUM (60), a city in Turkish Armenia, capital of the province of
the same name, 125 m. SE. of Trebizond; situated on a fertile plain 6300
ft. above sea-level; is an important entrepot for commerce between Europe
and Asia; is irregularly built, but contains imposing ruins; has a
fortress, and in the suburbs a number of mosques and bazaars; is famed
for its iron and copper ware; fell into the hands of the Turks in 1517;
figured as a military centre in many Turkish wars; was reduced by the
Russians in 1878; was a scene of Armenian massacres by the Turks in 1895.


ERZGEBIRGE, a range of mountains lying between Saxony and Bohemia;
the highest peak is the Keilberg, 4052 ft.; is rich in various metallic
ores, especially silver and lead.


ERYX, an ancient town in the NW. of Sicily, at the foot of a
mountain of the same name, with a temple to Venus, who was hence called
Erycina.


ESAU, the eldest son of Isaac, who sold his birthright to Jacob for
a mess of lentils; led a predatory life, and was the forefather of the
Edomites.


ESCHATOLOGY, the department of theology which treats of the
so-called last things, such as death, the intermediate state, the
millennium, the return of Christ, the resurrection, the judgment, and the
end of the world.


ESCHENBACH, WOLFRAM VON, a famous minnesinger, born at Eschenbach,
in Bavaria, at about the close of the 12th century; was of good birth,
and lived some time at the Thuringian Court; enjoyed a wide reputation in
his time as a poet; of his poems the epic "Parzival" is the most
celebrated, and records the history of the "Grail."


ESCHER, JOHANN HEINRICH ALFRED. Swiss statesman, born at Zurich;
bred for the law, and lectured for a while in his native town; became
President of the Council of Zurich; co-operated with Farrer in expelling
the Jesuits; became member of the Diet; supported Federal union, and did
much to promote and establish State education in Switzerland; _b_. 1819.


ESCHINES. See AESCHINES; as also ESCULAPIUS,
ESCHYLUS, ESOP, &c., under AE.


ESCOBAR, MENDOZA ANTONIO, a Spanish Jesuit and casuist, born at
Valladolid, a preacher and voluminous writer (1589-1669).


ESCURIAL, a huge granite pile, built in the form of a gridiron, 30
m. NW. from Madrid, and deemed at one time the eighth wonder of the
world; was built in 1563-1584; was originally dedicated as a monastery to
St. Lorenzo in recognition of the services which the Saint had rendered
to Philip II. at the battle of St. Quentin, and used at length as a
palace and burial-place of kings. It is a mere shadow of what it was, and
is preserved from ruin by occasional grants of money to keep it in
repair.


ESDRAELON, a flat and fertile valley in Galilee, called also the
valley of Jezreel, which, with a maximum breadth of 9 m., extends in a
NW. direction from the Jordan at Bathshean to the Bay of Acre.


ESDRAS, the name of two books of the Apocrypha, the first, written
2nd century B.C., containing the history of the rebuilding of the Temple
and the restoration of its cultus, with a discussion on the strangest of
all things, ending in assigning the palm to truth; and the second,
written between 97 and 81 B.C., a forecast of the deliverance of the
Jews from oppression and the establishment of the Messianic kingdom.


ESK, the name of several Scottish streams: (1) in Dumfriesshire, the
Esk of young Lochinvar, has a course of 31 m. after its formation by the
junction of the North and South Esks, and flows into the Solway; (2) in
Edinburgh, formed by the junction of the North and South Esks, joins the
Firth of Forth at Musselburgh; (3) in Forfarshire, the South Esk
discharges into the North Sea at Montrose, and the North Esk also flows
into the North Sea 4 m. N. of Montrose.


ESKIMO or ESQUIMAUX, an aboriginal people of the Mongolian or
American Indian stock, in all not amounting to 40,000, thinly scattered
along the northern seaboard of America and Asia and in many of the Arctic
islands; their physique, mode of living, religion, and language are of
peculiar ethnological interest; they are divided into tribes, each having
its own territory, and these tribes in turn are subdivided into small
communities, over each of which a chief presides; the social organisation
is a simple tribal communism; Christianity has been introduced amongst
the Eskimo of South Alaska and in the greater part of Labrador; in other
parts the old religion still obtains, called Shamanism, a kind of fetish
worship; much of their folk-lore has been gathered and printed; fishing
and seal-hunting are their chief employments; they are of good physique,
but deplorably unclean in their habits; their name is supposed to be an
Indian derivative signifying "eaters of raw meat."


ESKIMO DOG, a dog found among the Eskimo, about the size of a
pointer, hair thick, and of a dark grey or black and white; half tamed,
but strong and sagacious; invaluable for sledging.


ESMOND, HENRY, the title of one of Thackeray's novels, deemed by the
most competent critics his best, and the name of its hero, a chivalrous
cavalier of the time of Queen Anne. "Esmond" is pronounced by Prof.
Saintsbury to be "among the very summits of English prose fiction,
exquisitely written in a marvellous resurrection of eighteenth-century
style, touched somehow with a strange modernity and life which make it no
_pastiche_, containing the most brilliant passages of mere incident, and,
above all, enshrining such studies of character ... as not four other
makers of English prose and verse can show."


ESNE, a town in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, and 25 m.
S. of Thebes; famous for the ruins of a temple.


ESOTERIC, a term used to denote teaching intended only for the
initiated, and intelligible only to them.


ESPARTERO, a celebrated Spanish general and statesman, born at
Granatula; supported, against the Carlist faction, the claims of Isabella
to the throne of Spain; was for his services made Duke of Vittoria, and
in 1841 elected regent; compelled to abdicate, he fled to England, but
afterwards returned for a time to the head of affairs; an able man, but
wanting in the requisite astuteness and tact for such a post (1793-1879).


ESPINASSE, CLARE FRANCOISE, a wit and beauty, born at Lyons,
illegitimate child of the Countess d'Albon; went to Paris as companion to
Madame du Deffand, with whom she quarrelled; set up a salon of her own,
and became celebrated for her many attractions; D'Alembert was devoted to
her; many of her letters to her lovers, the Marquis de Mora and M. de
Guilbert in particular, have been published, and display a charming
personality (1732-1776).


ESPINEL, VINCENT DE, a Spanish poet and musician, born at Ronda,
Granada; first a soldier and then a priest, the friend of Lope de Vega,
and author of a work which Le Sage made free use of in writing "Gil
Blas"; was an expert musician; played on the guitar, and added a fifth
string (1551-1634).


ESPIRITU SANTO, (1) a small and swampy maritime province of Brazil
(121), lying on the N. border of Rio de Janeiro; does some trade in
timber, cotton, coffee, and sugar; Victoria is the capital; (2) a town
(32) in central Cuba; (3) the largest of the NEW HEBRIDES (q. v.)
(20); the climate is unhealthy, but the soil fertile.


ESPRIT DES LOIS (i. e. the Spirit of Laws), the title of
Montesquieu's great work, at once speculative and historical, published
in 1748, characterised in "Sartor" as the work, like many others, of "a
clever infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic book the lexicon of
which lies in Eternity, in Heaven."


ESPY, JAMES POLLARD, a meteorologist, born in Pennsylvania; did
notable work in investigating the causes of storms, and in 1841 published
"The Philosophy of Storms"; was appointed to the Washington observatory,
where he carried on experiments in the cooling of gases and atmospheric
expansion (1785-1860).


ESQUIRE, originally meant a shield-bearer, and was bestowed upon the
two attendants of a knight, who were distinguished by silver spurs, and
whose especial duty it was to look after their master's armour; now used
widely as a courtesy title.


ESQUIROS, HENRY ALPHONSE, poet and physician, born at Paris; his
early writings, poems and romances, are socialistic in bias; member of
the Legislative Assembly in 1848; retired to England after the _coup
d'etat_; returned to France and rose to be a member of the Senate (1875);
wrote three works descriptive of the social and religious life of England
(1814-1876).


ESSEN (79), a town in the Rhine province of Prussia, 20 m. NE. of
Duesseldorf, the seat of the famous "Krupp" steel-works.


ESSENES, a religious communistic fraternity, never very numerous,
that grew up on the soil of Judea about the time of the Maccabees, and
had establishments in Judea when Christ was on earth, as well as
afterwards in the time of Josephus; they led an ascetic life, practised
the utmost ceremonial cleanness, were rigorous in their observance of the
Jewish law, and differed from the Pharisees in that they gave to the
Pharisaic spirit a monastic expression; they represented Judaism in its
purest essence, and in the spirit of their teaching came nearer
Christianity than any other sect of the time; "Essenism," says Schuerer,
"is first and mainly of Jewish formation, and in its non-Jewish features
it had most affinity with the Pythagorean tendency of the Greeks."


ESSEQUIBO, an important river in British Guiana, 620 m. long, rises
in the Sierra Acaray, navigable for 50 m. to small craft, flows northward
into the Atlantic.


ESSEX (785), a county in the SE. of England, between Suffolk on the
N. and Kent in the S., faces the German Ocean on the E.; is well watered
with streams; has an undulating surface; is chiefly agricultural; brewing
is an important industry, and the oyster fisheries of the Colne are
noted; Chelmsford is the county town.


ESSEX, ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth,
born at Netherwood, Hereford; served in the Netherlands under Leicester,
his stepfather; won the capricious fancy of Elizabeth; lost favour by
marrying clandestinely the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, but was restored,
and led a life of varying fortune, filling various important offices,
till his final quarrel with the Queen and execution (1567-1601).


ESSEX, ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF, son of preceding; commander of the
Parliamentary forces against Charles I.; the title died with him, but was
conferred again upon the present family in 1661 (1591-1646).


ESSLING, a village near Vienna, where the French gained a bloody
victory over the Austrians in 1809, and which gave the title of prince to
Massena.


ESSLINGEN (22), an old historic and important manufacturing town in
Wuertemberg, on the Neckar, 9 m. SE. of Stuttgart; has a citadel and the
Liebfrauen Church, which is a fine Gothic structure with a spire 246 ft.;
is a noted hardware centre, and celebrated for its machinery; a good
trade is done in textiles, fruit, and sparkling champagne.


ESTAING, COMTE D', a French admiral, "one of the bravest of men,"
fought against the English in the Indies and in America; winced as a
Royalist at the outbreak of the French Revolution; his loyalty to royalty
outweighed, it was thought, his loyalty to his country, and he was
guillotined (1729-1794).


ESTE, an ancient and illustrious Italian family from which, by an
offshoot founded by Welf IV., who became Duke of Bavaria in the 11th
century, the Guelph Houses of Brunswick and Hanover, also called the
Este-Guelphs, trace their descent. Of the Italian branch the most noted
descendant was Alphonso I., a distinguished soldier and statesman and
patron of art, whose second wife was the famous Lucrezia Borgia. His son,
Alphonso II., is remembered for his cruel treatment of Tasso, placing him
in prison for seven years as a madman who dared to make love to one of
the princesses.


ESTE (6), an Italian town, 18 m. SW. of Padua, on the S. side of the
Euganean Hills; has a castle and church with a leaning campanile.


ESTERHAZY, the town of a noble Austrian family of ancient date, and
that gave birth to a number of illustrious men.


ESTERHAZY DE GALANTHA, the name of a powerful and famous Hungarian
family holding the rank of Princes of the Empire since the 17th century.
Their estates include upwards of 4000 villages, 60 market-towns, many
castles and lordships, but they are heavily mortgaged.


ESTHER, THE BOOK OF, a book of the Old Testament, which takes its
name from the chief figure in the story related, an orphan Jewess and
ward of her cousin Mordecai, who, from her beauty, was chosen into the
royal harem and raised to be consort to the king. It is read through in
the Jewish synagogues at the feast of PURIM (q. v.). It is
observed that the name of God does not occur once in the book, but the
story implies the presence of an overruling Providence, responding to the
cry of His oppressed ones for help.


ESTHONIA (393), one of the Russian Baltic provinces, has a northern
foreshore on the Gulf of Finland, and on the W. abuts on the Baltic; what
of the country that is free from forest and marsh is chiefly
agricultural, but fishing is also an important industry; the people are a
composite of Finns and immigrant Germans, with latterly Russians
superimposed.


ESTIENNE, the name of a family of French painters. See
STEPHENS.


EST-IL-POSSIBLE? the name given by James II. to Prince George of
Denmark, the husband of Princess Anne, from his invariable exclamation on
hearing how one after another had deserted the Stuart cause; he ended
with deserting it himself.


ESTRADES, COUNT D', a French diplomatist (1579-1680).


ESTREMADURA (1,111), a coast province of Portugal, between Beira and
Alemtejo, watered by the Tagus; richly fertile in many parts, but sparely
cultivated; silk is an important industry, and an increasing; Lisbon is
the chief city, and with Setubal monopolises the trade; salt, fruits,
wine, and oil are exported; also name of a district in Spain between
Portugal and New Castile, now divided into the provinces of Badajoz and
Caceres.


ETEOCLES, a son of Oedipus, king of Thebes, agreed on the banishment
of his father to govern the state alternately with his brother Polynices,
but failing to keep his engagement, the latter appealed to his guardian,
out of which there arose the War of the Seven against Thebes, which ended
in the slaughter of the whole seven, upon which the brothers thought to
end the strife in single combat, when each fell by the sword of the
other.


ETERNAL CITY, ancient Rome in the esteem of its inhabitants, in
accordance with the promise, as Virgil feigns, of Jupiter to Venus, the
goddess-mother of the race.


ETERNITIES, THE CONFLUX OF, Carlyle's expressive phrase for Time, as
in every moment of it a centre in which all the forces to and from
Eternity meet and unite, so that by no past and no future can we be
brought nearer to Eternity than where we at any moment of Time are; the
Present Time, the youngest born of Eternity, being the child and heir of
all the Past times with their good and evil, and the parent of all the
Future, the import of which (see Matt. xvi. 27) it is accordingly the
first and most sacred duty of every successive age, and especially the
leaders of it, to know and lay to heart as the only link by which
Eternity lays hold of it and it of Eternity.


ETHELBERT, a king of Kent, in whose reign Christianity was
introduced by St. Augustin and a band of missionaries in 597; drew up the
first Saxon law code (552-616).


ETHELDREDA, a Saxon princess, whose name, shortened into St. Audrey,
was given to a certain kind of lace, whence "tawdry"; she took refuge
from the married state in the monastery of St. Abb's Head, and afterwards
founded a monastery in the Isle of Ely (630-679).


ETHELRED I., king of Saxon England (866-871), predecessor and
brother of Alfred; his reign was a long and unsuccessful struggle with
the Danes.


ETHELRED II., the Unready, a worthless king of Saxon England
(979-1016), married Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, a step
which led in the end to the claim which issued in the Norman Conquest
(968-1016).


ETHER, a volatic liquid prepared from the distillation of alcohol
and sulphuric acid at high temperature; is colourless, and emits a sweet,
penetrating odour; is highly combustible; a useful solvent, and an
important anaesthetic.


ETHER, a subtle element presumed to pervade all interstellar space,
vibrations in which are assumed to account for the transmission of light
and all radiant energy.


ETHEREDGE, SIR GEORGE, the originator of the kind of comedy
"containing a vein of lively humour and witty dialogue which were
afterwards displayed by Congreve and Farquhar"; has been called the
"founder of the comedy of intrigue"; he was the author of three clever
plays, entitled "Love in a Tub," "She Would if She Could," and "Sir
Fopling Flutter" (1636-1694).


ETHICS, the science which treats of the distinction between right
and wrong and of the moral sense by which they are discriminated.


ETHICS OF DUST, THE, "a book by Ruskin about crystallography, but it
twists symbolically in the strangest way all its geology into morality,
theology, Egyptian mythology, with fiery cuts at political economy,
pretending not to know whether the forces and destinies and behaviour of
crystals are not very like those of a man."


ETHIOPIA, a term loosely used in ancient times to indicate the
territory inhabited by black or dark-coloured people; latterly applied to
an undefined tract of land stretching S. of Egypt to the Gulf of Aden,
which constituted the kingdom of the Ethiopians, a people of Semitic
origin and speaking a Semitic language called Ge'ez, who were
successively conquered by the Egyptians, Persians, and Romans; are known
in the Bible; their first king is supposed to have been Menilehek, son of
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; their literature consists mostly of
translations and collections of saws and riddles; the language is no
longer spoken.


ETHNOLOGY, a science which treats of the human race as grouped in
tribes or nations, but limits itself to tracing the origin and
distribution of races, and investigating the physical and mental
peculiarities and differences exhibited by men over all parts of the
globe; the chief problem of the science is to decide between the
monogenous and polygenous theories of the origin of the race, and
investigation inclines to favour the former view. The polygenous
argument, based on the diversity of languages, has been discarded, as, if
valid, necessitating about a thousand different origins, while the
monogenous position is strengthened by the ascertained facts that the
different racial groups are fruitful amongst themselves, and present
points of mental and physical similarity which accord well with this
theory. Ethnologists now divide the human race into three main groups:
the _Ethiopian or negro_, the _Mongolic or yellow_, and the _Caucasic or
white_.


ETIENNE, ST., (133), an important French town, capital of the dep.
of the Loire, on the Furens, 35 m. SW. of Lyons; chief seat of the
iron-works of France; also has noted ribbon factories.


ETIVE, a sea-loch in Argyllshire, Scotland, is an inland extension
of the Firth of Lorne, about 20 m. in length, and varying in breadth from
2 to 1/4 m.; the mountain scenery along the shores grandly picturesque; the
river which bears the same name rises in Rannoch Moor, and joins the loch
after a SW. course of 15 m.; both loch and river afford salmon-fishing.


ETNA, a volcanic mountain on the E. coast of Sicily, 10,840 ft.
high; a striking feature is the immense ravine, the Val del Bove,
splitting the eastern side of the mountain, and about 5 m. in diameter;
on the flanks are many smaller cones. Etna is celebrated for its many and
destructive eruptions; was active in 1892; its observatory, built in
1880, at an elevation of 9075 ft. above sea-level, is the highest
inhabited dwelling in Europe.


ETON, a town in Buckinghamshire, on the Thames, 22 m. SW. of London;
celebrated for its public school, Eton College, founded in 1440 by Henry
VI., which has now upwards of 1000 scholars.


ETRE SUPREME, the Supreme Being agreeably to the hollow and vacant
conception of the boasted, beggarly 18th-century Enlightenment of
Revolutionary France.


ETRURIA, the ancient Roman name of a region in Italy, W. of the
Apennines from the Tiber to the Macra in the N.; inhabited by the
Etruscans, a primitive people of Italy; at one time united in a
confederation of twelve States; gradually absorbed by the growing Roman
power, and who were famous for their artistic work in iron and bronze.
Many of the Etruscan cities contain interesting remains of their early
civilised state; but their entire literature, supposed to have been
extensive, has perished, and their language is only known through
monumental inscriptions. Their religion was polytheistic, but embraced a
belief in a future life. There is abundant evidence that they had
attained to a high degree of civilisation; the status of women was high,
the wife ranking with the husband; their buildings still extant attest
their skill as engineers and builders; vases, mirrors, and coins of fine
workmanship have been found in their tombs, and jewellery which is
scarcely rivalled; while the tombs themselves are remarkable for their
furnishings of chairs, ornaments, decorations, &c., showing that they
regarded these sanctuaries more as dwellings of departed spirits than as
sepulchres of the dead.


ETTMUeLLER, ERNST MORITZ LUDWIG, a German philologist, born at
Gerfsdorf, Saxony, professor of German literature in Zurich in 1863; did
notable work in connection with Anglo-Saxon and in Middle German dialects
(1802-1877).


ETTRICK, a Scottish river that rises in Selkirkshire and joins the
Tweed, 3 m. below Selkirk; the Yarrow is its chief tributary; a forest of
the same name once spread over all Selkirkshire and into the adjoining
counties; the district is associated with some of the finest ballad and
pastoral poetry of Scotland.


ETTRICK SHEPHERD, JAMES HOGG (q. v.).


ETTY, WILLIAM, a celebrated painter, born at York; rose from being a
printer's apprentice to the position of a Royal Academician; considered
by Ruskin to have wasted his great powers as a colourist on inadequate
and hackneyed subjects (1787-1849).


EUBOEA (82), the largest of the Grecian Isles, skirts the mainland
on the SE., to which it is connected by a bridge spanning the Talanta
Channel, 40 yards broad; it is about 100 m. in length; has fine quarries
of marble, and mines of iron and copper are found in the mountains;
Chalcis is the chief town.


EUCLID OF ALEXANDRIA, a famous geometrican, whose book of
"Elements," revised and improved, still holds its place as an English
school-book, although superseded as such in America and the Continent;
founded a school of Mathematics in Alexandria; flourished about 300 B.C.


EUCLID OF MEGARA, a Greek philosopher, a disciple of Socrates, was
influenced by the ELEATICS (q. v.); founded the Megaric school
of Philosophy, whose chief tenet is that the "good," or that which is one
with itself, alone is the only real existence.


EUDAEMONISM, the doctrine that the production of happiness is the aim
and measure of virtue.


EUDOCIA, the ill-fated daughter of an Athenian Sophist, wife of
Theodosius II., embraced Christianity, her name Athenais previously; was
banished by her husband on an ill-founded charge of infidelity, and spent
the closing years of her life in Jerusalem, where she became a convert to
the views of EUTYCHES (q. v.) (394-400).


EUDOXUS OF CNIDUS, a Grecian astronomer, was a pupil of Plato, and
afterwards studied in Egypt; said to have introduced a 3651/2 day year into
Greece; flourished in the 4th century B.C.


EUGENE, FRANCOIS, PRINCE OF SAVOY, a renowned general, born at
Paris, and related by his mother to Cardinal Mazarin; he renounced his
native land, and entered the service of the Austrian Emperor Leopold;
first gained distinction against the Turks, whose power in Hungary he
crushed in the great victory of Pieterwardein (1697); co-operated with
Marlborough in the war of the Spanish Succession, and shared the glories
of his great victories, and again opposed the French in the cause of
Poland (1663-1736).


EUGENIE, EX-EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH, born at Granada, second daughter
of Count Manuel Fernandez of Montigos and Marie Manuela Kirkpatrick of
Closeburn, Dumfriesshire; married to Napoleon III. in 1853; had to leave
France in 1870, and has since January 1873 lived as his widow at
Chiselhurst, Kent; _b_. 1826.


EUGENIUS, the name of four Popes. E., St., I., Pope from 654 to 658
(festival, August 27); E. II., Pope from 824 to 827; E. III., Pope from
1145 to 1153; E. IV., Pope from 1431 to 1447.


EUGENIUS IV., Pope, born at Venice; his pontificate was marked by a
schism created by proceedings in the Council of Basel towards the reform
of the Church and the limitation of the papal authority, the issue of
which was that he excommunicated the Council and the Council deposed him;
he had an unhappy time of it, and in his old age regretted he had ever
left his monastery to assume the papal crown.


EUGUBINE TABLES, seven bronze tablets discovered in 1441 near
Eugubium, in Italy, containing inscriptions which supply a key to the
original tongues of Italy prior to Latin.


EUHEMERISM, the theory that the gods of antiquity are merely deified
men, so called from Euhemeros, the Greek who first propounded the theory,
and who lived 316 B.C.


EULENSPIEGEL (i. e. Owl-glass), the hero of a popular German tale,
which relates no end of pranks, fortunes, and misfortunes of a wandering
mechanic born in a village in Brunswick; buried in 1350 at Moelln, in
Lauenburg, where they still show his tombstone sculptured with an owl
and a glass.


EULER, LEONHARD, a celebrated mathematician, born at Basel;
professor in St. Petersburg successively of Physics and Mathematics; came
to reside in Berlin in 1741 at the express invitation of Frederick the
Great; returned to St. Petersburg in 1746, where he died; besides many
works issued in his lifetime, he left 200 MSS., which were published
after his death (1707-1783).


EUMENIDES (i. e. the Well-meaning), a name given to the
ERINNYES (q. v.) or Furies, from a wholesome and prudent dread
of calling them by their true name.


EUMOLPUS, the founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries, alleged to have
been a priest of Demeter or Ceres.


EUNOMIANS, an ultra-Arian sect of the 4th century, which soon
dwindled away after breaking from the orthodox Church; called after
EUNOMIUS (q. v.).


EUNOMIUS, an Arian divine, born in Cappadocia; head of a sect who
maintained that the Father alone was God, that the Son was generated from
Him, and the Spirit from the Son; was bishop of Cyzicum, a post he
by-and-by resigned; _d_. 394.


EUPATORIA (13), a Russian town on the Crimean coast, in the
government of Taurida, 40 m. NW. of Simferopol; has a fine Tartar mosque,
and does a large export trade in hides and cereals; during the Crimean
War was an important military centre of the Allies.


EUPHEMISM, is in speech or writing the avoiding of an unpleasant or
indelicate word or expression by the use of one which is less direct, and
which calls up a less disagreeable image in the mind. Thus for "he died"
is substituted "he fell asleep," or "he is gathered to his fathers"; thus
the Greeks called the "Furies" the "Eumenides," "the benign goddesses,"
just as country people used to call elves and fairies "the good folk
neighbours."


EUPHRATES, a river in West Asia, formed by the junction of two
Armenian streams; flows SE. to Kurnah, where it is joined by the Tigris.
The combined waters--named the Shat-el-Arab--flow into the Persian Gulf;
is 1700 m. long, and navigable for 1100 m.


EUPHROSYNE, the cheerful one, or life in the exuberance of joy, one
of the three Graces. See GRACES.


EUPHUISM, an affected bombastic style of language, so called from
"Euphues," a work of Sir John Lyly's written in that style.


EURE (349), a dep. of France, in Normandy, so called from the river
Eure which traverses it.


EURE-ET-LOIR (285), a dep. of France lying directly S. of the
preceding; chief rivers the Eure in the N. and the Loir in the S.


EUREKA (i. e. I have found it), the exclamation of Archimedes on
discovering how to test the purity of the gold in the crown of
HIERO (q. v.); he discovered it, tradition says, when taking a
bath.


EURIPIDES, a famous Greek tragic dramatist, born at Salamis, of
wealthy parents; first trained as an athlete, and then devoted himself to
painting, and eventually to poetry; he brought out his first play at the
age of 25, and is reported to have written 80 plays, of which only 18 are
extant, besides fragment of others; of these plays the "Alcestes,"
"Bacchae," "Iphigenia at Aulis," "Electra," and "Medea" may be mentioned;
he won the tragic prize five times; tinged with pessimism, he is
nevertheless less severe than his great predecessors Sophocles and
AEschylus, surpassing them in tenderness and artistic expression, but
falling short of them in strength and loftiness of dramatic conception;
Sophocles, it is said, represented men as they ought to be, and Euripides
as they are; he has been called the Sophist of tragic poets
(480-406 B.C.).


EUROPA, a maiden, daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, whom Zeus,
disguised as a white bull, carried off to Crete, where she became by him
the mother of MINOS, RHADAMANTHUS, and SARPEDON (q. v.).


EUROPE (361,000), the most important, although the second smallest,
of the five great land divisions of the globe; is, from a geographical
point of view, a peninsula of Asia; the Caspian Sea, Ural River and
mountains, form its Asiatic boundary, while on the other three sides it
is washed by the Mediterranean on the S., Atlantic on the W., and Arctic
Ocean on the N.; its coast-line is so highly developed that to every 190
sq. m. of surface there is 1 m. of coast; this advantage, combined with
the varied adaptability of its land, rivers, and inland seas, and its
central position, has made it the centre of civilisation and the theatre
of the main events of the world's history. Its greatest length is 3370 m.
from Cape St. Vincent to the Urals, and its greatest breadth 2400 m. from
Cape Matapan to Nordkyn, while its area is about 3,800,000 sq. m.; it is
singularly free from wild animals, has a fruitful soil richly cultivated,
and possesses in supreme abundance the more useful metals. Its peoples
belong to the two great ethnological divisions, the Caucasian and
Mongolian groups; to the former belong the Germanic, Romanic, Slavonic,
and Celtic races, and to the latter the Finns, Magyars, and Turks.
Christianity is professed throughout, except amongst the Jews, of whom
there are about six millions, and in Turkey, where Mohammedanism claims
about seven millions; of Catholics there are about 155 millions, of
Protestants 85, and of the Greek Church 80. Amongst the 18 countries the
form of government most prevailing is the hereditary monarchy, resting
more and more on a wide representation of the people.


EUROTAS, the classic name of the Iri, a river of Greece, which flows
past Sparta and discharges into the Gulf of Laconia, 30 m. long.


EURUS, the god of the withering east wind.


EURYDICE. See ORPHEUS.


EURYSTHEUS, the king of Mycenae, at whose command, as subject to him
by fate, Hercules was required to perform his 12 labours, on the
achievement of which depended his admission to the rank of an immortal.


EUSEBIUS PAMPHILI, a distinguished early Christian writer, born in
Palestine, bishop of Caesarea in 313; headed the moderate Arians at the
Council of Nice, who shrank from disputing about a subject so sacred as
the nature of the Trinity; wrote a history of the world to A.D. 328; his
"Ecclesiastical History" is the first record of the Christian Church up
to 324; also wrote a Life of Constantine, who held him in high favour;
many extracts of ancient writers no longer extant are found in the works
of Eusebius (about 264-340).


EUSTACHIO, BARTOLOMMEO, an Italian physician of the 16th century;
settled at Rome, made several anatomical discoveries, among others those
of the _tube_ from the middle ear to the mouth, and a _valve_ on the wall
of the right auricle of the heart, both called _Eustachian_ after him.


EUSTATHIUS, archbishop of Thessalonica, a Greek commentator of
Homer, born in Constantinople; a man of wide classical learning, and his
work on Homer of value for the extracts of writings that no longer exist;
_d_. 1198.


EUTERPE, the Muse of lyric poetry, represented in ancient works of
art with a flute in her hand.


EUTROPIUS, FLAVIUS, a Roman historian, secretary to the Emperor
Constantine; wrote an epitome of Roman history, which from its simplicity
and accuracy still retains its position as a school-book; _d_. about 370.


EUTYCHES, a Byzantine heresiarch, who, in combating
NESTORIANISM (q. v.), fell into the opposite extreme, and
maintained that in the incarnation the human nature of Christ was
absorbed in the divine, a doctrine which was condemned by the Council of
Chalcedon in 448 (378-454).


EUTYCHIANISM. See SUPRA.


EUXINE, a Greek name for the BLACK SEA (q. v.).


EVANDER, an Arcadian, who is said to have come from Greece with a
colony to Latium and settled in it 60 years before the Trojan war, and
with whom AEneas formed an alliance when he landed in Italy; he is
credited with having introduced the civilising arts of Greece.


EVANGELICAL, a term applied to all those forms of Christianity which
regard the atonement of Christ, or His sacrifice on the Cross for sin, as
the ground and central principle of the Christian faith.


EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, an alliance of Christians of all countries and
denominations holding what are called evangelical principles, and founded
in 1845.


EVANGELICAL UNION, a religious body in Scotland which originated in
1843 under the leadership of James Morison of Kilmarnock, and professed a
creed which allowed them greater freedom as preachers of the gospel of
Christ. See MORISONIANISM.


EVANGELINE, the heroine of a poem by Longfellow of the same name,
founded on an incident connected with the expulsion of the natives of
Acadia from their homes by order of George II.


EVANGELIST, a name given in the early Church to one whose office it
was to persuade the ignorant and unbelieving into the fold of the Church.


EVANS, SIR DE LACY, an English general, born at Moeg, Ireland;
served in the Peninsular war; was present at Quatre-Bras and Waterloo;
commanded the British Legion sent to assist Queen Isabella in Spain, and
the second division of the army in the Crimea and the East; was for many
years a member of Parliament (1787-1870).


EVANS, MARY ANN, the real name of GEORGE ELIOT (q. v.).


EVELYN, JOHN, an English writer, born at Wotton, Surrey; travelled
in France and Italy during the Civil War, where he devoted much time to
gardening and the study of trees; was author of a celebrated work,
entitled "Sylva; or, A Discourse of Forest Trees," &c.; did much to
improve horticulture and introduce exotics into this country; his
"Memoirs," written as a diary, are full of interest, "is justly famous
for the fulness, variety, and fidelity of its records" (1620-1706).


EVEREST, MOUNT, the highest mountain in the world; is one of the
Himalayan peaks in Nepal, India; is 29,002 ft. above sea-level.


EVERETT, ALEXANDER HILL, an American diplomatist and author, born at
Boston; was U.S. ambassador at The Hague and Madrid, and commissioner to
China; wrote on a variety of subjects, including both politics and
belles-lettres, and a collection of critical and miscellaneous essays
(1792-1847).


EVERETT, EDWARD, American scholar, statesman, and orator, brother of
the preceding; was a Unitarian preacher of great eloquence; distinguished
as a Greek scholar and professor; for a time editor of the _North
American Review_; was a member of Congress, and unsuccessful candidate
for the Vice-Presidency of the Republic; his reputation rests on his
"orations," which are on all subjects, and show great vigour and
versatility of genius (1794-1865).


EVERLASTING NO, THE, Carlyle's name for the spirit of unbelief in
God, especially as it manifested itself in his own, or rather
Teufelsdroeckh's, warfare against it; the spirit, which, as embodied in
the MEPHISTOPHELES (q. v.) of Goethe, is for ever denying,--_der
stets verneint_--the reality of the divine in the thoughts, the
character, and the life of humanity, and has a malicious pleasure in
scoffing at everything high and noble as hollow and void. See SARTOR
RESARTUS.


EVERLASTING YEA, THE, Carlyle's name for the spirit of faith in God
in an express attitude of clear, resolute, steady, and uncompromising
antagonism to the Everlasting No, an the principle that there is no such
thing as faith in God except in such antagonism, no faith except in such
antagonism against the spirit opposed to God.


EVERSLEY, a village in Hampshire, 13 m. NE. of Basingstoke; the
burial-place of Charles Kingsley, who for 35 years was rector of the
parish.


EVERSLEY, CHARLES SHAW LEFEVRE, VISCOUNT, politician; graduated at
Cambridge; called to the bar; entered Parliament, and in 1839 became
Speaker of the House of Commons, a post he held with great acceptance for
18 years; retired, and was created a peer (1794-1888).


EVIL EYE, a superstitious belief that certain people have the power
of exercising a baneful influence on others, and even animals, by the
glance of the eyes. The superstition is of ancient date, and is met with
among almost all races, as it is among illiterate people and savages
still. It was customary to wear amulets toward the evil off.


EVOLUTION, the theory that the several species of plants and animals
on the globe were not created in their present form, but have all been
evolved by modifications of structure from cruder forms under or
coincident with change of environment, an idea which is being applied to
everything organic in the spiritual as well as the natural world. See
DARWINIAN THEORY.


EV`ORA, a city of Portugal, beautifully situated in a fertile plain
80 m. E. of Lisbon, once a strong place, and the seat of an archbishop;
it abounds in Roman antiquities.


EVREMOND, SAINT, a lively and witty Frenchman; got into trouble in
France from the unbridled indulgence of his wit, and fled to England,
where he became a great favourite at the court of Charles II., and
enjoyed himself to the top of his bent; his letters are written in a most
graceful style (1613-1703).


EVREUX (14), capital of the dep. of Eure, on the Iton, 67 m. NW. of
Paris; is an elegant town; has a fine 11th-century cathedral, an
episcopal palace with an old clock tower; interesting ruins have been
excavated in the old town; is the seat of a bishop; paper, cotton, and
linen are manufactured, and a trade is carried on in cereals, timber, and
liqueurs.


EWALD, GEORG HEINRICH AUGUST VON, a distinguished Orientalist and
biblical scholar, born at Goettingen, and professor both there and at
Tuebingen; his works were numerous, and the principal were "The Poetic
Books of the Old Testament," "The Prophets," and "The History of the
People of Israel"; he was a student and interpreter of the concrete, and
belonged to no party (1803-1875).


EWALD, JOHANNES, a Danish dramatist and lyrist, born at Copenhagen;
served as a soldier in the German and Austrian armies; studied theology
at Copenhagen; disappointed in love, he devoted himself to poetical
composition; ranks as the founder of Danish tragedy, and is the author of
some of the finest lyrics in the language (1743-1781).


EWIGE JUDE, the Everlasting Jew, the German name for the Wandering
Jew.


EXCALIBUR, the magic sword of King Arthur, which only he could
unsheathe and wield. When he was about to die he requested a knight to
throw it into a lake close by, who with some reluctance threw it, when a
hand reached out to seize it, flourished it round three times, and then
drew it under the water for good.


EXCOMMUNICATION, an ecclesiastical punishment inflicted upon
heretics and offenders against the Church laws and violators of the moral
code; was formulated in the Christian Church in the 2nd and 3rd
centuries. It varied in severity according to the degree of
transgression, but in its severest application involved exclusion from
the Eucharist, Christian burial, and the rights and privileges of the
Church; formerly it had the support of the civil authority, but is now a
purely spiritual penalty.


EXELMANS, REMY JOSEPH ISODORE, COMTE, a distinguished French
marshal, born at Bar-le-Duc; entered the army at 16; won distinction in
the Naples campaign, and for his services at Eylau in 1807 was made a
Brigadier-General; was taken prisoner in Spain while serving under Murat,
and sent to England, where he was kept prisoner three years; liberated,
took part in Napoleon's Russian campaign, for his conduct in which he was
appointed a General of Division; after Napoleon's fall lived in exile
till 1830; received honours from Louis Philippe, and was created a
Marshal of France by Louis Napoleon in 1851 (1775-1852).


EXETER (50), the capital of Devonshire, on the Exe, 75 m. SW. of
Bristol, a quaint old town; contains a celebrated cathedral founded in
1112.


EXETER HALL, a hall in the Strand, London; head-quarters of the
Y.M.C.A.; erected in 1831 for holding religious and philanthropic meetings.


EXMOOR, an elevated stretch of vale and moorland in the SW. of
Somerset, NE. of Devonshire; has an area of over 100 sq. m., 25 of which
are covered with forest.


EXMOUTH (8), a noted seaside resort on the Devonshire coast, at the
mouth of the Exe, 11 m. SE. of Exeter; has a fine beach and promenade.


EXODUS (i. e. the Going out), the book of the Old Testament which
records the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage,
and the institution of the moral and ceremonial laws for the nation;
consists partly of history and partly of legislation.


"EXODUS FROM HOUNDSDITCH," the contemplated title of a work which
Carlyle would fain have written, but found it impossible in his time.
"Out of Houndsditch indeed!" he exclaims. "Ah, were we but out, and had
our own along with us" (our inheritance from the past, he means). "But
they that have come hitherto have come in a state of brutal nakedness,
scandalous mutilation" (having cast their inheritance from the past
away), "and impartial bystanders say sorrowfully, 'Return rather; it is
better even to return!'" Houndsditch was a Jew's quarter, and old
clothesmarket in London, and was to Carlyle the symbol of the alarming
traffic at the time in spiritualities fallen extinct. Had he given a list
of these, as he has already in part done, without labelling them so, he
would only, he believed, have given offence both to the old-rag
worshippers and those that had cast the rags off, and were all,
unwittingly to themselves, going about naked; considerate he in this of
preserving what of worth was in the past.


EXOGENS, the name for the order of plants whose stem is formed by
successive accretions to the outside of the wood under the bark.


EXORCISM, conjuration by God or Christ or some holy name, of some
evil spirit to come out of a person; it was performed on a heathen as an
idolater, and eventually on a child as born in sin prior to baptism.


EXOTERIC, a term applied to teaching which the uninitiated may be
expected to comprehend, and which is openly professed, as in a public
confession of faith.


EXTERNALITY, the name for what is _ab extra_ as apart from what is
_ab intra_ in determining the substance as well as form of things, and
which in the Hegelian philosophy is regarded as working conjointly with
the latter.


EXTREME UNCTION, one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church;
an anointing of consecrated or holy oil administered by a priest in the
form of a cross to a sick person upon the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands,
and face at the point of death, which is presumed to impart grace and
strength against the last struggle.


EYCK, JAN VAN, a famous Flemish painter, born at Mass-Eyck; was
instructed by his eldest brother Hubert (1370-1426), with whom he
laboured at Bruges and Ghent; reputed to have been the first to employ
oil colours (1389-1440).


EYLAU, a small town, 23 m. S. of Koenigsberg, the scene of a great
battle between Napoleon and the Russian and Prussian allies in February
8, 1807; the fight was interrupted by darkness, under cover of which the
allies retreated, having had the worst of it.


EYRE, EDWARD JOHN, explorer and colonial governor, born in
Yorkshire; emigrated to Australia in 1832; successfully explored the
interior of SW. Australia in 1841; governor of New Zealand in 1846, of
St. Vincent in 1852, and of Jamaica in 1862; recalled in 1865, and
prosecuted for harsh treatment of the natives, but was acquitted; his
defence was championed by Carlyle, Ruskin, and Kingsley, while J. S. Mill
supported the prosecution; _b_. 1815.


EYRE, JANE, the heroine of a novel of Charlotte Bronte's so called,
a governess who, in her struggles with adverse fortune, wins the
admiration and melts the heart of a man who had lived wholly for the
world.


EZEKIEL, a Hebrew prophet, born in Jerusalem; a man of priestly
descent, who was carried captive to Babylon 599 B.C., and was banished
to Tel-abib, on the banks of the Chebar, 201 m. from the city, where,
with his family about him, he became the prophet of the captivity, and
the rallying centre of the Dispersion. Here he foretold the destruction
of Jerusalem as a judgment on the nation, and comforted them with the
promise of a new Jerusalem and a new Temple on their repentance, man by
man, and their return to the Lord. His prophecies arrange themselves in
three groups--those denouncing judgment on Jerusalem, those denouncing
judgment on the heathen, and those announcing the future glory of the
nation.


EZRA, a Jewish scribe of priestly rank, and full of zeal for the law
of the Lord and the restoration of Israel; author of a book of the Old
Testament, which records two successive returns of the people from
captivity, and embraces a period of 79 years, from 576 to 457 B.C.,
being a continuation of the book of Chronicles, its purpose being to
relate the progress of the restored theocracy in Judah and Jerusalem,
particularly as regards the restoration of the Temple and the
re-institution of the priesthood.