Chapter XXIX: Part 29

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 ZUÑIGA, 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 Thüringia, and has many interesting buildings, amongst the number the 14th-century Gothic cathedral with its great bell, weighing 13½ 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 Tennstädt, Thüringia; 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 Thüringia 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 Lützen; 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 Aphrodité, 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 encyclopædia 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 façade 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 entrepôt 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 ÆSCHINES; as also ESCULAPIUS, ESCHYLUS, ESOP, &c., under Æ.

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.

ESDRAËLON, 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."

ESNÉ, 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 FRANÇOISE, 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'état_; 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 Düsseldorf, 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 Schürer, "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 Masséna.

ESSLINGEN (22), an old historic and important manufacturing town in Würtemberg, 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 Cácéres.

ETÉOCLES, 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 anæsthetic.

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_.

ÉTIENNE, 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 ¼ 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.

ÊTRE SUPRÊME, 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.

ETTMÜLLER, 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.

EUDÆMONISM, 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 365½ day year into Greece; flourished in the 4th century B.C.

EUGENE, FRANÇOIS, 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).

EUGÉNIE, 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 Mölln, 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," "Bacchæ," "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 Æschylus, 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 Mycenæ, 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 Cæsarea 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.

EUTERPË, 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 Æneas 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 Teufelsdröckh'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, on 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.