Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Equation" to "Ethics" (part 2)

ERIE, the most southerly of the Great Lakes of North America, between 41° 23′ and 42° 53′ N., and 78° 51′ and 83° 28′ W., bounded W. by the state of Michigan, S. and S.E. by Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and N. by the province of Ontario. It is nearly elliptical, the major axis, 250 m. long, lying east and west; its greatest breadth is 60 m.; its area about 10,000 sq. m.; and the total area of its basin 34,412 sq. m. Its elevation above mean sea-level is 573 ft.; and its surface is nearly 9 ft. below that of Lake Huron, which discharges into it through St Clair river, Lake St Clair and Detroit river, and is 327 ft. above that of Lake Ontario, this great difference being absorbed by the rapids and falls in the Niagara river, which joins the two lakes. Lake Erie is very shallow, and may be divided into three basins, the western extending to Point Pelee and including all the islands, containing about 1200 sq. m., with a comparatively flat bottom at 5 to 6 fathoms; the main basin, between Point Pelee and the narrows at Long Point, containing about 6700 sq. m., and having a marked shelving bottom deepening gradually to 14 fathoms; and the portion east of the narrows, containing about 2100 sq. m., having a depression 30 fathoms deep just east from Long Point, with an extensive flat of 11 fathoms depth between it and the main basin. The Canadian shore is low and flat throughout, the United States shore is low but bordered by an elevated plateau through which the rivers have cut deep channels. The lake basin is relatively so small that the rivers are without importance; Grand river, on the north shore, is the largest tributary. The flat alluvial soil bordering on the lake is very fertile, and the climate is well adapted for fruit cultivation. Large quantities of peaches, grapes and small fruits are grown; the islands in the west end have a climate much warmer and more equable than the adjoining mainland, and are practically covered with vineyards. The low clayey or sandy shores are subject to erosion by waves. In severe storms the water near shore is filled with sand, which is deposited where the currents are checked around the ends of jetties in such a way as to form bars out into the lake across improved channels. This shoaling has rendered continuous dredging necessary at every harbour on the lake west of Erie, Pa. In consequence of the shallowness of the lake its waters are easily disturbed, making navigation very rough and dangerous, and causing large fluctuations of surface. Strong winds are frequent, as nearly every cyclonic depression traversing North America, either from the westward or the Gulf of Mexico, passes near enough to Lake Erie to be felt. Westerly gales are more frequent, and have more effect on the water surface than easterly ones, lowering the water as much as 7 to 8 ft. at the west end and raising it 5 to 8 ft. at the east end. The worst storms occur in autumn, when the immense quantity of shipping on the lake makes them specially destructive. There are no tides, and usually only a slight current towards the outlet, though powerful currents are temporarily produced by the rapid return of waters after a storm, and during the height of a westerly gale there is invariably a reflex current into the west end of the lake. There is an annual fluctuation in the level of the lake, varying from a minimum of 9 in. to a maximum of 2 ft., the normal low level occurring in February and the high level in midsummer. Standard high water (of 1838) is 575.11 ft. above mean sea-level, and the lowest record was 570.8 in November 1895. The harbours and exits of the lake freeze over, but the body of the lake never freezes completely.

Ice-breaking car ferries run across the lake all winter. General navigation opens as a rule in the middle of April and closes in the middle of December. The volume of traffic is immense, because practically all freight from the more westerly lakes finds terminal harbours in Lake Erie. Official statistics of commerce passing through the Detroit river into the lake during the season of 1906 show that 35,128 vessels, having a net register of 50,673,897 tons, carried 63,805,571 (short) tons of freight, valued at $662,971,053. The 1175 vessels engaged in this business were valued at $106,223,000. Over 90% of the whole traffic is in United States ships to United States ports. Fine passenger steamers run nightly between Buffalo and Cleveland and Detroit, and there are many shorter passenger routes.

The large traffic on Lake Erie has brought into existence a number of important harbours on the south shore, nearly all artificially made and deepened, with entrances between two breakwaters running into the lake at right angles to the coast line. The principal of these are Toledo, Sandusky, Huron, Vermilion, Lorain, Cleveland, Fairport, Ashtabula, Conneaut, Erie (a natural harbour), Dunkirk and Buffalo, Rondeau, Port Stanley, Port Burwell, Port Dover, Port Maitland and Port Colborne. The Miami and Erie canal, leading from Maumee river to Cincinnati, 244½ m., with a branch to Port Jefferson, 14 m., with locks 90 by 15 by 4 ft., connects with Lake Erie through Toledo. The Erie canal leading from Buffalo to the Hudson river at Troy, and connecting with Lake Ontario at Oswego, had a capacity for boats 98 ft. long, 17 ft. 10 in. beam, with 6 ft. draught, until in 1907 the State of New York undertook its deepening to accommodate boats of 1000 tons capacity. Buffalo from its position at the eastern limit of deep draught lake navigation is a city of first rate commercial importance. Its harbour is formed by an artificial breakwater, built parallel with the shore about half a mile distant from it. It receives practically all the Lake Erie grain shipments besides large quantities of iron ore, lumber and copper, and is a large shipping port for coal, principally anthracite. It has over 600 m. of railway tracks to accommodate lake freights. The Welland canal, 26¾ m. long, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, with locks 270 by 45 by 14 ft., leaves Lake Erie at Port Colborne, where the Canadian government have constructed an artificial harbour and elevators for transhipment of grain from upper lake freighters to lighters of canal capacity.

Fishing operations are carried on extensively in Lake Erie, the fish being taken with gill nets, seines and pound nets. Each state touching the lake has its own fishery regulations, which differ amongst themselves as well as from those of the Dominion. Both nations maintain a Fishery Protection Service, and the fisheries are replenished from artificial hatcheries. The most numerous and valuable fish are the lesser white fish (Coregonus artedi, Le Sueur), pickerel (Stizostedion vitreum, Walb.), pike (Lucius lucius, L.), and white fish (Coregonus clupeiformis, Mitchill), in the order named. The fish caught are estimated to be worth annually $1,000,000. They are collected in fishing tugs and distributed by rail throughout the United States and Canada.

Bibliography.—Bulletin No. 17, Survey of Northern and North-western Lakes, U.S. Lake Survey Office, War Dept. (Detroit, 1907); U.S. Hydrographic Office, Publication No. 108D, Sailing Directions for Lake Erie, &c. (Washington, 1902); Sailing Directions for the Canadian Shore of Lake Erie, Department of Marine and Fisheries (Ottawa, 1897); J.O. Curwood, The Great Lakes (New York, 1909); E. Channing and M.F. Lansing, The Great Lakes (New York, 1909).

(W. P. A.)

ERIE, a city, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Erie county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Lake Erie, 148 m. by rail N. of Pittsburg and near the N.W. corner of the state. Pop. (1890) 40,634; (1900) 52,733, of whom 11,957 were foreign-born, including 5226 from Germany and 1468 from Ireland, and 26,797 were of foreign parentage (both parents foreign-born), including 13,316 of German parentage and 4203 of Irish parentage; (1910 census) 66,525. Erie is served by the New York, Chicago & St Louis, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Erie & Pittsburg (Pennsylvania Company), the Philadelphia & Erie (Pennsylvania railway), and the Bessemer & Lake Erie railways, and by steamboat lines to many important lake ports. The city extends over an area of about 7 sq. m., which for the most part is quite level and is from 50 to 175 ft. above the lake. Erie has a fine harbour about 4 m. in length, more than 1 m. in width, and with an average depth of about 20 ft.; it is nearly enclosed by Presque Isle, a long narrow strip of land of about 3000 acres from 300 ft. to 1 m. in width, and the national government has protected its entrance and deepened its channel by constructing two long breakwaters. Most of the streets of the city are 60 ft. wide—a few are 100 ft.—and nearly all intersect at right angles; they are paved with brick and asphalt, and many in the residential quarters are shaded with fine elms and maples. The city has four parks, in one of which is a soldiers’ and sailors’ monument of granite and bronze, and not far away, along the shore of lake and bay, are several attractive summer resorts. Among Erie’s more prominent buildings are the United States government building, the city hall, the public library, and the county court house. The city’s charitable institutions consist of two general hospitals, each of which has a training school for nurses; a municipal hospital, an orphan asylum, a home for the friendless, two old folks’ homes, and a bureau of charities; here, also, on a bluff, within a large enclosure and overlooking both lake and city, is the state soldiers’ and sailors’ home, and near by is a monument erected to the memory of General Anthony Wayne, who died here on the 15th of December 1796.

Erie is the commercial centre of a large and rich grape-growing and agricultural district, has an extensive trade with the lake ports and by rail (chiefly in coal, iron ore, lumber and grain), and is an important manufacturing centre, among its products being iron, engines, boilers, brass castings, stoves, car heaters, flour, malt liquors, lumber, planing mill products, cooperage products, paper and wood pulp, cigars and other tobacco goods, gas meters, rubber goods, pipe organs, pianos and chemicals. In 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $19,911,567, the value of foundry and machine-shop products being $6,723,819, of flour and grist-mill products $1,444,450, and of malt liquors $882,493. The municipality owns and operates its water-works.

On the site of Erie the French erected Fort Presque Isle in 1753, and about it founded a village of a few hundred inhabitants. George Washington, on behalf of the governor of Virginia, came in the same year to Fort Le Bœuf (on the site of the present Waterford), 20 m. distant, to protest against the French fortifying this section of country. The protest, however, was unheeded. The village was abandoned in or before 1758, owing probably to an epidemic of smallpox, and the fort was abandoned in 1759. It was occupied by the British in 1760, but on the 22nd of June 1763 this was one of the several forts captured by the Indians during the Conspiracy of Pontiac. In 1764 the British regained nominal control and retained it until 1785, when it passed into the possession of the United States. The place was laid out as a town in 1795; in 1800 it became the county-seat of the newly-erected county of Erie; it was incorporated as a borough in 1805, the charter of that year being revised in 1833; and in 1851 it was incorporated as a city. At Erie were built within less than six months most of the vessels with which Commodore Oliver H. Perry won his naval victory over the British off Put-in-Bay on the 10th of September 1813.

ERIGENA, JOHANNES SCOTUS (c. 800-c. 877), medieval philosopher and theologian. His real name was Johannes Scotus (Scottus) or John the Scot. The combination Johannes Scotus Erigena has not been traced earlier than Ussher and Gale; even Gale uses it only in the heading of the version of St Maximus. The date of Erigena’s birth is very uncertain, and there is no evidence to show definitely where he was born. The name Scotus, which has often been taken to imply Scottish origin, really favours the theory that he was an Irishman according to the then usage of Scotus or Scotigena. Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, definitely states that he was of Irish extraction. The pseudonym commonly read Erigena, used by himself in the titles of his versions of Dionysius the Areopagite, is Ierugena (in later MSS. Erugena and Eriugena), formed apparently on the analogy of Graiugena (“Greek-born”), which he applies to St Maximus. There seems no reason to doubt that Eriugena is connected with Erin, the name for Ireland, and Ierugena suggests the Greek ἱερός, ἱερὸς, νῆσος being a common name for Ireland. On the other hand, William of Malmesbury prefers to read Heruligena, which would make Scotus a Pannonian, while Bale says he was born at St David’s, Dempster connects him with Ayr, and Gale with Eriuven in Hereford. Some early writers thought there were two persons, John Scotus and John Erigena.

Of Erigena’s early life nothing is known. Bale quotes the story that he travelled in Greece, Italy and Gaul, and studied not only Greek, but also Arabic and Chaldaean. Since, however, Bale describes him as “ex patricio genitore natus,” it is a reasonable inference (so R.L. Poole) that Bale confused him with one John, the son of Patricius, a Spaniard, who tells much the same story of his own travels. The knowledge of Greek displayed in Erigena’s works is not such as to compel us to conclude that he had actually visited Greece. That he had a competent acquaintance with Greek is manifest from his translations of Dionysius the Areopagite and of Maximus, from the manner in which he refers to Aristotle, and from his evident familiarity with Neoplatonist writers and the fathers of the early church. Roger Bacon, in his severe criticism on the ignorance of Greek displayed by the most eminent scholastic writers, expressly exempts Erigena, and ascribes to him a knowledge of Aristotle in the original.

Among other legends which have at various times been attached to Erigena are that he was invited to France by Charlemagne, and that he was one of the founders of the university of Paris. The only portion of Erigena’s life as to which we possess accurate information was that spent at the court of Charles the Bald. Charles invited him to France soon after his accession to the throne, probably in the year 843, and placed him at the head of the court school (schola palatina). The reputation of this school seems to have increased greatly under Erigena’s leadership, and the philosopher himself was treated with indulgence by the king. William of Malmesbury’s amusing story illustrates both the character of Scotus and the position he occupied at the French court. The king having asked, “Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?” Erigena replied, “Mensa tantum.”

The first of the works known to have been written by Erigena during this period was a treatise on the eucharist, which has not come down to us (by some it has been identified with a treatise by Ratramnus, De corpore et sanguine Domini). In it he seems to have advanced the doctrine that the eucharist was merely symbolical or commemorative, an opinion for which Berengarius was at a later date censured and condemned. As a part of his penance Berengarius is said to have been compelled to burn publicly Erigena’s treatise. So far as we can learn, however, Erigena’s orthodoxy was not at the time suspected, and a few years later he was selected by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, to defend the doctrine of liberty of will against the extreme predestinarianism of the monk Gottschalk (Gotteschalchus). The treatise De divina praedestinatione, composed on this occasion, has been preserved, and from its general tenor one cannot be surprised that the author’s orthodoxy was at once and vehemently suspected. Erigena argues the question entirely on speculative grounds, and starts with the bold affirmation that philosophy and religion are fundamentally one and the same—“Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam.” Even more significant is his handling of authority and reason, to which we shall presently refer. The work was warmly assailed by Drepanius Florus, canon of Lyons, and Prudentius, and was condemned by two councils—that of Valence in 855, and that of Langres in 859. By the former council his arguments were described as Pultes Scotorum (“Scots porridge”) and commentum diaboli (“an invention of the devil”).

Erigena’s next work was a Latin translation of Dionysius the Areopagite (see Dionysius Areopagiticus) undertaken at the request of Charles the Bald. This also has been preserved, and fragments of a commentary by Erigena on Dionysius have been discovered in MS. A translation of the Areopagite’s pantheistical writings was not likely to alter the opinion already formed as to Erigena’s orthodoxy. Pope Nicholas I. was offended that the work had not been submitted for approval before being given to the world, and ordered Charles to send Erigena to Rome, or at least to dismiss him from his court. There is no evidence, however, that this order was attended to.

The latter part of his life is involved in total obscurity. The story that in 882 he was invited to Oxford by Alfred the Great, that he laboured there for many years, became abbot at Malmesbury, and was stabbed to death by his pupils with their “styles,” is apparently without any satisfactory foundation, and doubtless refers to some other Johannes. Erigena in all probability never left France, and Hauréau has advanced some reasons for fixing the date of his death about 877.

Erigena is the most interesting figure among the middle-age writers. The freedom of his speculation, and the boldness with which he works out his logical or dialectical system of the universe, altogether prevent us from classing him along with the scholastics properly so called. He marks, indeed, a stage of transition from the older Platonizing philosophy to the later and more rigid scholasticism. In no sense whatever can it be affirmed that with Erigena philosophy is in the service of theology. The above-quoted assertion as to the substantial identity between philosophy and religion is indeed repeated almost totidem verbis by many of the later scholastic writers, but its significance altogether depends upon the selection of one or other term of the identity as fundamental or primary. Now there is no possibility of mistaking Erigena’s position: to him philosophy or reason is first, is primitive; authority or religion is secondary, derived. “Auctoritas siquidem ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate. Omnis enim auctoritas, quae vera ratione non approbatur, infirma videtur esse. Vera autem ratio, quum virtutibus suis rata atque immutabilis munitur, nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indiget” (De divisione naturae, i. 71). F.D. Maurice, the only historian of note who declines to ascribe a rationalizing tendency to Erigena, obscures the question by the manner in which he states it. He asks his readers, after weighing the evidence advanced, to determine “whether he (Erigena) used his philosophy to explain away his theology, or to bring out what he conceived to be the fullest meaning of it.” These alternatives seem to be wrongly put. “Explaining away theology” is something wholly foreign to the philosophy of that age; and even if we accept the alternative that Erigena endeavours speculatively to bring out the full meaning of theology, we are by no means driven to the conclusion that he was primarily or principally a theologian. He does not start with the datum of theology as the completed body of truth, requiring only elucidation and interpretation; his fundamental thought is that of the universe, nature, τὸ πᾶν, or God, as the ultimate unity which works itself out into the rational system of the world. Man and all that concerns man are but parts of this system, and are to be explained by reference to it; for explanation or understanding of a thing is determination of its place in the universal or all. Religion or revelation is one element or factor in the divine process, a stage or phase of the ultimate rational life. The highest faculty of man, reason, intellectus, intellectualis visio, is that which is not content with the individual or partial, but grasps the whole and thereby comprehends the parts. In this highest effort of reason, which is indeed God thinking in man, thought and being are at one, the opposition of being and thought is overcome. When Erigena starts with such propositions, it is clearly impossible to understand his position and work if we insist on regarding him as a scholastic, accepting the dogmas of the church as ultimate data, and endeavouring only to present them in due order and defend them by argument.

Erigena’s great work, De divisione naturae, which was condemned by a council at Sens, by Honorius III. (1225), who described it as “swarming with worms of heretical perversity,” and by Gregory XIII. in 1585, is arranged in five books. The form of exposition is that of dialogue; the method of reasoning is the syllogistic. The leading thoughts are the following. Natura is the name for the universal, the totality of all things, containing in itself being and non-being. It is the unity of which all special phenomena are manifestations. But of this nature there are four distinct classes:—(1) that which creates and is not created; (2) that which is created and creates; (3) that which is created and does not create; (4) that which neither is created nor creates. The first is God as the ground or origin of all things, the last is God as the final end or goal of all things, that into which the world of created things ultimately returns. The second and third together compose the created universe, which is the manifestation of God, God in processu, Theophania. Thus we distinguish in the divine system beginning, middle and end; but these three are in essence one—the difference is only the consequence of our finite comprehension. We are compelled to envisage this eternal process under the form of time, to apply temporal distinctions to that which is extra- or supra-temporal. The universe of created things, as we have seen, is twofold:—first, that which is created and creates—the primordial ideas, archetypes, immutable relations, divine acts of will, according to which individual things are formed; second, that which is created and does not create, the world of individuals, the effects of the primordial causes, without which the causes have no true being. Created things have no individual or self-independent existence; they are only in God; and each thing is a manifestation of the divine, theophania, divina apparitio.

God alone, the uncreated creator of all, has true being. He is the true universal, all-containing and incomprehensible. The lower cannot comprehend the higher, and therefore we must say that the existence of God is above being, above essence; God is above goodness, above wisdom, above truth. No finite predicates can be applied to him; his mode of being cannot be determined by any category. True theology is negative. Nevertheless the world, as the theophania, the revelation of God, enables us so far to understand the divine essence. We recognize his being in the being of all things, his wisdom in their orderly arrangement, his life in their constant motion. Thus God is for us a Trinity—the Father as substance or being (οὐσία), the Son as wisdom (δύναμις), the Spirit as life (ἐνέργια). These three are realized in the universe—the Father as the system of things, the Son as the word, i.e. the realm of ideas, the Spirit as the life or moving force which introduces individuality and which ultimately draws back all things into the divine unity. In man, as the noblest of created things, the Trinity is seen most perfectly reflected; intellectus (νοῦς), ratio (λογος) and sensus (διάνοια) make up the threefold thread of his being. Not in man alone, however, but in all things, God is to be regarded as realizing himself, as becoming incarnate.

The infinite essence of God, which may indeed be described as nihilum (nothing) is that from which all is created, from which all proceeds or emanates. The first procession or emanation, as above indicated, is the realm of ideas in the Platonic sense, the word or wisdom of God. These ideas compose a whole or inseparable unity, but we are able in a dim way to think of them as a system logically arranged. Thus the highest idea is that of goodness; things are, only if they are good; being without well-being is naught. Essence participates in goodness—that which is good has being, and is therefore to be regarded as a species of good. Life, again, is a species of essence, wisdom a species of life, and so on, always descending from genus to species in a rigorous logical fashion.

The ideas are the eternal causes, which, under the moving influence of the spirit, manifest themselves in their effects, the individual created things. Manifestation, however, is part of the being or essence of the causes, that is to say, if we interpret the expression, God of necessity manifests himself in the world and is not without the world. Further, as the causes are eternal, timeless, so creation is eternal, timeless. The Mosaic account, then, is to be looked upon merely as a mode in which is faintly shadowed forth what is above finite comprehension. It is altogether allegorical, and requires to be interpreted. Paradise and the Fall have no local or temporal being. Man was originally sinless and without distinction of sex. Only after the introduction of sin did man lose his spiritual body, and acquire the animal nature with its distinction of sex. Woman is the impersonation of man’s sensuous and fallen nature; on the final return to the divine unity, distinction of sex will vanish, and the spiritual body will be regained.

The most remarkable and at the same time the most obscure portion of the work is that in which the final return to God is handled. Naturally sin is a necessary preliminary to this redemption, and Erigena has the greatest difficulty in accounting for the fact of sin. If God is true being, then sin can have no substantive existence; it cannot be said that God knows of sin, for to God knowing and being are one. In the universe of things, as a universe, there can be no sin; there must be perfect harmony. Sin, in fact, results from the will of the individual who falsely represents something as good which is not so. This misdirected will is punished by finding that the objects after which it thirsts are in truth vanity and emptiness. Hell is not to be regarded as having local existence; it is the inner state of the sinful will. As the object of punishment is not the will or the individual himself, but the misdirection of the will, so the result of punishment is the final purification and redemption of all. Even the devils shall be saved. All, however, are not saved at once; the stages of the return to the final unity, corresponding to the stages in the creative process, are numerous, and are passed through slowly. The ultimate goal is deificatio, theosis or resumption into the divine being, when the individual soul is raised to a full knowledge of God, and where knowing and being are one. After all have been restored to the divine unity, there is no further creation. The ultimate unity is that which neither is created nor creates.

Editions.—There is a complete edition of Erigena’s works in J.P. Migne’s Patrologiae cursus completus (vol. cxxii.), edited by H.J. Floss (Paris, 1853). The De divina praedestinatione was published in Gilbert Mauguin’s Veterum auctorum qui nono saeculo de praedestinatione et gratia scripserunt opera et fragmenta (Paris, 1650). The commentary (“Expositiones”) on Dionysius’ Hierarchiae caelestes appeared in the Appendix ad opera edita ab A. Maio (ed. J. Cozza, Rome, 1871). Of the De divisione naturae, editions have been published by Thomas Gale (Oxford, 1681); C.B. Schlüter (Münster, 1838); and in Floss’s Opera omnia; there is a German translation by Ludwig Noack, Johannes Scotus Erigena über die Eintheilung der Natur (3 vols., 1874-1876). Erigena was also the author of some poems edited by L. Traube in Monumenta Germaniae historica. Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini, iii. (1896). A commentary on the Opuscula sacra of Boëtius is attributed to him and edited by E.K. Rand (1906). Monographs on Erigena’s life and works are numerous; see St René Taillandier, Scot Érigène et la philosophie scholastique (1843); T. Christlieb, Leben u. Lehre des Johannes Scotus Erigena (Gotha, 1860); J.N. Huber, Johannes Scotus Erigena (Munich, 1861); W. Kaulich, Das speculative System des Johannes Scotus Erigena (Prague, 1860); A. Stöckl, De Joh. Scoto Erigena (1867); L. Noack, Über Leben und Schriften des Joh. Scotus Erigena: die Wissenschaft und Bildung seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1876); R.L. Poole, Medieval Thought (1884), and article in Dictionary of National Biography; T. Wotschke, Fichte und Erigena (Halle, 1896); M. Baumgartner in Wetzer and Welte’s Kirchenlexikon, x. (1897); Alice Gardner’s Studies in John the Scot (1900); J. Dräseke, Joh. Scotus Erigena und seine Gewährsmänner (Leipzig, 1902); S.M. Deutsch in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie, xviii. (1906); J.E. Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship (1906), pp. 491-495. See also the general works on scholastic philosophy, especially Hauréau, Stöckl and Kaulich. An admirable résumé is given by F.D. Maurice, Medieval Phil. pp. 45-79.

(R. Ad.; J. M. M.)

ERIGONE, in Greek mythology, daughter of Icarius, the hero of the Attic deme Icaria. Her father, who had been taught by Dionysus to make wine, gave some to some shepherds, who became intoxicated. Their companions, thinking they had been poisoned, killed Icarius and buried him under a tree on Mount Hymettus (or threw his body into a well). Erigone, guided by her faithful dog Maera, found his grave, and hanged herself on the tree. Dionysus sent a plague on the land, and all the maidens of Athens, in a fit of madness, hanged themselves like Erigone. Icarius, Erigone and Maera were set among the stars as Boötes (or Arcturus), Virgo and Procyon. The festival called Aeora (the “swing”) was subsequently instituted to propitiate Icarius and Erigone. Various small images (in Lat. oscilla) were suspended on trees and swung backwards and forwards, and offerings of fruit were made (Hyginus, Fab. 130, Poët. astron. ii. 4; Apollodorus iii. 14). The story was probably intended to explain the origin of these oscilla, by which Dionysus, as god of trees (Dendrites), was propitiated, and the baneful influence of the dog-star averted (see also Oscilla).

ERIN, an ancient name for Ireland. The oldest form of the word is Ériu, of which Érinn is the dative case. Ériu was itself almost certainly a contraction from a still more primitive form Iberiu or Iveriu; for when the name of the island was written in ancient Greek it appeared as Ἰουερνιά (Ivernia), and in Latin as Iberio, Hiberio or Hibernia, the first syllable of the word Ériu being thus represented in the classical languages by two distinct vowel sounds separated by b or v. Of the Latin variants, Iberio is the form found in the most ancient Irish MSS., such as the Confession of St Patrick, and the same saint’s Epistle to Coroticus. Further evidence to the same effect is found in the fact that the ancient Breton and Welsh names for Ireland were Ywerddon or Iverdon. In later Gaelic literature the primitive form Ériu became the dissyllable Éire; hence the Norsemen called the island the land of Éire, i.e. Ireland, the latter word being originally pronounced in three syllables. (See Ireland: Notices of Ireland in Greek and Roman writers.) Nothing is known as to the meaning of the word in any of its forms, and Whitley Stokes’s suggestion that it may have been connected with the Sanskrit avara, meaning “western,” is admittedly no more than conjecture. There was, indeed, a native Irish legend, worthless from the standpoint of etymology, to account for the origin of the name. According to this myth there were three kings of the Dedannans reigning in Ireland at the coming of the Milesians, named MacColl, MacKecht and MacGrena. The wife of the first was Eire, and from her the name of the country was derived. Curiously, Ireland in ancient Erse poetry was often called “Fodla” or “Bauba,” and these were the wives of the other two kings in the legend.

ERINNA, Greek poet, contemporary and friend of Sappho, a native of Rhodes or the adjacent island of Telos, flourished about 600 (according to Eusebius, 350 B.C.). Although she died at the early age of nineteen, her poems were among the most famous of her time and considered to rank with those of Homer. Of her best-known poem, Ἠλακάτη (the Distaff), written in a mixture of Aeolic and Doric, which contained 300 hexameter lines, only 4 lines are now extant. Three epigrams in the Palatine anthology, also ascribed to her, probably belong to a later date.

The fragments have been edited (with those of Alcaeus) by J. Pellegrino (1894).

ERINYES (Lat. Furiae), in Greek mythology, the avenging deities, properly the angry goddesses or goddesses of the curse pronounced upon evil-doers. According to Hesiod (Theog. 185) they were the daughters of Earth, and sprang from the blood of the mutilated Uranus; in Aeschylus (Eum. 321) they are the daughters of Night, in Sophocles (O.C. 40) of Darkness and Earth. Sometimes one Erinys is mentioned, sometimes several; Euripides first spoke of them as three in number, to whom later Alexandrian writers gave the names Alecto (unceasing in anger), Tisiphone (avenger of murder), Megaera (jealous). Their home is the world below, whence they ascend to earth to pursue the wicked. They punish all offences against the laws of human society, such as perjury, violation of the rites of hospitality, and, above all, the murder of relations. But they are not without benevolent and beneficent attributes. When the sinner has expiated his crime they are ready to forgive. Thus, their persecution of Orestes ceases after his acquittal by the Areopagus. It is said that on this occasion they were first called Eumenides (“the kindly”), a euphemistic variant of their real name. At Athens, however, where they had a sanctuary at the foot of the Areopagus hill and a sacred grove at Colonus, their regular name was Semnae (venerable). Black sheep were sacrificed to them during the night by the light of torches. A festival was held in their honour every year, superintended by a special priesthood, at which the offerings consisted of milk and honey mixed with water, but no wine. In Aeschylus, the Erinyes are represented as awful, Gorgon-like women, wearing long black robes, with snaky locks, bloodshot eyes and claw-like nails. Later, they are winged maidens of serious aspect, in the garb of huntresses, with snakes or torches in their hair, carrying scourges, torches or sickles. The identification of Erinyes with Sanskrit Saranyu, the swift-speeding storm cloud, is rejected by modern etymologists; according to M. Bréal, the Erinyes are the personification of the formula of imprecation (ἀρά), while E. Rohde sees in them the spirits of the dead, the angry souls of murdered men.

See C.O. Müller, Dissertations on the Eumenides of Aeschylus, (Eng. tr., 1835); A. Rosenberg, Die Erinyen (1874); J.E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); and Journal of Hellenic Studies, xix. p. 205, according to whom the Erinyes were primarily local ancestral ghosts, potent for good or evil after death, earth genii, originally conceived as embodied in the form of snakes, whose primitive haunt and sanctuary was the omphalos at Delphi; E. Rohde, Psyche (1903); A. Rapp in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, and J.A. Hild in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, s.v. Furiae.

ERIPHYLE, in Greek mythology, sister of Adrastus and wife of Amphiaraus. Having been bribed by Polyneices with the necklace of Harmonia, she persuaded her husband to take part in the expedition of the Seven against Thebes, although he knew it would prove fatal to him. Before setting out, the seer charged his sons to slay their mother as soon as they heard of his death. The attack on Thebes was repulsed, and during the flight the earth opened and swallowed up Amphiaraus together with his chariot. His son Alcmaeon, as he had been bidden, slew his mother, and was driven from place to place by the Erinyes, seeking purification and a new home (Apollodorus iii. 6. 7).

ERIS, in Greek mythology, a sister of the war-god Ares (Homer, Iliad, iv. 440), and in the Hesiodic theogony (225) a daughter of Night. In the later legends of the Trojan War, Eris, not having been invited to the marriage festival of Peleus and Thetis, flings a golden apple (the “apple of discord”) among the guests, to be given to the most beautiful. The claims of the three deities Hera, Aphrodite and Athena are decided by Paris in favour of Aphrodite, who as a reward assists him to gain possession of Helen (Hyginus, Fab. 92; Lucian, Charidemus, 17). Hesiod also mentions (W. and D. 24) a beneficent Eris, the personification of honourable rivalry. In Virgil (Aeneid, viii. 702) and other Roman poets Eris is represented by Discordia.

ERITH, an urban district in the north-western parliamentary division of Kent, England, 14 m. E. by S. of London, on the South Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1891) 13,414; (1901) 25,296. It lies on the south bank of the Thames and extends up the hills above the shore, many villas having been erected on the higher ground. The park of a former seat, Belvedere, was thus built over (c. 1860), and the mansion became a home for disabled seamen. The church of St John the Baptist, though largely altered by modern restoration, retains Early English to Perpendicular portions, and some early monuments and brasses. Erith has large engineering and gun factories, and in the neighbourhood are gunpowder, oil, glue and manure works. The southern outfall works of the London main drainage system are at Crossness in the neighbouring lowland called Plumstead Marshes. Erith is the headquarters of several yacht clubs. Erith, the name of which is commonly derived from A.S. Ærra-hythe (old haven), was anciently a borough, and was granted a market and fairs in 1313. Down to the close of the 17th century it was of some importance as a naval station.

ERITREA, an Italian colony on the African coast of the Red Sea. It extends from Ras Kasar, a cape 110 m. S. of Suakin, in 18° 2′ N., as far as Ras Dumeira (12° 42′ N.), in the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, a coast-line of about 650 m. The colony is bounded inland by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Abyssinia and French Somaliland. It consists of the coast lands lying between the capes named and of part of the northern portion of the Abyssinian plateau. The total area is about 60,000 sq. m. The population is approximately 450,000, of which, exclusive of soldiers, not more than 3000 are whites.

The land frontier starting from Ras Kasar runs in a south-westerly direction until in about 14° 15′ N., 36° 35′ E. it reaches the river Setit, some distance above the junction of that stream with the Atbara. This, the farthest point inland, is 198 m. S.W. of Massawa. The frontier now turns east, following for a short distance the course of the river Setit; thence it strikes north-easterly to the Mareb, and from 38° E. follows that river and its tributaries the Belesa and Muna, until within 42 m. of the sea directly south of Annesley Bay. At this point the frontier turns south and east, crossing the Afar or Danakil country at a distance of 60 kilometres (37.28 m.) from the coast-line. About 12° 20′ N. the French possessions in Somaliland are reached. Here the frontier turns N.E. and so continues until the coast of the Red Sea is again reached at a point south of the town of Raheita. In the southern part of the colony are small sultanates, such as those of Aussa and Raheita, which are under Italian protection. The Dahlak archipelago and other groups of islands along the coast belong to Eritrea.

Physical Features.—The coast-line is of coral formation and is, in the neighbourhood of Massawa, thickly studded with small islands. The chief indentations are Annesley Bay, immediately south of Massawa, and Assab Bay in the south. The colony consists of two widely differing regions. The northern division is part of the Abyssinian highlands. The southern division, part of the Afar or Danakil country, includes all the territory of the colony south of Annesley Bay. These two regions are connected by a narrow strip of land behind Annesley Bay, where the Abyssinian hills approach close to the sea. From this bay the coast-line trends S.E. so that at Tajura Bay the distance between the Abyssinian hills and the sea is over 200 m. The Afar country is part of the East African rift-valley, and in the southern parts of the valley its surface is diversified by ranges of hills, frequently volcanic, and by lakes. The plains, however, extend over large areas, they are generally arid and are often covered with mimosa trees which form a kind of jungle called by the natives khala. The torrents which descend from the Abyssinian plateau usually fail to reach the sea. They are mostly bordered by dense vegetation; in the dry season water is found in pools in the river beds or can be obtained by digging. The principal rivers enter and are lost in one or other of two salt plains or basins, that of Asali in the north and that of Aussa in the south. The Hawash flows through the Aussa country in a N.E. direction, but is lost in lakes Abbebad and Aussa (see Abyssinia). The Raguali and other rivers drain into the Asali basin. This basin, like that of Aussa, is in places 200 ft. below sea-level. On the west the Asali basin reaches to the Abyssinian foot-hills; in its southern part is the small lake Alelbad. The eastern edge of the basin is formed by a ridge of gypsum and on its margin grow palms. In parts the salt lies thick on the plain, which then has the appearance of a lake frozen over. South of Lake Alelbad is a volcano called Artali or Erta-alé (“the smoky”), and farther to the S.E., in about 13° 15′ N., is the peak of Afdera, which was in eruption in June 1907. The hills, 1000 to 4000 ft. in height, which run more or less parallel to and a few miles from the coast, include the volcano of Dubbi (reported active in 1861), some 30 m. S. of the port of Edd (Eddi). In 14° 52′ N., 39° 53′ E. and near the northern end of the zone of depression the volcano of Alid (2985 ft.) rises from the trough. Its chief crest forms an elongated ring and encloses a crater over half a mile in diameter and with walls 350 ft. high. North and south of Alid extends a vast lava field. Dubbi and Alid are in Italian territory; the greater part of Afar belongs to Abyssinia.

At Annesley Bay the narrow coast plain is succeeded by foothills separated by small valleys through which flow innumerable streams. From these hills the ascent to the plateau which constitutes northern Eritrea is very steep. This tableland, which has a general elevation of about 6500 ft., is fairly fertile despite a desert region—Sheb—to the S.E. of Keren. It is characterized by rich, well-watered valleys, verdant plains and flat-topped hills with steep sides, running in ranges or isolated. The highest hills in Eritrean territory rise to about 10,000 ft. The plateau is known by various names, the region directly west of Massawa being called Hamasen. To the west and north the plateau sinks in terraces to the plains of the Sudan, and eastward falls more abruptly to the Red Sea, the coast plain, known as the Samhar, consisting of sandy country covered with mimosa and, along the khors, with a somewhat richer vegetation.

The colony contains no navigable streams. For a short distance the Setit (known in its upper course as the Takazze), a tributary of the Atbara, forms the frontier, as does also in its upper course the Gash or Mareb (see Abyssinia). The Mareb, often dry in summer, in the floods is a large and impassable river. Both the Setit and Mareb have a general westerly course across the Abyssinian plateau. The Baraka (otherwise Barka) and Anseba rise in the Hamasen plateau near Asmara within a short distance of each other. The Baraka flows west and then north; the Anseba, which has a more easterly course, also flows northward and joins the Baraka a little N. of 17° N. A few miles below the confluence the Baraka leaves Italian territory. It is (as is the Anseba) an intermittent stream. After heavy rain it discharges some of its water into the Red Sea north of Tokar. The whole of the hill country north of Asmara belongs to the drainage area of the Baraka or Anseba. Of the numerous streams which, north of the Danakil country, run direct from the hills to the Red Sea, the Hadas may be mentioned, as along the valley of that stream is one of the most frequented routes to the tableland. The Hadas, in time of flood, reaches the ocean near Adulis in Annesley Bay.

Climate.—The climate in different parts of the colony varies greatly. Three distinct climatic zones are found:—(1) that of the coastlands, including altitudes up to 1650 ft., (2) that of the escarpments and valleys, and (3) that of the high plateau and alpine summits. In the coast zone the heat and humidity are excessive during most of the year, June, September and October being the hottest months. Rains occur between November and April, during which time the temperature is lower. In this zone malarial fevers prevail in winter. The heat is greatest at Massawa, where the mean temperature averages 88° F., but where, in summer, the thermometer often rises to 120° F. in the shade. In the second zone the climate is more temperate and there is considerable variation in temperature owing to nocturnal radiation. This zone falls within the régime of the summer monsoon rains, while those districts adjoining the coast zone enjoy also winter rains. August is the most rainy and May the hottest month. On the high plateau, i.e. the third zone, the climate is generally moderately cool. Slight rain falls in the spring and abundant monsoon rains from June to September. The heat is greatest in the dry season, November to April. Above 8500 ft. the climate becomes sub-alpine in character.

Flora and Fauna.—In the low country the flora differs little from that of tropical Africa generally, whilst on the plateau the vegetation is characteristic of the temperate zone. The olive tree grows on the high plateau and covers the flanks of the hills to within 3000 ft. of sea-level. The sycamore-fig tree grows to enormous proportions in parts of the plateau. Lower down durra, maize and bultuc grow in profusion. In the northern part of the colony, especially along the Khor Baraka, the dom palm flourishes. The fauna includes, in the low country, the lion, panther, elephant, camel, and antelope of numerous species. On the plateau the fauna is that of Abyssinia (q.v.).

Inhabitants.—The inhabitants of the plains and foothills are for the most part semi-nomad shepherds, living on durra and milk. In the north these people are largely of Arab or Hamitic stock, such as the Beni-Amer, but include various negro tribes. Afar and Somali form the population of the southern regions. The inhabitants of the plateau are Abyssinians. The nomads are Mussulmans and are, as a rule, docile and pacific, though the Danakils are given to occasional raiding. The Abyssinians are more warlike, but they have settled down under Italian rule. Among the native industries are mat-weaving, cotton-weaving, silver-working and rudimentary iron and leather working. (See Afars; Somaliland and Abyssinia.)

Towns.—The principal places on the coast are Massawa (q.v.), pop. about 10,000, the chief seaport of the colony, Assab, chief town of the Danakil region, to which converges the trade from Abyssinia across the Aussa country, and Zula (q.v.), identified with the ancient Adulis. The chief town in the interior is Asmara (q.v.), the capital of the colony and under the Abyssinians capital of the province of Hamasen, and favourite headquarters of Ras Alula (see below and also Abyssinia). It is situated 7800 ft. above the sea, and has something of the aspect of a European town. Keren, 50 m. N.W. of Asmara, is the centre for a district (Bogos) fertilized by the upper course of the Anseba; Agordat, on the river Baraka, on the road from Keren to Kassala, is the centre of the Beni-Amer, Algheden and Sabderat tribes; Mogolo, on the lower Mareb, is the rendezvous of the Baria and Baza tribes. Towards Abyssinia the chief towns are Saganeiti (capital of the Okulé-Kusai province), Godofelassi and Adi-Ugri, the two latter situated in the fertile plain of the Seraé; Adiquala, on the edge of the Mareb gorge; and Arrasa, the centre of the districts constituting the province of Deki-Tesfa.

Agriculture and Trade.—The nomads of the plains possess large herds of cattle and camels. The low country is almost entirely pastoral and unsuited for the cultivation of crops. On the other hand almost all European cereals flourish in the intermediate zone and on the high plateau, and the Abyssinian is a good agriculturist and understands irrigation. Numbers of emigrants from Italy possess farms on the plateau. Experiments in the cultivation of coffee, tobacco and cotton have given good results in the intermediate zone. Besides camels and oxen, sheep and goats are numerous, and meat, hides and butter are articles of local trade. Hides are the principal export (about £50,000 a year). Wax, gum, coffee and ivory are also exported. Pearl fishing is carried on at Massawa and the Dahlak islands. The annual value of the fisheries is about £40,000 (pearls £10,000, mother of pearl £30,000). Gold mines are worked near Asmara. Salt, obtained from the salt lakes in the Aussa and Danakil countries, is a valuable article of commerce. Cotton goods are the chief imports. There is a little trade with northern Abyssinia, but it is undeveloped. For the five years 1901-1905 the average value of the external trade was £456,000 per annum. The imports more than doubled the exports.

Communications.—A railway, 65 m. long, connects Massawa with Asmara. An extension of the line is planned from Asmara to Sabderat and Kassala. The whole territory is crossed by camel and mule paths between the sea and the high plateau, and between the various centres of population. Every valley that brings water to the Red Sea has a route leading to the high plateau. The great arteries, however, number three, which, starting from Massawa by way of Asmara, run, two to Abyssinia, and one to Kassala and Khartum. They are all more or less practicable for carts, and are flanked by a good telegraph line as long as they lie in Italian territory. There are also two caravan routes from Assab Bay, across the Danakil country to southern Abyssinia. The northern leads by a comparatively easy ascent to Yejju, the more southern follows the valley of the Hawash. A telegraph line 500 m. long connects Massawa with Adis Ababa via Asmara. Massawa is also telegraphically connected with the outside world by a cable to Perim via Assab. There is regular steamship communication with Italy.

Administration.—Eritrea is administered by a civil governor responsible to the ministry of foreign affairs at Rome. It is divided into six provinces, each governed by a regional commissioner. Some tracts of frontier territory are detached from the various regions and entrusted to political residents, as, for instance, on the Sudan frontier and also on the Abyssinian boundary, where strict surveillance is necessary to repress raiding incursions from Tigré, and where the chief intelligence department is established. The six regions or principal provinces are:—Asmara, which includes Hamasen and other small districts; Keren, which comprises the high territories to the north of Asmara, i.e. the Bogos country; Massawa, extending over all the tribes between the high plateau and the sea from the Hababs to the Danakil; Assab, which extends from Edd to Raheita; Okulé-Kusai, the plateau country S.E. of Asmara; Seraé, including Deki-Tesfa, the country S.W. of Asmara. The regional commissioners and the political residents act either by means of the village headmen (Shum or Chicca), by the chiefs of districts in the few localities where villages are still organized in districts, or by the headmen of tribes, and by the councils of the elders wherever these remain.

Revenue is derived from customs duties, direct taxation and tribute paid by the nomad tribes. The local revenue, which for the period 1897-1907 was about £100,000 a year, is supplemented by grants from Italy, the total cost of the administration being about £400,000 yearly. Nearly half the expenditure is on the military force maintained.

Justice.—Civil justice for natives is administered, in the first instance, by the headmen of villages, provinces, tribes, or by councils of notables (Shumagalle); in appeal, by the residents and regional tribunals, and, in the last instance, by the colonial court of appeal. Europeans are entirely under Italian jurisdiction. Penal justice is administered by Italian judges only. An administrative tribunal settles, without appeal, questions of tribute, disputes concerning family, village or tribal landmarks, as well as suits involving the colonial government. The civil laws for the natives are those established by local usage. Europeans are answerable to the Italian civil code. Penal laws are the same as in Italy, except where modified by local usages. Appeal to the Rome court of cassation is admitted against all penal and civil sentences.

Defence.—Defence is entrusted to a corps of colonial troops, partly Italian and partly native; to a militia (milizia mobile) formed by natives who have already served in the colonial corps; and to the chitet or general levy which, in time of war, places all male able-bodied inhabitants under arms. The regional commissioners and political residents have at their disposal some hundreds of irregular paid soldiers under native chiefs. In war time these irregulars form part of the colonial corps, but in time of peace serve as frontier police. The colonial corps, about 5000 strong, garrisons the chief places of strategic importance, such as Asmara, Keren and Saganeiti. The irregular troops, on foot, or mounted on camels, number about 1000 men. The militia consists of 3500 men of all arms, and is intended in time of war to reinforce the various divisions of the colonial corps. The chitet yields between 3000 and 4000 men, to be employed on the lines of communication or in caravan service. All these troops are intended to ward off a first attack, so as to allow time for the arrival of reinforcements from Italy. The customs and political surveillance along the coast is entrusted, afloat, to the Massawa naval station, and, ashore, to a coastguard company 400 strong stationed at Meder, with detachments at Assab, Massawa, Raheita, Edd and Taclai.

History.—Traces of the ancient Eritrean civilization are scarce. During the prosperous periods of ancient Egypt, Egyptian squadrons asserted their rule over the west Red Sea coast, and under the Ptolemies the port of Golden Berenice (Adulis?) was an Egyptian fortress, afterwards abandoned. During the early years of the Roman empire, Eritrea formed part of an important independent state—that of the Axumites (Assamites). At the end of the reign of Nero, and perhaps even earlier, the king of the Axumites ruled over the Red Sea coast from Suakin to the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and traded constantly with Egypt. This potentate called himself “king of kings,” commanded an army and a fleet, coined money, adopted Greek as the official language, and lived on good terms with the Roman empire. The Axumites belonged originally to the Hamitic race, but the immigration of the Himyaritic tribes of southern Arabia speedily imposed a new language and civilization. Therefore the ancient Abyssinian language, Geez, and its living dialects, Amharic and Tigrina, are Semitic, although modified by the influence of the old Hamitic Agau or Agao. Adulis (Adovlis), slightly to the north of Zula (q.v.), was the chief Axumite port. From Adulis started the main road, which led across the high plateau to the capital Axomis (Axum). Along the road are still to be seen vestiges of cities and inscribed monuments, such as the Himyaritic inscriptions on the high plateau of Kohait, the six obelisks with a Saban inscription at Toconda, and an obelisk with an inscription at Amba Sait. Other monuments exist elsewhere, as well as coins of the Axumite period with Greek and Ethiopian inscriptions. After the rise of the Ethiopian empire the history of Eritrea is bound up with that of Ethiopia, but not so entirely as to be completely fused. The documents of the Portuguese expedition of the 16th century and other Ethiopian records show that all the country north of the Mareb enjoyed relative autonomy under a vassal of the Ethiopian emperor.

Michael, counsellor of Solomon, who was king of the country north of the Mareb, usurped the throne of Solomon during the reign of the Emperor Atzié Jasu II. (1729-1753), and, after proclaiming himself ras of Tigré and “protector of the empire,” ceded the North Mareb country to an enemy of the rightful dynasty. Hence a long struggle between the dispossessed family and the occupants of the North Mareb throne. The coast regions had meantime passed from the control of the Abyssinians. In the 16th century the Turks made themselves masters of Zula, Massawa, &c., and these places were never recovered by the Abyssinians. In 1865 Massawa and the neighbouring coast was acquired by Egypt, the khedive Ismail entertaining projects for connecting the port by railway with the Nile. The Egyptians took advantage of civil war in Abyssinia to seize Keren and the Bogos country in 1872, an action against which the negus Johannes (King John), newly come to the throne, did not at the time protest. In 1875 and 1876 the Egyptians, who sought to increase their conquests, were defeated by the Abyssinians at Gundet and Gura. Walad Michael, the hereditary ruler of Bogos, fought as ally of King John at Gundet and of the Egyptians at Gura. For two years Walad Michael continued to harass the border, but in December 1878 he submitted to King John, by whose orders he was (Sept. 1879) imprisoned upon an amba, or flat-topped mountain, whence he only succeeded in escaping in 1890. In 1879 his territory was given by King John to Ras Alula, who retained it until, in August 1889, the Italians occupied Asmara (see Abyssinia: History).

An Egyptian garrison remained at Keren in the Bogos country until 1884, when in consequence of the revolt of the Mahdi it was withdrawn, Bogos being occupied by Abyssinia on the 12th of September of that year. On the 5th of February 1885 an Italian force, with the approval of Great Britain, occupied Massawa, the Egyptian garrison returning to Egypt. This occupation led to wars with Abyssinia and finally to the establishment of the colony in its present limits. The history of the Italian-Abyssinian relations is fully told in the articles Italy and Abyssinia (history sections).

It was not, however, at Massawa that Italy first obtained a foothold in eastern Africa. The completion of the Suez Canal led Italy as well as Great Britain and France to seek territorial rights on the Red Sea coasts. The purchase of Assab and the neighbouring region for £1880, from the sultan Berehan of Raheita for use as a coaling station by the Italian Rubattino Steamship Company, in March 1870, formed the nucleus of Italy’s colonial possessions. This purchase was protested against by Egypt, Turkey and Great Britain; the last named power being willing to recognize an Italian commercial settlement, but nothing more. (The Indian government viewed the establishment of the Italians on the new highway to the East with a good deal of ill-humour.) Eventually, the British opposition being overcome and that of Egypt and Turkey disregarded, Assab, by a decree of the 5th of July 1882, was declared an Italian colony. Between 1883 and 1888 various treaties were concluded with the sultan of Aussa ceding the Danakil coast to Italy and recognizing an Italian protectorate over the whole of his country—through which passes the trade route from Assab Bay to Shoa.

On the 1st of January 1890 the various Italian possessions on the coast of the Red Sea were united by royal decree into one province under the title of the Colony of Eritrea—so named after the Erythraeum Mare of the Romans. At first the government of the colony was purely military, but after the defeat of the Italians by the Abyssinians at Adowa, the administration was placed upon a civil basis (1898-1900). The frontiers were further defined by a French-Italian convention (24th of January 1900) fixing the frontier between French Somaliland and the Italian possessions at Raheita, and also by various agreements with Great Britain and Abyssinia. A tripartite agreement between Italy, Abyssinia and Great Britain, dated the 15th of May 1902, placed the territory of the Kanama tribe, on the north bank of the Setit, within Eritrea. A convention of the 16th of May 1908 settled the Abyssinian-Eritrean frontier in the Afar country, the boundary being fixed at 60 kilometres from the coast. The task of reconstructing the administration on a civil basis and of developing the commerce of the colony was entrusted to Signor F. Martini, who was governor for nine years (1898-1906). Under civil rule the colony made steady though somewhat slow progress.

Authorities.—See B. Melli, La Colonia Eritrea dalle sue origini al anno 1901 (Parma, 1901); G.B. Penne, Per l’Italia Africana. Studio critico (Rome, 1906); R. Perini, Di qua dal Marèb (Florence, 1905), a monograph on the Asmara zone; F. Martini, Nell’ Africa Italiana (3rd ed., Milan, 1891); A.B. Wylde, Modern Abyssinia, chaps. v.-ix. (London, 1901); E.D. Schoenfeld, Erythräa und der ägyptische Sudân, chaps. i.-xii. (Berlin, 1904); Luigi Chiala, La Spedizione di Massana (Turin, 1888); Abyssinian Green Books published at intervals in 1895 and 1896, covering the period from 1870 to the end of the Italo-Abyssinian War; Vico Mantegazza, La Guerra in Africa (Florence, 1896); General Baratieri, Memorie d’Africa (Rome, 1898); C. de la Jonquière, Les Italiens en Érythrée (Paris, 1897); G.F.H. Berkeley, The Campaign of Adowa (London, 1902). For orography and geology see an article by P. Verri in Boll. Soc. geog. italiana, 1909, and for climate an article in Rivista coloniale (1906), by A. Tancredi. A. Allori compiled a Piccolo Dizionario eritreo, italiano-arabo-amarico (Milan, 1895).

For Afar consult W. Munzinger, “A Journey through the Afar Country” in Journ. Royal Geog. Soc. for 1869; V. Bottego, “Nella Terra dei Danakil,” in Boll. Soc. Geog. Italiana, 1892; Count C. Rossini, “Al Rágali” in L’Espl. Comm. of Milan, 1903-1904; and articles by G. Dainelli and O. Marinelli in the Riv. Geog. Italiana of Florence for 1906-1908, dealing with the volcanic regions.

Bibliographies will be found in G. Fumagalli’s Bibliografia Etiopica (Milan, 1893) and in the Riv. Geog. Italiana for 1907.

During the Second Empire unsuccessful efforts were made by France to obtain a Red Sea port and a foothold in northern Abyssinia. (See Somaliland: French.)

ERIVAN, a government of Russia, Transcaucasia, having the province of Kars on the W., the government of Tiflis on the N., that of Elisavetpol on the N. and E., and Persia and Turkish Armenia on the S. It occupies the top of an immense plateau (6000-8000 ft.). Continuous chains of mountains are met with only on its borders, and in the E., but the whole surface is thickly set with short ridges and isolated mountains of volcanic origin, of which Alagöz (14,440 ft.) and Ararat (16,925 ft.) are the most conspicuous and the most important. Both must have been active in Tertiary times. Lake Gok-cha (540 sq. m.) is encircled by such volcanoes, and the neighbourhood of Alexandropol is a “volcanic amphitheatre,” being entirely buried under volcanic deposits. The same is true of the slopes leading down to the river Aras; and the valley of the upper Aras is a stony desert, watered only by irrigation, which is carried on with great difficulty owing to the character of the soil. The government is drained by the Aras, which forms the boundary with Persia and flows with great velocity down its stony bed, the fall being 17-22 ft. per mile in its upper course, and 9 ft. at Ordubad, where it quits the government, while lower down it again increases to 23 ft. Many of the small lakes, filling volcanic craters, are of great depth. Timber is very scarce. A variety of useful minerals exists, but only rock-salt is obtained, at Nakhichevan and Kulp. The climate is extremely varied, the following being the average temperatures and mean annual rainfall at Alexandropol (alt. 5078 ft.) and Aralykh (2755 ft.) respectively: year 42°, January 12°, July 65°, mean rainfall 16.2 in.; and year 53°, January 20.5°, July 79°, rainfall 6.3 in. The population numbered 829,578 in 1897 (only 375,086 women), of whom 82,278 lived in the towns. An estimate in 1906 gave a total of 909,100. They consist chiefly of Armenians (441,000), Tatars (40%), Kurds (49,389), with Russians, Greeks and Tates. Most of the Armenians belong to the Gregorian (Christian) Church, and only 4020 to the Armenian Catholic Church. The Tatars are mostly Shiite Mussulmans, only 27,596 being Sunnites; 7772 belong to the peculiar faith of the Yezids. While barley only can be grown on the high parts of the plateau, cotton, mulberry, vines and all sorts of fruit are cultivated in the valley of the Aras. Cattle-breeding is extensively carried on; camels also are bred, and leeches are collected out of the swamps and exported to Persia. Industry is in its infancy, but cottons, carpets, and felt goods are made in the villages. A considerable trade is carried on with Persia, but trade with Asia Minor is declining. The government is divided into seven districts—Erivan, Alexandropol, Echmiadzin (chief town, Vagarshapat), Nakhichevan, Novobayazet, Surmali (chief town, Igdyr), and Sharur-daralagöz (chief town, Norashen). The principal towns are Erivan (see below), Alexandropol (32,018 inhabitants in 1897), Novobayazet (8507), Nakhichevan (8845), and Vagarshapat (3400).

ERIVAN, or Irwan, in Persian, Rewan, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, situated in 40° 14′ N., 44° 38′ E., 234 m. by rail S.S.W. of Tiflis, on the Zanga river, from which a great number of irrigation canals are drawn. Altitude, 3170 ft. Pop. (1873) 11,938; (1897) 29,033. The old Persian portion of the town consists mainly of narrow crooked lanes enclosed by mud walls, which effectually conceal the houses, and the modern Russian portion is laid out in long ill-paved streets. On a steep rock, rising about 600 ft. above the river, stand the ruins of the 16th-century Turkish fortress, containing part of the palace of the former Persian governors, a handsome but greatly dilapidated mosque, a modern Greek church and a cannon foundry. One chamber, called the Hall of the Sardar, bears witness to former splendour in its decorations. The finest building in the city is the mosque of Hussein Ali Khan, familiarly known as the Blue Mosque from the colour of the enamelled tiles with which it is richly encased. At the mosque of Zal Khan a passion play is performed yearly illustrative of the assassination of Hussein, the son of Ali. Erivan is an Armenian episcopal see, and has a theological seminary. The only manufactures are a little cotton cloth, leather, earthenware and blacksmiths’ work. The fruits of the district are noted for their excellence—especially the grapes, apples, apricots and melons. Armenians, Persians and Tatars are the principal elements in the population, besides some Russians and Greeks. The town fell into the power of the Turks in 1582, was taken by the Persians under Shah Abbas in 1604, besieged by the Turks for four months in 1615, and reconquered by the Persians under Nadir Shah in the 18th century. In 1780 it was successfully defended against Heraclius, prince of Georgia; and in 1804 it resisted the Russians. At length in 1827 Paskevich took the fortress by storm, and in the following year the town and government were ceded to Russia by the peace of Turkman-chai. A Tatar poem in celebration of the event has been preserved by the Austrian poet, Bodenstedt, in his Tausend und ein Tage im Orient (1850).

ERLANGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on a fertile plain, at the confluence of the Schwabach and the Regnitz, 11 m. N.W. of Nuremberg, on the railway from Munich to Bamberg. Pop. (1905) 23,720. It is divided into an old and a new town, the latter consisting of wide, straight and well-built streets. The market place is a fine square. Upon it stand the town-hall and the former palace of the margraves of Bayreuth, now the main building of the university. The latter was founded by the margrave Frederick (d. 1763), who, in 1742, established a university at Bayreuth, but in 1743 removed it to Erlangen. A statue of the founder, erected in 1843 by King Louis I. of Bavaria, stands in the centre of the square and faces the university buildings. The university has faculties of philosophy, law, medicine and Protestant theology. Connected with it are a library of over 200,000 volumes, geological, anatomical and mineralogical institutions, a hospital, several clinical establishments, laboratories and a botanical garden. Among the churches of the town (six Protestant and one Roman Catholic), only the new town church, with a spire 220 ft. high, is remarkable. The chief industries of Erlangen are spinning and weaving, and the manufacture of glass, paper, brushes and gloves. The brewing industry is also important, the beer of Erlangen being famous throughout Germany and large quantities being exported.

Erlangen owes the foundation of its prosperity chiefly to the French Protestant refugees who settled here on the revocation of the edict of Nantes and introduced various manufactures. In 1017 the place was transferred from the bishopric of Würzburg to that of Bamberg; in 1361 it was sold to the king of Bohemia. It became a town in 1398 and passed into the hands of the Hohenzollerns, burgraves of Nuremberg, in 1416. There for nearly three centuries it was the property of the margraves of Bayreuth, being ceded with the rest of Bayreuth to Prussia in 1791. In 1810 it came into the possession of Bavaria. Erlangen was for many years the residence of the poet Friedrich Rückert, and of the philosophers Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm von Schnelling.

See Stein and Müller, Die Geschichte von Erlangen (1898).

ERLE, SIR WILLIAM (1793-1880), English lawyer and judge, was born at Fifehead-Magdalen, Dorset, on the 1st of October 1793, and was educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford. Having been called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1819 he went the western circuit, became counsel to the Bank of England, sat in parliament from 1837 to 1841 for the city of Oxford, and, although of opposite politics to Lord Lyndhurst, was made by him a judge of the common pleas in 1845. He was transferred to the queen’s bench in the following year, and in 1859 came back to the common pleas as chief justice upon the promotion of Sir Alexander Cockburn. He retired in 1866, receiving the highest eulogiums for the ability and impartiality with which he had discharged the judicial office. He died at his estate at Bramshott, Hampshire, on the 28th of January 1880, and a monument without his name but in his memory (sometimes erroneously supposed to mark the place where an old gibbet was) stands on the top of Hindhead.

See E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904).

ERLKÖNIG, or Erl-King, a mythical character in modern German literature, represented as a gigantic bearded man with a golden crown and trailing garments, who carries children away to that undiscovered country where he himself abides. There is no such personage in ancient German mythology, and the name is linguistically nothing more than the perpetuation of a blunder. It first appeared in Herder’s Stimmen der Völker (1778), where it is used in the translation of the Danish song of the Elf-King’s Daughter as equivalent to the Danish ellerkonge, or ellekonge, that is, elverkonge, the king of the elves; and the true German word would have been Elbkönig or Elbenkönig, afterwards used under the modified form of Elfenkönig by Wieland in his Oberon (1780). Herder was probably misled by the fact that the Danish word elle signifies not only elf, but also alder tree (Ger. Erle). His mistake at any rate has been perpetuated by both English and French translators, who speak of a “king of the alders,” “un roi des aunes,” and find an explanation of the myth in the tree-worship of early times, or in the vapoury emanations that hang like weird phantoms round the alder trees at night. The legend was adopted by Goethe as the subject of one of his finest ballads, rendered familiar to English readers by the translations of Lewis and Sir Walter Scott; and since then it has been treated as a musical theme by Reichardt and Schubert.

ERMAN, PAUL (1764-1851), German physicist, was born in Berlin on the 29th of February 1764. He was the son of the historian Jean Pierre Erman (1735-1814), author of Histoire des réfugiés. He became teacher of science successively at the French gymnasium in Berlin, and at the military academy, and on the foundation of the university of Berlin in 1810 he was chosen professor of physics. He died at Berlin on the 11th of October 1851. His work was mainly concerned with electricity and magnetism, though he also made some contributions to optics and physiology. His son, Georg Adolf Erman (1806-1877), was born in Berlin on the 12th of May 1806, and after studying natural science at Berlin and Königsberg, spent from 1828 to 1830 in a journey round the world, an account of which he published in Reise um die Erde durch Nordasien und die beiden Ozeane (1833-1848). The magnetic observations he made during his travels were utilized by C.F. Gauss in his theory of terrestrial magnetism. He was appointed professor of physics at Berlin in 1839, and died there on the 12th of July 1877. From 1841 to 1865 he edited the Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland, and in 1874 he published, with H.J.R. Petersen, Die Grundlagen der Gauss’schen Theorie und die Erscheinungen des Erdmagnetismus im Jahre 1829.

His son Johann Peter Adolf Erman (1854- ), a famous Egyptologist, was born in Berlin on the 31st of October 1854. Educated at Leipzig and Berlin, he became extraordinary professor in 1883 and ordinary professor in 1892 of Egyptology in the university of Berlin, and in 1885 he was appointed director of the Egyptian department of the royal museum. For an account of the Egyptological work of Erman and his school, see Egypt: Language.

ERMANARIC (fl. 350-376), king of the East Goths, belonged to the Amali family, and was the son of Achiulf. His name occurs as Ermanaricus (Jordanes), Aírmanareiks (Gothic), Eormenríc (A. Sax.), Jörmunrek (Norse), Ermenrîch (M.H. German). Ermanaric built up for himself a vast kingdom, which eventually extended from the Danube to the Baltic and from the Don to the Theiss. He drove the Vandals out of Dacia, compelled the allegiance of the neighbouring tribes of West Goths, procured the submission of the Herules, of many Slav and Finnish tribes, and even of the Esthonians on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. In his later days the west Goths threw off his yoke, and, on the invasion of the Huns, rather than witness the downfall of his kingdom he is said by Ammianus Marcellinus to have committed suicide. His fate early became the centre of popular tradition, which found its way into the narrative of Jordanes or Jornandes (De rebus geticis, chap. 24), who compared him to Alexander the Great and certainly exaggerated the extent of his kingdom. He is there said to have caused a certain Sunilda or Sanielh to be torn asunder by wild horses on account of her husband’s traitorous conduct. Her brothers Sarus and Ammius sought to avenge her. They succeeded in wounding, not in killing the Gothic king, whose death supervened in his one hundred and tenth year from the joint effects of his wound and fear of the Hunnish invasion. This is evidently a paraphrase of popular story which sought to supply plausible reasons for Ermanaric’s end. In German legend Ermanaric became the typical cruel tyrant, and references to his crimes abound in German epic and in Anglo-Saxon poetry. He is made to replace Odoacer as the enemy of Dietrich of Bern, his nephew, and his history is related in the Norse Vilkina or Thidrekssagà, which chiefly embodies German tradition. His evil genius, Sifka, Sibicho or Bicci, brings about the death of his three sons. The Harlungs, Imbrecke and Fritile, are his nephews, whom he has strangled for the sake of their treasure, the Brîsingo meni. Sonhild or Svanhild becomes the wife of Ermanaric, and the motive for her murder is replaced by an accusation of adultery between Svanhild and her stepson. The story was already connected with the Nibelungen when it found its way to the Scandinavian north by way of Germany. In the Völsunga Saga Svanhild is the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun. She is given in marriage to the Gothic king Jörmunrek (Ermanaric), who sends his son Randver as proxy wooer in company of Bicci, the evil counsellor. Randver is persuaded by Bicci to take his father’s bride for himself. Randver is hanged and Svanhild trampled to death by horses in the gate of the castle. Gudrun eggs on Sörli and Hamdir or Hamtheow, her two sons by her third husband, Jonakr the Hun, to avenge their sister. On the way they slay their half-brother Erp, whom they suspect of lukewarmness in the cause; arrived in the hall of Ermanaric they make a great slaughter of the Goths, and hew off the hands and feet of Ermanaric, but they themselves are slain with stones. The tale is told with variations by Saxo Grammaticus (Historia Danica, ed. Müller, p. 408, &c.), and in the Icelandic poems, the Lay of Hamtheow, Gudrun’s Chain of Woe, and in the prose Edda.

Bibliography.—W. Grimm, in Die deutsche Heldensage (2nd ed., Berlin, 1867), quotes the account given by Jordanes, references in Beowulf, in the Wanderer’s Song, Exeter Book, in Parcival, in Dietrichs Flucht, the account given in the Quedlinburg Chronicle, by Ekkehard in the Chronicon Urspergense, by Saxo Grammaticus, &c. See also Vigfússon and Powell, Corpus poëticum boreale, vol. i. (Oxford, 1883), and H. Symons, “Die deutsche Heldensage” in Paul’s Grundriss d. german. Phil. vol. iii. (Strassburg, 1900).

Emerka and Fridla (Beowulf, Quedlingburg Chron.), Aki and Etgard (Vilkina Saga). In the original myth the Harlungs, who are not to be confused with the Hartung brothers, were sent to bring home Sūryā, the bride of the sky-god, Irmintiu.

ERMELAND, or Ermland (Varmia), a district of Germany, in East Prussia, extending from the Frisches Haff, a bay in the Baltic, inland towards the Polish frontier. It is a well-wooded sandy tract of country, has an area of about 1650 sq. m., a population of 240,000, and is divided into the districts of Braunsberg, Heilsberg, Rössel and Allenstein.

Ermeland was originally one of the eleven districts of old Prussia and was occupied by the Teutonic Knights (Deutscher Orden), being made in 1250 one of the four bishoprics of the country under their sway. The bishop of Ermeland shortly afterwards declared himself independent of the order, and became a prince of the Empire. In 1466 Ermeland, together with West Prussia, was by the peace of Thorn attached to the crown of Poland, and the bishop had a seat in the Polish senate. In 1772 it was again incorporated with Prussia. Among the bishops of the see, which still exists, with its seat in Frauenberg, may be mentioned Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., and Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579), the founder of the Jesuit college in Braunsberg.

See Hipler, Literaturgeschichte des Bisthums Ermeland (Braunsberg, 1873); the Monumenta historiae Warmiensis (Mainz, 1860-1864, and Braunsberg, 1866-1872, 4 vols.); and Buchholz, Abriss einer Geschichte des Ermlands (Braunsberg, 1903.)

ERMELO, a district and town of the Transvaal. The district lies in the south-east of the province and is traversed by the Drakensberg. In it are Lake Chrissie, the only true lake in the country, and the sources of the Vaal, Olifants, Komati, and Usuto rivers, which rise within 30 m. of one another. The region has a general elevation of about 5500 ft. and is fine agricultural and pastoral country, besides containing valuable minerals, including coal and gold. Ermelo town, pop. (1904) 1451, is by rail 175 m. S.E. of Johannesburg, and 74 m. S.S.W. of Machadodorp on the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway. A government experimental farm, with some 1000 acres of plantations, is maintained here.

ERMINE, an alternative name for the stoat (Putorius ermineus), apparently applicable in its proper sense only when the animal is in its white winter coat. This animal measures 10 in. in length exclusive of the tail, which is about 4 in. long, and becomes bushy towards the point. The fur in summer is reddish brown above and white beneath, changing in the winter of northern latitudes to snowy whiteness, except at the tip of the tail, which at all seasons is black. In Scottish specimens this change in winter is complete, but in those found in the southern districts of England it is usually only partial, the ermine presenting during winter a piebald appearance. The white colour is evidently protective, enabling the animals to elude the observations of their enemies, and to steal unobserved on their prey. It also retains heat better than a dark covering, and may thus serve to maintain an equable temperature at all seasons within the body. The colour change seems to be due to phagocytes devouring the pigment-bodies of the hair, and not to a moult.

The species is a native of the temperate and subarctic zones of the Old World, and is represented in America by a form which can scarcely be regarded as specifically distinct. It inhabits thickets and stony places, and frequently makes use of the deserted burrows of moles and other underground mammals. Exceedingly sanguinary in disposition, and agile in its movements, it feeds principally on rats, water-rats and rabbits, which it pursues with pertinacity and boldness, hence the name stoat, signifying bold, by which it is commonly known. It takes readily to water, and will even climb trees in pursuit of prey. It is particularly destructive to poultry and game, and has often been known to attack hares, fixing itself to the throat of its victim, and defying all the efforts of the latter to disengage it. The female brings forth five young ones about the beginning of summer. The winter coat of the ermine forms one of the most valuable of commercial furs, and is imported in enormous quantities from Norway, Sweden, Russia and Siberia. It is largely used for muffs and tippets, and as a trimming for state robes, the jet black points of the tails being inserted at regular intervals as an ornament. In the reign of Edward III. the wearing of ermine was restricted to members of the royal family; but it now enters into almost all state robes, the rank and position of the wearer being in many cases indicated by the presence or absence, and the disposition, of the black spots. (See also Fur.)

ERMINE STREET. Documents and writers of the 11th and succeeding centuries occasionally mention four “royal roads” in Britain—Icknield Street, Erning or Ermine Street, Watling Street and Foss Way—as standing apart from all other existing roads and enjoying the special protection of the king. Unfortunately these authorities are not at all agreed as to their precise course; the roads themselves do not occur as specially privileged in actual legal or other practice, and it is likely that the category of Four Roads is the invention of a lawyer or an antiquary. The names are, however, attested to some extent by early charters which name them among other roads, as boundaries. From these charters we know that Icknield Street ran along the Berkshire downs and the Chilterns, that Ermine Street ran more or less due north through Huntingdonshire, that Watling Street ran north-west across the midlands from London to Shrewsbury, and Foss diagonally to it from Lincoln or Leicester to Bath and mid-Somerset. This evidence only proves the existence of these roads in Saxon and Norman days. But they all seem to be much older. Icknield Street is probably a prehistoric ridgeway along the downs, utilized perhaps by the Romans near its eastern end, but in general not Roman. Ermine Street coincides with part of a line of Roman roads leading north from London through Huntingdon to Lincoln. This line is followed by the Old North Road through Cheshunt, Buntingford, Royston, and Huntingdon to Castor near Peterborough; and thence it can be traced through lanes and byways past Ancaster to Lincoln. Watling Street is the Roman highway from London by St Alban’s (Verulamium) to Wroxeter near Shrewsbury (Viroconium). Foss is the Roman highway from Lincoln to Bath and Exeter. Hence it has been supposed, and is still frequently alleged, that the Four Roads were the principal highways of Roman Britain. This, however, is not the case. Icknield Street is not Roman and the three roads which follow Roman lines, Ermine Street, Watling Street, and Foss, held no peculiar position in the Romano-British road system (see Britain: Roman). In later times, the names Ermine Street, Icknield Street and Watling Street have been applied to other roads of Roman or supposed Roman origin. This, however, is wholly the work of Elizabethan or subsequent antiquaries and deserves no credence.

The derivations of the four names are unknown. Icknield, Ermine and Watling may be from English personal names; Foss, originally Fos, seems to be the Lat. fossa in its occasional medieval sense of a bank of upcast earth or stones, such as the agger of a road.

(F. J. H.)

ERMOLDUS NIGELLUS, or Ermold the Black, was a monk of Aquitaine, who accompanied King Pippin, son of the emperor Louis I., on a campaign into Brittany in 824. Subsequently he was banished from Pippin’s court on a charge of inciting the king against his father, and retired to Strassburg, where he sought to regain the emperor’s favour by writing a poem on his life and deeds. About 830 he obtained his recall, and has been identified with Hermoldus, who appears as Pippin’s chancellor in 838. Ermoldus was a cultured man with a knowledge of the Latin poets, and this poem, In honorem Hludovici imperatoris, has some historical value. It consists of four books and deals with the life and exploits of Louis from 781 to 826. He also wrote two poems in imitation of Ovid, which were addressed to Pippin.

His writings are published in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores, Band 2 (Hanover, 1826 fol.); by J.P. Migne in the Patrologia Latina, tome 105 (Paris, 1844); and by E. Dümmler in the Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini, Band 2 (Berlin, 1881-1884). See W.O. Henkel, Über den historischen Werth der Gedichte des Ermoldus Nigellus (Eilenburg, 1876); W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Band 1 (Berlin, 1904); and A. Potthast, Bibliotheca historica, pp. 430-431 (Berlin, 1896).

ERNE, the name of a river and two lakes in the north-west of Ireland. The river rises in Lough Gowna, county Longford, 214 ft. above sea-level, flows north through Lough Oughter with a serpentine course and a direction generally northward, and then broadens into the Upper Lough Erne, a shallow irregular sheet of water 13 m. long, so beset with islands as to present the appearance of a number of water-channels ramifying through the land. The river then winds past the town of Enniskillen on its island, and enters Lough Erne, a beautiful lake nearly 18 m. long and 5 m. in extreme width, containing many islands, but less closely covered with them than the upper lough. One of them, Devenish, is celebrated for its antiquarian remains (see Enniskillen). The river then runs westward to Donegal Bay, forming a fine fall at Ballyshannon (q.v.). Lough Erne contains trout and pike. These waters admit of navigation by small steamers, but little trade is carried on. The area of the Erne basin, which includes a vast number of small loughs, is about 1600 sq. m., and it covers part of the counties Cavan, Longford, Leitrim, Fermanagh and Donegal. The length of the Erne valley is about 70 m.

ERNEST I. [Ernst Anton Karl Ludwig], duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1784-1844), was the son of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and was born on the 2nd of January 1784. At the time of his father’s death (9th of December 1806) the duchy of Coburg was occupied by Napoleon as conquered territory, and Ernest did not come into his inheritance till after the peace of Tilsit (July 1807). Owing to the part he had played in assisting the Prussians at the battle of Auerstädt he continued out of favour with Napoleon, and he threw himself with vigour into the war of liberation against the French. After the battle of Leipzig he was given the command of the V. army corps and reduced Mainz by blockade; he also commanded the Saxon troops during the campaign of 1815. By the congress of Vienna he was rewarded with the principality of Lichtenberg on the left bank of the Rhine, which received a slight augmentation after the second peace of Paris. These territories he sold to Prussia in 1834. In 1826, in the division of the territories of the duchy of Saxe-Gotha which followed the death of its last duke (February 1825), he received the duchy of Gotha, ceding that of Saalfeld to the duke of Meiningen; and he now exchanged his style of Ernest III. of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld for that of Ernest I. of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In 1821 he had given a constitution to Coburg, but he did not interfere with the traditional system of estates at Gotha. He died on the 29th of January 1844.

Duke Ernest, who was not only a good soldier and keen sportsman, but an enlightened patron of the arts and sciences, did much for the economic, educational and constitutional development of his territories; and his advice always carried great weight in the councils of the other German sovereigns. It was, however, for the splendid international position attained by the house of Coburg under him that his reign is chiefly distinguished. His younger brother Leopold (q.v.) became king of the Belgians; his brother Ferdinand (b. 1785) married the wealthy princess Antoinette von Kohary (1816) and was the father of the duchess of Nemours and of the future King Ferdinand of Portugal. Of his sisters, Antoinette (1779-1824) married Duke Alexander of Württemberg; Juliane [Alexandra Feodorovna] (1781-1860) married the Russian cesarevich Constantine, from whom she was, however, divorced in 1820; and Victoria (1786-1861), wife of Edward Augustus, duke of Kent, became the mother of Queen Victoria. Duke Ernest was twice married: (1) in 1817 to Louise, daughter of Duke Augustus of Saxe-Gotha, whom he finally divorced in 1826; (2) in 1831 to Maria, daughter of Duke Alexander of Württemberg. Of his sons, by his first wife, Ernest succeeded him in the duchy, and Albert married Queen Victoria.

ERNEST II., duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1818-1893), was born at Coburg on the 21st of June 1818, being the eldest son of Duke Ernest I. He enjoyed a varied education; he studied at the university of Bonn with his brother Albert; his military training he received in the Saxon army. The widespread connexions of his family opened to him many courts of Europe, and after he became of age he travelled much. The position of his uncle Leopold, who was king of the Belgians, and especially the marriage of his brother Albert to the queen of England, his cousin, gave him peculiar opportunities for becoming acquainted with the political problems of Europe. In 1840-1841 he undertook a journey to Spain and Portugal; in the latter country another cousin, Ferdinand, was king-consort. In 1844 he succeeded his father. His own character and the influence of the king of the Belgians made him one of the most Liberal princes in Germany. He was able to bring to a satisfactory conclusion disputes with the Coburg estates. He passed through the ordeal of the revolution of 1848 with little trouble, for he anticipated the demands of the people of Gotha for a reform, and in 1852 introduced a new constitution by which the administration of his two duchies was assimilated in many points. The government of his small dominions did not afford sufficient scope for his restless and versatile ambition; his desire to play a great part in German affairs was probably increased by the feeling that, though he was the head of his house, he was to some extent overshadowed by the younger branches of the family which ruled in Belgium, England and Portugal. He was one of the foremost supporters of every attempt made to reform the German constitution and bring about the unity of Germany. He took a warm interest in the proceedings of the Frankfort parliament, and it was often said, probably without reason, that he hoped to be chosen emperor himself. However that may be, he strongly urged the king of Prussia to accept that position when it was offered him in 1849; he took a very prominent part in the complicated negotiations of the following year, and it was at his suggestion that a congress of princes met at Berlin in 1850. He highly valued the opportunities which this and similar meetings gave him for exercising political influence, and he would have felt most at home as a member of a permanent council of the German princes.

Ambitious also of military distinction, and sympathizing with the rising of the people of Schleswig-Holstein against the Danes in 1849, Ernest accepted a command in the federal army. In the engagement of Eckernförde in April 1849 the troops under his orders succeeded in capturing two Danish frigates, a remarkable feat of which he was justly proud. His greatest services to Germany were performed during the years of reaction which followed; almost alone among the German princes he remained faithful to the Liberal and National ideals, and he allowed his dominions to be used as an asylum by the writers and politicians who had to leave Prussia and Saxony. The reactionary parties looked on him with great suspicion, and it was at this time that he formed a friendship with Gustav Freytag, the celebrated novelist, whom he protected when the Prussian government demanded his arrest. His connexion with the English court gave him a position of much influence, but no one was more purely German in his feelings and opinions. The marriage of his niece Victoria with Frederick, the heir to the Prussian throne, strengthened his connexion with Prussia, but caused the Conservative party to look with increased suspicion on the Coburg influence. He was the first German prince to visit Napoleon III., and was present when Orsini made his celebrated attempt on the emperor’s life. After 1860 he became the chief patron and protector of the National Verein; he encouraged the newly-formed rifle clubs, and notwithstanding the strong disapproval of his fellow-monarchs, allowed his court to become the centre of the rising national agitation. Still a warm adherent of Prussia, in 1862 he set an example to the other princes by voluntarily making an agreement by which his troops were placed in war under the command of the king of Prussia. Like all the other Nationalists, he was much embarrassed by the policy of Bismarck, and the democratic opinions of the Coburg court, which were shared by the crown prince Frederick, were a serious embarrassment to that minister. The opposition became more accentuated when the duke allowed his dominions to be used as the headquarters of the agitation in favour of Frederick, duke of Augustenburg, who claimed the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and it was at this time that Bismarck is reported to have said that if Frederick the Great had been alive the duke would have been in the fortress of Spandau. In 1863 he was present at the Fürstentag in Frankfort, and from this time was in more frequent communication with the Austrian court, where his cousin Alexander, Count Mensdorff, was minister. However, when war broke out in 1866, he at once placed his troops at the disposition of Prussia; Bismarck had in an important letter explained to him his policy and tactics. He was personally concerned in one of the most interesting events of the war; for the Hanoverian army, in its attempt to march south and join the Bavarians, had to pass through Thuringia, and the battle of Langensalza was fought in the immediate neighbourhood of Gotha. His troops took part in the battle, which ended in the rout of the Prussians, the duke, who was not present during the fight, in vain attempting to stop it. He bore an important share in the negotiations before and after the battle, and his action at this time has been the subject of much controversy, for it was suggested that while he offered to mediate he really acted as a partisan of Prussia. For his services to Prussia he received as a present the forest of Schmalkalden. He was with the Prussian headquarters in Bohemia during the latter part of the war.

With the year 1866 the political rôle which Ernest had played ended. The result was perhaps not quite equal to his expectations, but it must be remembered how difficult was the position of the minor German princes; and he quoted with great satisfaction the words used in 1871 by the emperor William at Versailles, that “to him in no small degree was due the establishment of the empire.” He was a man of varied tastes, a good musician—he composed several operas and songs—and a keen sportsman, a quality in which he differed from his brother. Notwithstanding his Liberalism, he had a great regard for the dignity of his rank and family, and in his support of constitutional government would never have sacrificed the essential prerogatives of sovereignty. He died at Reinhardsbrunn on the 22nd of August 1893. In 1842 the duke married Alexandrine, daughter of the grandduke of Baden; there were no children by this marriage and the succession to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha passed therefore to the children of his younger brother Albert. By Albert’s marriage contract the duchy could not be held together with the English crown; thus his eldest son, afterwards Edward VII., was passed over and it came to his second son, Alfred, duke of Edinburgh (1844-1900). When Alfred died without sons in July 1900 the succession to the duchy passed to a younger brother Arthur, duke of Connaught; but the duke and his son, Arthur, passed on their claim to Charles Edward, duke of Albany (b. 1884), who became duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in succession to his uncle Alfred. In 1905 Charles Edward married Victoria Adelaide (b. 1885), princess of Schleswig-Holstein, by whom he has a son John Leopold (b. 1906).

Duke Ernest was something of a writer. He brought out an account of the travels in Egypt and Abyssinia which he undertook in 1862 as Reise des Herzogs Ernst von Sachsen-Koburg-Gotha nach Ägypten (Leipzig, 1864); and he published his memoirs, Aus meinem Leben und aus meiner Zeit (Berlin, 1887-1889). This work is in three volumes and contains much valuable information on a most critical period of German history; there is an English translation by P. Andreae (1888-1890).

See also Sir T. Martin, Life of H.R.H. the Prince Consort (1875-1880); Hon. C. Grey, Early Years of the Prince Consort (1867); A. Ohorn, Herzog Ernst II., ein Lebensbild (Leipzig, 1894); and E. Tempeltey, Herzog Ernst von Koburg und das Jahr 1866 (Berlin, 1898).

(J. W. He.)

ERNEST AUGUSTUS (1771-1851), king of Hanover and duke of Cumberland, fifth son of the English king George III., was born at Kew on the 5th of June 1771. Having studied at the university of Göttingen, he entered the Hanoverian army, serving as a leader of cavalry when war broke out between Great Britain and France in 1793, and winning a reputation for bravery. He lost the sight of one eye at the battle of Tournai in May 1794, and when Hanover withdrew from the war in 1795 he returned to England, being made lieutenant-general in the British army in 1799. In the same year he was created duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale and granted an allowance of £12,000 a year, after which he held several lucrative military positions in England, and began to attend the sittings of the House of Lords and to take part in political life. A stanch Tory, the duke objected to all proposals of reform, especially to the granting of any relief to the Roman Catholics, and had great influence with his brother the prince regent, afterwards King George IV., in addition to being often consulted by the Tory leaders. In 1810 he was severely injured by an assassin, probably his valet Sellis, who was found dead; and subsequently two men were imprisoned for asserting that the duke had murdered his valet. Recovering from his wounds, Cumberland again proceeded to the seat of war; and having been made a British field-marshal, was in command of the Hanoverian army during the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, being present, although not in action, at the battle of Leipzig. In May 1815 Ernest married his cousin, Frederica (1778-1841), daughter of Charles II. duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and widow of Frederick, prince of Solms-Braunfels, a union which was very repugnant to his mother Queen Charlotte, and was disliked in England, where the duke’s strong Toryism had made him unpopular. Parliament refused to increase his allowance from £18,000, to which it had been raised in 1804, to £24,000 a year, and indignant at the treatment he received the duke spent some years in Berlin. Returning to England after the accession of George IV. in 1820, his political power was again considerable, while deaths in the royal family made it likely that he would succeed to the throne. Although his personal influence with the sovereign ceased upon the death of George IV. in 1830, the duke continued to oppose all measures for the extension of civil and religious liberty, including the Reform Bill of 1832; and his unpopularity was augmented by suspicions that he had favoured the formation of Orange lodges in the army. When William IV. died in June 1837, the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover were separated; and Ernest, as the nearest male heir of the late king, became king of Hanover. At once cancelling the constitution which William had given to his kingdom in 1833, he acted as an absolute monarch, and the constitution which he sanctioned in 1840 was permeated with his own illiberal ideas. In German politics he was vigilant and active, and mindful of the material interests of his country. His reign, however, was a stormy one, and serious trouble between king and people had arisen when he died at Herrenhausen on the 18th of November 1851 (see Hanover: History). In spite of his arbitrary rule and his reactionary ideas the king was popular among his subjects, and his statue in Hanover bears the words “Dem Landes Vater sein treues Volk.” Ernest, who is generally regarded as the ablest of the sons of George III., left an only child, George, who succeeded him as king of Hanover.

See C.A. Wilkinson, Reminiscences of the Court and Times of King Ernest of Hanover (London, 1886); von Malortie, König Ernst August (Hanover, 1861); and the various histories of Great Britain and Hanover for the period.

ERNESTI, JOHANN AUGUST (1707-1781), German theologian and philologist, was born on the 4th of August 1707, at Tennstädt in Thuringia, of which place his father was pastor, besides being superintendent of the electoral dioceses of Thuringia, Salz and Sangerhausen. At the age of sixteen he was sent to the celebrated Saxon cloister school of Pforta (Schulpforta). At twenty he entered the university of Wittenberg, and studied afterwards at the university of Leipzig. In 1730 he was made master in the faculty of philosophy. In the following year he accepted the office of conrector in the Thomas school of Leipzig, of which J.M. Gesner was then rector, an office to which Ernesti succeeded in 1734. He was, in 1742, named professor extraordinarius of ancient literature in the university of Leipzig, and in 1756 professor ordinarius of rhetoric. In the same year he received the degree of doctor of theology, and in 1759 was appointed professor ordinarius in the faculty of theology. Through his learning and his manner of discussion, he co-operated with S.J. Baumgarten of Halle (1706-1757) in disengaging the current dogmatic theology from its many scholastic and mystical excrescences, and thus paved a way for a revolution in theology. He died, after a short illness, in his seventy-sixth year, on the 11th of September 1781.

It is perhaps as much from the impulse which Ernesti gave to sacred and profane criticism in Germany, as from the intrinsic excellence of his own works in either department, that he must derive his reputation as a philologist or theologian. With J.S. Semler he co-operated in the revolution of Lutheran theology, and in conjunction with Gesner he instituted a new school in ancient literature. He detected grammatical niceties in Latin, in regard to the consecution of tenses which had escaped preceding critics. His canons are, however, not without exceptions. As an editor of the Greek classics, Ernesti hardly deserves to be named beside his Dutch contemporaries, Tiberius Hemsterhuis (1685-1766), L.C. Valckenaer (1715-1785), David Ruhnken (1723-1798), or his colleague J.J. Reiske (1716-1774). The higher criticism was not even attempted by Ernesti. But to him and to Gesner is due the credit of having formed, by discipline and by example, philologists greater than themselves, and of having kindled the national enthusiasm for ancient learning. It is chiefly in hermeneutics that Ernesti has any claim to eminence as a theologian. But here his merits are distinguished, and, at the period when his Institutio Interpretis N. T. was published (1761), almost peculiar to himself. In it we find the principles of a general interpretation, formed without the assistance of any particular philosophy, but consisting of observations and rules which, though already enunciated, and applied in the criticism of the profane writers, had never rigorously been employed in biblical exegesis. He was, in fact, the founder of the grammatico-historical school. He admits in the sacred writings as in the classics only one acceptation, and that the grammatical, convertible into and the same with the logical and historical. Consequently he censures the opinion of those who in the illustration of the Scriptures refer everything to the illumination of the Holy Spirit, as well as that of others who, disregarding all knowledge of the languages, would explain words by things. The “analogy of faith,” as a rule of interpretation, he greatly limits, and teaches that it can never afford of itself the explanation of words, but only determine the choice among their possible meanings. At the same time he seems unconscious of any inconsistency between the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible as usually received and his principles of hermeneutics.

Among his works the more important are:—I. In classical literature: Initia doctrinae Solidioris (1736), many subsequent editions; Initia rhetorica (1730); editions, mostly annotated, of Xenophon’s Memorabilia (1737), Cicero (1737-1739), Suetonius (1748), Tacitus (1752), the Clouds of Aristophanes (1754), Homer (1759-1764), Callimachus (1761), Polybius (1764), as well as of the Quaestura of Corradus, the Greek lexicon of Hedericus, and the Bibliotheca Latina of Fabricius (unfinished); Archaeologia litteraria (1768), new and improved edition by Martini (1790); Horatius Tursellinus De particulis (1769). II. In sacred literature: Antimuratorius sive confutatio disputationis Muratorianae de rebus liturgicis (1755-1758); Neue theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1760-1769); Institutio interpretis Nov. Test. (3rd ed., 1775); Neueste theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1771-1775). Besides these, he published more than a hundred smaller works, many of which have been collected in the three following publications:—Opuscula oratoria (1762, 2nd ed., 1767); Opuscula philologica et critica (1764, 2nd ed., 1776); Opuscula theologica (1773). See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie; J.E. Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. iii. (1908).

ERNESTI, JOHANN CHRISTIAN GOTTLIEB (1756-1802), German classical scholar, was born at Arnstadt, Thuringia, and studied under his uncle, J.A. Ernesti, at the university of Leipzig. On the 5th of June, 1782, he was made supplementary professor of philosophy at his own university; and on the death of his cousin August Wilhelm in 1801 he was for five months professor of rhetoric. He died on the 5th of June of the following year.

His principal works are:—Editions of Aesop’s Fabulae (1781); of the Glossae sacrae of Hesychius (1785) and Suidas and Phavorinus (1786); and of Silius Italicus Punica (1791-1792); Lexicon Technologiae Graecorum rhetoricae (1795); Lexicon technologiae Latinorum rhetoricae (1797), and Cicero’s Geist und Kunst (1799-1802).

ERNST, HEINRICH WILHELM (1814-1865), German violinist and composer, was born at Brünn, in Moravia, in 1814. He was educated at the Conservatorium of Vienna, studying the violin under Joseph Böhm and Joseph Mayseder, and composition under Ignaz von Seyfried. At the age of sixteen he made a concert tour in south Germany, which established his reputation as a violinist of the highest promise. In 1832 he went to Paris, where he lived for several years. During this period he formed an intimacy with Stephen Heller, which resulted in their charming joint compositions—the Pensées fugitives for piano and violin. In 1843 he paid his first visit to London. The impression which he then made as a violinist was more than confirmed in the following year, when his rare powers were recognized by the musical public. Thenceforward he visited England nearly every year, until his health broke down owing to long-continued neuralgia of a most severe kind. The last seven years of his life were spent in retirement, chiefly at Nice, where he died on the 8th of October 1865. As a violinist Ernst was distinguished by his almost unrivalled executive power, loftiness of conception, and intensely passionate expression. As a composer he wrote chiefly for his own instrument, and his Elegie and Otello Fantasia rank among the most treasured works for the violin.

ERODE, a town of British India, in the Coimbatore district of Madras, situated on the right bank of the river Cauvery, which is here crossed by an iron railway girder bridge of 22 spans. Pop. (1901) 15,529. Here the South Indian railway joins the South-Western line of the Madras railway, 243 m. from Madras. There are exports of cotton and saltpetre; and the town has a steam cotton press.

EROS, a minor planet discovered by Witt at Berlin on the 14th of August 1898, and, so far as yet known, unique in that its perihelion lies far within the orbit of Mars.

EROS, in Greek mythology, the god of love. He is not mentioned in Homer; in Hesiod (Theog. 120) he is one of the oldest and the most beautiful of the gods, whose power neither gods nor men can resist. He also evolves order and harmony out of Chaos by uniting the separated elements. This cosmic Eros, who in Orphic cosmogony sprang from the world-egg which Chronos, or Time, laid in the bosom of Chaos, and which is the origin of all created beings, degenerated in later mythology into the capricious god of sexual passion, the son of Aphrodite and Zeus, Ares or Hermes. He is commonly represented as a mischievous boy, the tormentor of gods and men, even his own mother not being proof against his attacks. His brother is Anteros, the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do not return the love of others, without which Eros could not thrive; he is sometimes described as the opponent of Eros. The chief associates of Eros are Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire), Peitho (Persuasion), the Muses and the Graces; he himself is in constant attendance on Aphrodite. Later writers (Euripides being the first) assumed the existence of a number of Erotes (like the Roman Amores and Cupidines) with similar attributes. According to the philosophers, Eros was not only the god of sexual love, but also of the loyal and devoted friendship of men; hence the Theban “Sacred Band” was devoted to him, and the Cretans and Spartans offered sacrifice to him before going into battle (Athenaeus xiii. p. 561). In Alexandrian poetry Eros is at one time the powerful god who conquers all, at another the elfish god of love. For the Roman adaptation of Eros see Cupid, and for the later legend of Cupid and Psyche see Psyche.

In art Eros is represented as a beautiful youth or a winged child. His attributes are the bow and arrows and a burning torch. The rose, the hare, the cock and the goat are frequently associated with him. The most celebrated statue of him was at Thespiae, the work of Praxiteles. Other famous representations are the Vatican torso and Eros trying his bow (in the Capitoline museum).

See J.E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); G.F. Schömann, De Cupidine Cosmogonico (1852); E. Gerhard, Über den Gott Eros (1850); articles in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, and Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie.

ERPENIUS (original name van Erpe), THOMAS (1584-1624), Dutch Orientalist, was born at Gorcum, in Holland, on the 11th of September 1584. After completing his early education at Leiden, he entered the university of that city, and in 1608 took the degree of master of arts. By the advice of Scaliger he studied Oriental languages whilst taking his course of theology. He afterwards travelled in England, France, Italy and Germany, forming connexions with learned men, and availing himself of the information which they communicated. During his stay at Paris he contracted a friendship with Casaubon, which lasted during his life, and also took lessons in Arabic from an Egyptian, Joseph Barbatus, otherwise called Abu-dakni. At Venice he perfected himself in the Turkish, Persic and Ethiopic languages. After a long absence, Erpenius returned to his own country in 1612, and on the 10th of February 1613 he was appointed professor of Arabic and other Oriental languages, Hebrew excepted, in the university of Leiden. Soon after his settlement at Leiden, animated by the example of Savary de Brèves, who had established an Arabic press at Paris at his own charge, he caused new Arabic characters to be cut at a great expense, and erected a press in his own house. In 1619 the curators of the university of Leiden instituted a second chair of Hebrew in his favour. In 1620 he was sent by the States of Holland to induce Pierre Dumoulin or André Rivet to settle in that country; and after a second journey he was successful in inducing Rivet to comply with their request. Some time after the return of Erpenius, the states appointed him their interpreter; and in this capacity he had the duty imposed upon him of translating and replying to the different letters of the Moslem princes of Asia and Africa. His reputation had now spread throughout all Europe, and several princes, the kings of England and Spain, and the archbishop of Seville made him the most flattering offers; but he constantly refused to leave his native country. He was preparing an edition of the Koran with a Latin translation and notes, and was projecting an Oriental library, when he died prematurely on the 13th of November 1624.

Among his works may be mentioned his Grammatica Arabica, published originally in 1613 and often reprinted; Rudimenta linguae Arabicae (1620); Grammatica Ebraea generalis (1621); Grammatica Chaldaica et Syria (1628); and an edition of Elmacin’s History of the Saracens.

ERROLL (or Errol), FRANCIS HAY, 9th Earl of (d. 1631), Scottish nobleman, was the son of Andrew, 8th earl, and of Lady Jean Hay, daughter of William, 6th earl. The date of his birth is unrecorded, but he succeeded to the earldom (cr. 1453) in 1585, was early converted to Roman Catholicism, and as the associate of Huntly joined in the Spanish conspiracies against the throne of Elizabeth. A letter written by him, declaring his allegiance to the king of Spain, having been intercepted and sent by Elizabeth to James in February 1589, he was declared a rebel by the council. He engaged with Huntly and Crawford in a rebellion in the north of Scotland, but their forces surrendered at Aberdeen on the arrival of the king in April; and in July Erroll gave himself up to James, who leniently refrained from exacting any penalty. In September of the same year he entered into a personal bond with Huntly for mutual assistance; and in 1590 displeased the king by marrying, in spite of his prohibition, Lady Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of the earl of Morton. He was imprisoned on suspicion of complicity in the attempt made by Gray and Bothwell to surprise the king at Falkland in June 1592; and though he obtained his release, he was again proclaimed a rebel on account of the discovery of his signature to two of the “Spanish Blanks,” unwritten sheets subscribed with the names of the chief conspirators in a plot for a Spanish invasion of Scotland, to be filled up later with the terms of the projected treaty. After a failure to apprehend him in March 1593, Erroll and his companions were sentenced to abjure Romanism or leave the kingdom; and on their non-compliance were in 1594 declared traitors. On the 3rd of October they defeated at Glenlivet a force sent against them under Argyll; though Erroll himself was severely wounded, and Slains Castle, his seat, razed to the ground. The rebel lords left Scotland in 1595, and Erroll, on report of his further conspiracies abroad, was arrested by the states of Zealand, but was afterwards allowed to escape. He returned to Scotland secretly in 1596, and on the 20th of June 1597 abjured Romanism and made his peace with the Kirk. He enjoyed the favour of the king, and in 1602 was appointed a commissioner to negotiate the union with England. His relations with the Kirk, however, were not so amicable. The reality of his conversion was disputed, and on the 21st of May 1608 he was confined to the city of Perth “for the better resolution of his doubts,” being subsequently declared an obstinate “papist,” excommunicated, deprived of his estate, and imprisoned at Dumbarton; and after some further vacillation was finally released in May 1611. Lord Erroll died on the 16th of July 1631, and was buried in the church of Slains. He married (1) Anne, daughter of John, 4th earl of Atholl; (2) Margaret, daughter of the regent Murray; and (3) Elizabeth, daughter of William, 6th earl of Morton. By his third wife he had several children, of whom his eldest son, William, succeeded him. The dispute which began in his lifetime concerning the hereditary office of lord high constable between the families of Erroll and of the Earl Marischal was settled finally in favour of the former; thus establishing the precedence enjoyed by the earls of Erroll next after the royal family over all other subjects in Scotland.

See The Erroll Papers (Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. ii. 211); Andrew Lang, Hist. of Scotland, vol. ii.; Hist. MSS. Comm. MSS. of Earl of Mar and Kellie; D. Calderwood’s Hist. of the Church of Scotland; John Spalding’s Memorials (Spalding Club, 1850); Collected Essays of T.G. Law, ed. by P.H. Brown (1904); Treason and Plot, by M.A.S. Hume (1901).

ERROR (Lat. error, from errare, to wander, to err), a mistake, a departure or deviation from what is true, exact or right. For the legal process by which a judgment could be reversed on the ground of error, known as a “writ of error,” see Writ and Appeal. The words “error excepted” or “errors and omissions excepted” (contracted to “E.E.” “E. & O.E.”), are frequently placed at the end of a statement of account or an invoice, so that the accounting party may reserve the right to correct any errors or omissions which may be subsequently discovered, or make further claims in respect of them. In mathematics, “error” is the deviation of an observed or calculated quantity from its true value. The calculus of errors leads to the formulation of the “law of error,” which is an analytical expression of the most probably true value of a series of discordant values (see Probability).

ERSCH, JOHANN SAMUEL (1766-1828), the founder of German bibliography, was born at Grossglogau, in Silesia, on the 23rd of June 1766. In 1785 he entered the university of Halle with the view of studying theology; but soon his whole attention became engrossed by history, bibliography and geography. At Halle he made the acquaintance of J.E. Fabri, professor of geography; and when the latter was made professor of history and statistics at Jena, Ersch accompanied him thither, and aided him in the preparation of several works. In 1788 he published the Verzeichnis aller anonymischen Schriften, as a supplement to the 4th edition of Meusel’s Gelehrtes Deutschland. The researches required for this work suggested to him the preparation of a Repertorium über die allgemeinen deutschen Journale und andere periodische Sammlungen für Erdbeschreibung, Geschichte, und die damit verwandten Wissenschaften (Lemgo, 1790-1792). The fame which this publication acquired him led to his being engaged by Schütz and Hufeland to prepare an Allgemeines Repertorium der Literatur, published in 8 vols. (Jena and Weimar, 1793-1809), which condensed the literary productions of 15 years (1785-1800), and included an account not merely of the books published during that period, but also of articles in periodicals and magazines, and even of the criticisms to which each book had been subjected. While engaged in this great work he also projected La France littéraire, which was published at Hamburg in 5 vols., from 1797 to 1806. In 1795 he went to Hamburg to edit the Neue Hamburger Zeitung, founded by Victor Klopstock, brother of the poet, but returned in 1800 to Jena to take active part in the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung. He also obtained in the same year the office of librarian in the university, and in 1802 was made professor of philosophy. In 1803 he accepted the chair of geography and statistics at Halle, and in 1808 was made principal librarian. He here projected a Handbuch der deutschen Literatur seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrh. bis auf die neueste Zeit (Leipzig, 1812-1814) and, along with Johann Gottfried Gruber (q.v.), the Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste (Leipzig, 1818 ffg.) which he continued as far as the 21st volume. The accuracy and thoroughness of this monumental encyclopaedia make it still an indispensable book of reference. Ersch died at Halle on the 16th of January 1828.

ERSKINE, EBENEZER (1680-1754), Scottish divine, the chief founder of the Secession Church (formed of dissenters from the Church of Scotland), was born on the 22nd of June 1680, most probably at Dryburgh, Berwickshire. His father, Henry Erskine, who was at one time minister at Cornhill, Durham, was ejected in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity, and, after suffering some years’ imprisonment, was after the Revolution appointed to the parish of Chirnside, Berwickshire. After studying at the university of Edinburgh, Ebenezer became minister of Portmoak, Kinross-shire. There he remained for twenty-eight years, after which, in the autumn of 1731, he was translated to the West Church, Stirling. Some time before this, he, along with some other ministers, was “rebuked and admonished,” by the general assembly, for defending the doctrines contained in the Marrow of Modern Divinity (see Boston, Thomas). A sermon which he preached on lay patronage before the synod of Perth in 1733 furnished new grounds of accusation, and he was compelled to shield himself from rebuke by appealing to the general assembly. Here, however, the sentence of the synod was confirmed, and after many fruitless attempts to obtain a hearing, he, along with William Wilson of Perth, Alexander Moncrieff of Abernethy and James Fisher of Kinclaven, was suspended from the ministry by the commission in November of that year. Against this sentence they protested, and constituted themselves into a separate church court, under the name of the associate presbytery. In 1739 they were again summoned before the assembly, and in their corporate capacity declined to acknowledge the authority of the church, and were deposed in the following year. They received numerous accessions to their communion, and remained in harmony with each other till 1747, when a division took place in regard to the nature of the oath administered to burgesses. Erskine joined with the “burgher” section, and became their professor of theology. He continued also to preach to a numerous congregation in Stirling till his death, which took place on the 2nd of June 1754. Erskine was a very popular preacher, and a man of considerable force of character; he acted throughout on principle with honesty and courage. The burgher and anti-burgher sections of the Secession Church were reunited in 1820, and in 1847 they united with the relief synod in forming the United Presbyterian Church.

Erskine’s published works consist chiefly of sermons. His Life and Diary, edited by the Rev. Donald Fraser, was published in 1840. His Works were published in 1785.

ERSKINE, HENRY (1746-1817), lord advocate of Scotland, the second son of Henry David, 10th earl of Buchan and brother of the lord chancellor Erskine, was born in Edinburgh on the 1st of November 1746. He was educated at the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates in 1768. His reputation as a clever and fluent speaker was first made in the debates of the general assembly, of which he had been early elected an elder. In 1783 he was appointed to the office of lord advocate, which he held during the brief coalition ministry of Fox and North. In 1785 he was elected dean of the faculty of advocates, and was re-elected annually till 1796, when his conduct in moving a series of resolutions at a public meeting, condemning the government’s sedition and treason bills, brought on him the opposition of the ministerial party, and he was deposed in favour of Robert Dundas. On the formation of the Grenville ministry in 1806 he again became lord advocate and was returned to parliament for the Haddington burghs, which he exchanged at the general election of the same year for the Dumfries burghs. His tenure of the lord advocateship ended in March 1807 on the downfall of the ministry. In 1811 he gave up his practice at the bar and retired to his country residence of Almondel, in Linlithgowshire, where he died on the 8th of October 1817.

His eldest son, Henry David (1783-1857), succeeded as 12th earl of Buchan on his uncle’s death in 1829.

Erskine’s reputation will survive as the finest and most eloquent orator of his day at the Scottish bar; added to a charming forensic style was a most captivating wit, which, as Lord Jeffrey said, was “all argument, and each of his delightful illustrations a material step in his reasoning.” Erskine was also the author of some poems, of which the best known is “The Emigrant” (1783).

See Lieut.-Col. A. Fergusson’s Henry Erskine (1882).

ERSKINE, JOHN (1721-1803), Scottish divine, son of John Erskine of Carnock, was born on the 2nd of June 1721. He studied law for a time after completing his course in arts at the university of Edinburgh, but was eventually licensed to preach in 1743; and was successively parish minister of Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, Culross, in Fifeshire (1753), New Greyfriars church in Edinburgh (1758), and Old Greyfriars church in 1768, where he became the colleague of Principal Robertson, the historian. Here he remained until his death, which took place on the 19th of January 1803. Dr Erskine’s writings consist chiefly of controversial pamphlets on theological subjects. His sermons are clear, vigorous expositions of a moderate Calvinism, in which metaphysical argument and practical morality are happily blended. In church politics he was the leader of the evangelical party; and was much beloved for his high character and amiability.

For his life and works see Sir H. Moncreiff Wellwood, Life and Writings of J. Erskine, D.D. (Edinburgh, 1818).

ERSKINE, JOHN, of Carnock (1695-1768), Scottish jurist, son of Lieut.-Colonel John Erskine, was born in 1695. He was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates in 1719. Although he never enjoyed much practice at the bar, he acquired a high reputation as a sound and learned lawyer, and in 1737 was appointed professor of Scots law in the university of Edinburgh. In 1754 he published his Principles of the Law of Scotland. He retired from his chair in 1765; and during the remainder of his uneventful life he occupied himself with the preparation of his great work, the Institutes of the Law of Scotland, which he did not live to publish. He died at Cardross, Perthshire, on the 1st of March 1768.

Erskine’s Institutes, although not exhibiting the grasp of principle which distinguished his great predecessor Lord Stair, is so conspicuous for learning, accuracy and sound good sense, that it has always been esteemed of the highest authority on the law of Scotland. The first edition appeared in 1773 and it has been many times reprinted. The Principles, although published first, is substantially an abridgment of the larger work, and is in some respects superior to it, being more concise and direct. It retains its place as the text-book on Scots law, and is frequently being re-edited.

ERSKINE, JOHN, of Dun (1509-1591), Scottish reformer, the son of Sir John Erskine, laird of Dun, was born in 1509, and was educated at King’s College, Aberdeen. At the age of twenty-one Erskine was the cause—probably by accident—of a priest’s death, and was forced to go abroad, where he came under the influence of the new learning. It was through his agency that Greek was first taught in Scotland by Petrus de Marsiliers at Montrose. This fact counted for much in the progress of the Reformation. Erskine was also drawn towards the new faith, being a close friend of George Wishart, the reformer, from whose fate he was saved by his wealth and influence, and of John Knox, whose advice openly to discountenance the mass was given in the lodgings of the laird of Dun. In the stormy controversies of the time of Mary Stuart and James VI. Erskine was a conspicuous figure and a moderating influence. He was able to soothe the queen when her feelings had been outraged by Knox’s denunciations—being a man “most gentill of nature”—and frequently acted as mediator both between the catholic and reforming parties, and among the reformers themselves. In 1560 he was appointed—though a layman—superintendent of the reformed church of Scotland for Angus and Mearns, and in 1572 he gave his assent to the modified episcopacy proposed by Morton at the Leith convention. Though never himself ordained, he was held in such high esteem by the leaders of the church as to be more than once elected moderator of the general assembly (first in 1564), and he was amongst those who in 1578 drew up the Second Book of Discipline. From 1579 he was a member of the king’s council. He died in 1591. Erskine owed his peculiar influence among the Scottish reformers to the union—rare in those days—of steadfast convictions with a conciliatory manner; Queen Mary described him as “a mild and sweet-natured man, with true honesty and uprightness.”

See the “Dun Papers” in the Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. iv. (1849), and the article by T.F. Henderson in the Dict. Nat. Biog.

ERSKINE, RALPH (1685-1752), Scottish divine, brother of Ebenezer Erskine (q.v.), was born on the 18th of March 1685. After studying at the university of Edinburgh, he was in 1711 ordained assistant minister at Dunfermline. He homologated the protests which his brother laid on the table of the assembly after being rebuked for his synod sermon, but he did not formally withdraw from the establishment till 1737. He was also present, though not as a member, at the first meeting of the associate presbytery. When the severance took place on account of the oath administered to burgesses, he adhered, along with his brother, to the burgher section. He died after a short illness on the 6th of November 1752.

His works consist of sermons, poetical paraphrases and gospel sonnets. The Gospel Sonnets have frequently appeared separately. His Life and Diary, edited by the Rev. D. Fraser, was published in 1842.

ERSKINE, THOMAS, of Linlathen (1788-1870), Scottish theologian, youngest son of David Erskine, writer to the signet in Edinburgh, and of Anne Graham, of the Grahams of Airth, was born on the 13th of October 1788. He was a descendant of John, 1st or 6th earl of Mar, regent of Scotland in the reign of James VI., a grandson of Colonel John Erskine of Carnock. After being educated at the high school of Edinburgh and at Durham, he attended the literary and law classes at the university of Edinburgh, and becoming in 1810 a member of the Edinburgh faculty of advocates, he for some time enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of Cockburn, Jeffrey, Scott and other distinguished men whose talent then lent lustre to the Scottish bar. In 1816 he succeeded to the family estate of Linlathen, near Dundee, and devoted himself to theology. The writings of Erskine, especially his published letters, are distinguished by a graceful style, and possess originality and interest. His theological views have a considerable similarity to those of Frederick Denison Maurice, who acknowledges having been indebted to him for his first true conception of the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice. Erskine had little interest in the “historical criticism” of Christianity, and regarded as the only proper criterion of its truth its conformity or nonconformity with man’s spiritual nature, and its adaptability or non-adaptability to man’s spiritual needs. He considered the incarnation of Christ as the necessary manifestation to man of an eternal sonship in the divine nature, apart from which those filial qualities which God demands from man could have no sanction; by faith as used in Scripture he understood to be meant a certain moral or spiritual activity or energy which virtually implied salvation, because it implied the existence of a principle of spiritual life possessed of an immortal power. This faith, he believed, could be properly awakened only by the manifestation, through Christ, of love as the law of life, and as identical with an eternal righteousness which it was God’s purpose to bestow on every individual soul. As an interpreter of the mystical side of Calvinism and of the psychological conditions which correspond with the doctrines of grace Erskine is unrivalled. During the last thirty-three years of his life Erskine ceased from literary work. Among his friends were Madame Vernet, the duchess de Broglie, the younger Mdme de Stael, M. Vinet of Lausanne, Edward Irving, Frederick D. Maurice, Dean Stanley, Bishop Ewing, Dr John Brown and Thomas Carlyle. His wide influence was due to his high character and unassuming earnestness. He died at Edinburgh on the 20th of March 1870.

His principal works are Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the Truth of Revealed Religion (1820), an Essay on Faith (1822), and the Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel (1828). These have all passed through several editions, and have also been translated into French. He is also the author of the Brazen Serpent (1831), the Doctrine of Election (1839), several “Introductory Essays” to editions of Christian Authors, and a posthumous work entitled Spiritual Order and Other Papers (1871). Two vols. of his letters, edited by William Hanna, D.D., with reminiscences by Dean Stanley and Principal Shairp, appeared in 1877.

ERSKINE, THOMAS ERSKINE, 1st Baron (1750-1823), lord chancellor of England, was the third and youngest son of Henry David, 10th earl of Buchan, and was born in Edinburgh on the 10th of January 1750. From an early age he showed a strong desire to enter one of the learned professions; but his father, owing to his straitened circumstances, was unable to do more than give him a good school education at the high school of Edinburgh and the grammar school of St Andrews. In 1764 he was sent as a midshipman on board the “Tartar,” but on finding, when he returned to this country after four years’ absence in North America and the West Indies, that there was little immediate chance of his rank of acting lieutenant being confirmed, he quitted the service and entered the army, purchasing a commission in the 1st Royals with the meagre patrimony which had been left to him. But promotion here was as slow as in the navy; while in 1770 he had added greatly to his difficulties by marrying the daughter of Daniel Moore, M.P. for Marlow, an excellent wife, but as poor as himself. However, an accidental visit to an assize court in the town in which he was quartered, and an interview with Lord Mansfield, the presiding judge, confirmed his resolve to quit the army for the law. Accordingly on the 26th of April 1775 he was admitted a student of Lincoln’s Inn. He also on the 13th of January following entered himself as a gentleman commoner on the books of Trinity College, Cambridge, but merely that by graduating he might be called two years earlier.

He read in the chambers of Francis Buller (afterwards Mr Justice Buller) and George (afterwards Baron) Wood, and was called to the bar on the 3rd of July 1778. His success was immediate and brilliant. An accident was the means of giving him his first case, Rex v. Baillie, in which he appeared for Captain Thomas Baillie, the lieutenant-governor of Greenwich hospital, who had published a pamphlet animadverting in severe terms upon the abuses which Lord Sandwich, the first lord of the admiralty, had introduced into the management of the hospital, and against whom a rule had been obtained from the court of king’s bench to show cause why a criminal information for libel should not be filed. Erskine was the junior of five counsel; and it was his good fortune that the prolixity of his leaders consumed the whole of the first day, thereby giving the advantage of starting afresh next morning. He made use of this opportunity to deliver a speech of wonderful eloquence, skill and courage, which captivated both the audience and the court. The rule was discharged, and Erskine’s fortune was made. He received, it is said, thirty retainers before he left the court. In 1781 he delivered another remarkable speech, in defence of Lord George Gordon—a speech which gave the death-blow to the doctrine of constructive treason. In 1783, when the Coalition ministry came into power, he was returned to parliament as member for Portsmouth. His first speech in the House of Commons was a failure; and he never in parliamentary debate possessed anything like the influence he had at the bar. He lost his seat at the dissolution in the following year, and remained out of parliament until 1790, when he was again returned for Portsmouth. But his success at the bar continued unimpaired. In 1783 he received a patent of precedence. His first special retainer was in defence of Dr W.D. Shipley, dean of St Asaph, who was tried in 1784 at Shrewsbury for seditious libel—a defence to which was due the passing of the Libel Act 1792, laying down the principle that it is for the jury, and not for the judge to decide the question whether or no a publication is a libel. In 1789 he was counsel for John Stockdale, a bookseller, who was charged with seditious libel in publishing a pamphlet in favour of Warren Hastings, whose trial was then proceeding; and his speech on this occasion, probably his greatest effort, is a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a jury. Three years afterwards he brought down the opposition alike of friends and foes by defending Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man—holding that an advocate has no right, by refusing a brief, to convert himself into a judge. As a consequence he lost the office of attorney-general to the prince of Wales, to which he had been appointed in 1786; the prince, however, subsequently made amends by making him his chancellor. Among Erskine’s later speeches may be mentioned those for Horne Tooke and the other advocates of parliamentary reform, and that for James Hadfield, who was accused of shooting at the king. On the accession of the Grenville ministry in 1806 he was made lord chancellor, an office for which his training had in no way prepared him, but which he fortunately held only during the short period his party was in power. Of the remainder of his life it would be well if nothing could be said. Occasionally speaking in parliament, and hoping that he might return to office should the prince become regent, he gradually degenerated into a state of useless idleness. Never conspicuous for prudence, he aggravated his increasing poverty by an unfortunate second marriage.

His first wife had died in 1805, and he married at Gretna Green a Miss Mary Buck. The date of this marriage is not definitely known. Once only—in his conduct in the case of Queen Caroline—does he recall his former self. He died at Almondell, Linlithgowshire, on the 17th of November 1823, of pneumonia, caught on the voyage to Scotland.

Erskine’s great forensic reputation was, to a certain extent, a concomitant of the numerous political trials of the day, but it was also due to his impassioned eloquence and undaunted courage, which so often carried audience and jury and even the court along with him. As a judge he did not succeed; and it has been questioned whether under any circumstances he could have succeeded. For the office of chancellor he was plainly unfit. As a lawyer he was well read, but by no means profound. His strength lay in the keenness of his reasoning faculty, in his dexterity and the ability with which he disentangled complicated masses of evidence, and above all in his unrivalled power of fixing and commanding the attention of juries. To no department of knowledge but law had he applied himself systematically, with the single exception of English literature, of which he acquired a thorough mastery in early life, at intervals of leisure in college, on board ship, or in the army. Vanity is said to have been his ruling personal characteristic; but those who knew him, while they admit the fault, say that in him it never took an offensive form, even in old age, while the singular grace and attractiveness of his manner endeared him to all with whom he came in contact.

By his first wife he had four sons and four daughters. His eldest son, David Montagu (1776-1855), was a well-known diplomatist; his second son, Henry David (1786-1859), was dean of Ripon; and his third son, Thomas (1788-1864), became a judge of the court of common pleas. By his second wife he had one son, born in 1821.

In 1772 Erskine published Observations on the Prevailing Abuses in the British Army, a pamphlet which had a large circulation, and in later life, Armata, an imitation of Gulliver’s Travels. His most noted speeches have repeatedly appeared in a collected form. See Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors; Moore’s Diaries; Fergusson’s Henry Erskine (1882); Dumerit’s Henry Erskine, a Study (Paris, 1883); Lord Brougham’s Memoir, prefixed to Erskine’s Speeches (1847); Romilly’s Memoirs; the Croker Papers; Lord Holland’s Memoirs.

ERUBESCITE, a native copper-iron sulphide, Cu5FeS4, of importance as an ore of copper. It crystallizes in the cubic system, the usual form being that of interpenetrating cubes twinned on an octahedral plane. The faces are usually curved and rough, and the crystals confusedly aggregated together. Compact and granular masses are of more frequent occurrence. The colour on a freshly fractured surface is bronzy or coppery, but in moist air this rapidly tarnishes with iridescent blue and red colours; hence the names purple copper ore, variegated copper ore (Ger. Buntkupfererz), horse-flesh ore, and erubescite (from the Lat. erubescere, “to grow red”). The lustre is metallic, and the streak greyish-black; hardness 3; sp. gr. 5.0. Bornite (after Baron Ignaz von Born, b. 1742, d. 1791) is a name in common use for this mineral, and it predates erubescite, the name given by J.D. Dana in 1850, but afterwards rejected by him; French authors use the name phillipsite, after the English mineralogist, R. Phillips, who analysed the mineral; both these earlier names had, however, been previously used for other minerals.

Owing to the frequent presence of mechanically admixed chalcopyrite and chalcocite, the published analyses of erubescite show wide variations, the copper, for example, varying from 50 to 70%. Even the best Cornish crystals enclose a nucleus of chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), and an analysis of these made in 1839 led to the long-accepted formula Cu3FeS3. Recently, B.J. Harrington has analysed carefully selected material and obtained the formula Cu5FeS4.

Erubescite occurs in copper-bearing veins, and has been mined as an ore of copper at Redruth in Cornwall, Montecatini in the province of Pisa, Tuscany, Bristol in Connecticut, Acton in Canada, and other localities in North America. The best crystallized specimens are from the Carn Brea mine and other copper mines in the neighbourhood of Redruth, and from Bristol in Connecticut. Recently a few large isolated crystals with the form of icositetrahedra have been found with calcite and albite in a gold-vein on Frossnitz-Alpe in the Gross-Venediger, Tirol.

(L. J. S.)

ERYSIPELAS (a Greek word, probably derived from ἐρυθρός, red, and πέλλα, skin)—synonyms, the Rose, St Anthony’s Fire—an acute contagious disease, characterized by a special inflammation of the skin, caused by a streptococcus. Erysipelas is endemic in most countries, and epidemic at certain seasons, particularly the spring of the year. The poison is not very virulent, but it certainly can be conveyed by bedding and the clothes of a third person. Two varieties are occasionally described, a traumatic and an idiopathic, but the disease seems to depend in all cases upon the existence of a wound or abrasion. In the so-called idiopathic variety, of which facial erysipelas is the best known, the point of entry is probably an abrasion by the lachrymal duct.

When the erysipelas is of moderate character there is simply a redness of the integument, which feels somewhat hard and thickened, and upon which there often appear small vesications. This redness, though at first circumscribed, tends to spread and affect the neighbouring sound skin, until an entire limb or a large area of the body may become involved in the inflammatory process. There is usually considerable pain, with heat and tingling in the affected part. As the disease advances the portions of skin first attacked become less inflamed, and exhibit a yellowish appearance, which is followed by slight desquamation of the cuticle. The inflammation in general gradually disappears. Sometimes, however, it breaks out again, and passes over the area originally affected the second time. But besides the skin, the subjacent tissues may become involved in the inflammation, and give rise to the formation of pus. This is termed phlegmonous erysipelas, and is much more apt to occur in connexion with the traumatic variety of the disease. Occasionally the affected parts become gangrenous. Certain complications are apt to arise in erysipelas affecting the surface of the body, particularly inflammation of serous membranes, such as the pericardium or pleura.

Erysipelas of the face usually begins with symptoms of general illness, the patient feeling languid, drowsy and sick, while frequently there is a distinct rigor followed with fever. Sore throat is sometimes felt, but in general the first indication of the local affection is a red and painful spot at the side of the nose or on one of the cheeks or ears. Occasionally it would appear that the inflammation begins in the throat, and reaches the face through the nasal fossae. The redness gradually spreads over the whole surface of the face, and is accompanied with swelling, which in the lax tissues of the cheeks and eyelids is so great that the features soon become obliterated and the countenance wears a hideous expression. Advancing over the scalp, the disease may invade the neck and pass on to the trunk, but in general the inflammation remains confined to the face and head. While the disease progresses, besides the pain, tenderness and heat of the affected parts, the constitutional symptoms are very severe. The temperature rises often to 105° or higher, remains high for four or five days, and then falls by crisis. Delirium is a frequent accompaniment. The attack in general lasts for a week or ten days, during which the inflammation subsides in the parts of the skin first attacked, while it spreads onwards in other directions, and after it has passed away there is, as already observed, some slight desquamation of the cuticle.

Although in general the termination is favourable, serious and occasionally fatal results follow from inflammation of the membranes of the brain, and in some rare instances sudden death has occurred from suffocation arising from oedema glottidis, the inflammatory action having spread into and extensively involved the throat. One attack of this disease, so far from protecting from, appears rather to predispose to others. It is sometimes a complication in certain forms of exhausting disease, such as phthisis or typhoid fever, and is then to be regarded as of serious import. A very fatal form occasionally attacks new-born infants, particularly in the first four weeks of their lives. In epidemics of puerperal fever this form of erysipelas has been specially found to prevail.

The treatment of erysipelas is best conducted on the expectant system. The disease in most instances tends to a favourable termination; and beyond attention to the condition of the stomach and bowels, which may require the use of some gentle laxative, little is necessary in the way of medicine. The employment of preparations of iron in large doses is strongly recommended by many physicians. But the chief point is the administration of abundant nourishment in a light and digestible form. Of the many local applications which may be employed, hot fomentations will be found among the most soothing. Dusting the affected part with powdered starch, and wrapping it in cotton wadding, is also of use.

In the case of phlegmonous erysipelas complicating wounds, free incisions into the part are necessary.

ERYTHRAE [mod. Litri], one of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios. In the peninsula excellent wine was produced. The town was said to have been founded by Ionians under Knopos, son of Codrus. Never a large city, it sent only eight ships to the battle of Lade. The Erythraeans owned for a considerable time the supremacy of Athens, but towards the close of the Peloponnesian war they threw off their allegiance to that city. After the battle of Cnidus, however, they received Conon, and paid him honours in an inscription, still extant. Erythrae was the birthplace of two prophetesses—one of whom, Sibylla, is mentioned by Strabo as living in the early period of the city; the other, Athenais, lived in the time of Alexander the Great. The ruins include well-preserved Hellenistic walls with towers, of which five are still visible. The acropolis (280 ft.) has the theatre on its N. slope, and eastwards lie many remains of Byzantine buildings. Modern Litri is a considerable place and port, extending from the ancient harbour to the acropolis. The smaller coasting steamers call, and there is an active trade with Chios and Smyrna.

ERYTHRITE, the name given to (1) a mineral composed of a hydrated cobalt arsenate, and (2) in chemistry, a tetrahydric alcohol. (1) The mineral erythrite has the formula Co3(AsO4)2·8H2O, and crystallizes in the monoclinic system and is isomorphous with vivianite. It sometimes occurs as beautiful radially-arranged groups of blade-shaped crystals with a bright crimson colour and brilliant lustre. On exposure to light the colour and lustre deteriorate. There is a perfect cleavage parallel to the plane of symmetry, on which the lustre is pearly. Cleavage flakes are soft (H = 2), sectile and flexible; specific gravity 2.95. The mineral is, however, more often found as an earthy encrustation with a peach-blossom colour, and in this form was early (1727) known as cobalt-bloom (Ger. Kobaltblüthe). The name erythrite, from ἐρυθρός, “red,” was given by F.S. Beudant in 1382. Erythrite occurs as a product of alteration of smaltite (CoAs2) and other cobaltiferous arsenides. The finest crystallized specimens are from Schneeberg in Saxony. The earthy variety has been found in Thuringia and Cornwall and some other places. (2) The alcohol erythrite has the constitutional formula HO·H2C·CH(OH)·CH(OH)·CH2OH; it is also known as erythrol, erythroglucin and phycite. It corresponds to tartaric acid, and, like this substance, it occurs in four stereo-isomeric forms. The internally compensated modification, i-erythrite, corresponding to mesotartaric acid, occurs free in the algae Protococcus vulgaris, and as the orsellinate, erythrin, C4H6(OH)2(O·C8H7O3)2, in many lichens and algae, especially Roccella montagnei. It has a sweet taste, melts at 126°, and boils at 330°. Careful oxidation with dilute nitric acid gives erythrose or tetrose, which is probably a mixture of a trioxyaldehyde and trioxyketone. Energetic oxidation gives erythritic acid and mesotartaric acid. i-Erythrite and the racemic mixture of the dextro and laevo varieties were synthesized by Griner in 1893 from divinyl.

ERZERUM, or Arzrum (Arm. Garin), the chief town of an important vilayet of the same name in Asiatic Turkey. It is a military station and a fortress of considerable strategical value, closing the roads from Kars, Olti and other parts of the frontier. Several important routes from Trebizond and various parts of Anatolia converge towards it from the west. It is situated at the eastern end of an open bare plain, 30 m. long and about 12 wide, bordered by steep, rounded mountains and traversed by the Kara Su, or western Euphrates, which has its source in the Dumlu Dagh a few miles north of that town, which lies at an elevation of 6250 ft. above sea-level, while the near hills rise to 10,000 ft. The scenery in the neighbourhood is striking, lofty bare mountains being varied by open plains and long valleys dotted with villages. Just east of the town is the broad ridge of the Deveboyun (“Camel’s Neck”), across which the road passes to Kars. To the south is the Palanduken range, from which emerge numerous streams, supplying the town with excellent water. In the plain to the north the Kara Su traverses extensive marshes which afford good wildfowl-shooting in the spring.

The town is surrounded by an earthen enceinte or rampart with some forts on the hills just above it, and others on the Deveboyun ridge facing east, the whole forming a position of considerable strength. The old walls and the citadel have disappeared. Inside the ramparts the town lies rather cramped, with narrow, crooked streets, badly drained and dirty; the houses are generally built of dark grey volcanic stone with flat roofs, the general aspect, owing to the absence of trees, being somewhat gloomy. The water-supply from Palanduken is distributed by wooden pipes to numerous public fountains. The town has a population of about 43,000, including about 10,000 Armenians, 2000 Persians and a few Jews. It has a garrison in peace of about 5000 men. It is the seat of the British consulate for Kurdistan, and there are other European consulates besides an American mission with schools. The great altitude accounts for very severe winter cold, occasionally 10° to 25° below zero F., accompanied by blizzards (tipi) sometimes fatal to travellers overtaken by them. The summer heat is moderate (59° to 77°).

There are several well-built mosques (none older than the 16th century), public baths, and several good khans. There are Armenian and Catholic churches, but the most beautiful building is a medresse erected in the 12th century by the Seljuks, with ornamental doorway and two graceful minarets known as the Chifte Minare.

Situated on the main road from Trebizond into north-west Persia, the town has always a large caravan traffic, principally of camels, but since the improvement of communications in Russia this has declined. A good carriage-road leads to the coast at Trebizond, the journey being made in five or six days. There are also roads to Kars, Bayazid, Erzingan and Kharput. Blacksmiths’ and coppersmiths’ work is better here than in most Turkish towns; horse-shoes and brasswork are also famous. There are several tanneries, and Turkish boots and saddles are largely made. Jerked beef (pasdirma) is also prepared in large quantities for winter use. The plain produces wheat, barley, millet and vegetables. Wood fuel is scarce, the present supply being from the Tortum district, whence surface coal and lignite are also brought; but the usual fuel is tezek or dried cow-dung. The bazaars are of no great interest. Good Persian carpets and similar goods can be obtained.

Erzerum is a town of great antiquity, and has been identified with the Armenian Garin Kalakh, the Arabic Kalikale, and the Byzantine Theodosiopolis of the 5th century, when it was a frontier fortress of the empire—hence its name Erzen-er-Rum. It was captured by the Seljuks in 1201, when it was an important city, and it fell into Turkish possession in 1517. In July 1829 it was captured by the Russian general Paskevich, and the occupation continued until the peace of Adrianople (September 1829). The town was unsuccessfully attacked by the Russians on the 9th of November 1877 after a victory gained by them a short time previously on the Deveboyun heights; it was occupied by them during the armistice (7th of February 1878) and restored to Turkey after the treaty of Berlin. In 1859 a severe earthquake destroyed much of the town, and another in November 1901 caused much damage.

The Erzerum vilayet extends from the Persian frontier at Bayazid, all along the Russian frontier and westward into Anatolia at Baiburt and Erzingan. It is divided into the three sanjaks of Bayazid, Erzerum, and Erzingan. It includes the highest portion of the Armenian plateau, and consists of bare undulating uplands varied by lofty ranges. The deep gorges of the Chorokh and Tortum streams north of the town alone have a different appearance, being well wooded in places. Both arms of the Euphrates have their rise in this country as well as the Aras (Araxes) and the Chorokh (Acampsis). It is an agricultural country with few industries. Besides forests, iron, salt, sulphur and other mineral springs are found. Some of the coal and lignite mines in Tortum have been recently worked to supply fuel for Erzerum. The population is largely Armenian and Kurd with some Turks (Moslems 500,000, Christians 140,000).

(C. W. W.; F. R. M.)

ERZGEBIRGE, a mountain chain of Germany, extending in a W.S.W. direction from the Elbe to the Elstergebirge along the frontier between Saxony and Bohemia. Its length from E.N.E. to W.S.W. is about 80 m., and its average breadth about 25 m. The southern declivity is generally steep and rugged, forming in some places an almost perpendicular wall of the height of from 2000 to 2500 ft.; while the northern, divided at intervals into valleys, sometimes of great fertility and sometimes wildly romantic, slopes gradually towards the great plain of northern Germany. The central part of the chain forms a plateau of an average height of more than 3000 ft. At the extremities of this plateau are situated the highest summits of the range:—in the south-east the Keilberg (4080 ft.); in the north-east the Fichtelberg (3980 ft.); and in the south-west the Spitzberg (3650 ft.). Between the Keilberg and the Fichtelberg, at the height of about 3300 ft., is situated Gottesgab, the highest town in Bohemia. Geologically, the Erzgebirge range consists mainly of gneiss, mica and phyllite. As its name (Ore Mountains) indicates, it is famous for its mineral ores. These are chiefly silver and lead, the layers of both of which are very extensive, tin, nickel, copper and iron. Gold is found in several places, and some arsenic, antimony, bismuth, manganese, mercury and sulphur. The Erzgebirge is celebrated for its lace manufactures, introduced by Barbara Uttmann in 1541, embroideries, silk-weaving and toys. The climate is in winter inclement in the higher elevations, and, as the snow lies deep until the spring, the range is largely frequented by devotees of winter sport, ski, toboganning, &c. In summer the air is bracing, and many climatic health resorts have sprung into existence, among which may be mentioned Kipsdorf, Bärenfels and Oberwiesenthal. Communication with the Erzgebirge is provided by numerous lines of railway, some, such as that from Freiberg to Brüx, that from Chemnitz to Komotau, and that from Zwickau to Carlsbad, crossing the range, while various local lines serve the higher valleys.

The Elstergebirge, a range some 16 m. in length, in which the Weisse Elster has its source, runs S.W. from the Erzgebirge to the Fichtelgebirge and attains a height of 2630 ft.

See Grohmann, Das Obererzgebirge und seine Städte (1903), and Schurtz, Die Pässe des Erzgebirges (1891); also Daniel, Deutschland, vol. ii., and Gebauer, Länder und Völkerkunde, vol. i.

ERZINGAN, or Erzinjan (Arsinga of the middle ages), the chief town of a sanjak in the Erzerum vilayet of Asiatic Turkey. It is the headquarters of the IV. army corps, being a place of some military importance, with large barracks and military factories. It is situated at an altitude of 3900 ft., near the western end of a rich well-watered plain through which runs the Kara Su or western Euphrates. It is surrounded by orchards and gardens, and is about a mile from the right bank of the river, which here runs in two wide channels crossed by bridges. One wide street traverses the town from east to west, but the others are narrow, unpaved and dirty, except near the new government buildings and the large modern mosque of Hajji Izzet Pasha to the north, which are the only buildings of note. The principal barracks, military hospital and clothing factory are at Karateluk on the plain and along the foot-hills to the north 3 m. off, one recent addition to the business buildings having electric power and modern British machinery; some older barracks and a military tannery and boot factory being in the town. The population numbers about 15,000, of whom about half are Armenians living in a separate quarter. The principal industries are the manufacture of silk and cotton and of copper dishes and utensils. The climate is hot in summer but moderate in winter. A carriage-road leads to Trebizond, and other roads to Sivas, Karahissar, Erzerum and Kharput. The plain, almost surrounded by lofty mountains, is highly productive with many villages on it and the border hills. Wheat, fruit, vines and cotton are largely grown, and cattle and sheep are bred. Water is everywhere abundant, and there are iron and hot sulphur springs. The battle in which the sultan of Rum (1243) was defeated by the Mongols took place on the plain, and the celebrated Armenian monastery of St Gregory, “the Illuminator,” lies on the hills 11 m. S.W. of the town.

Erzingan occupies the site of an early town in which was a temple of Anaitis. It was an important place in the 4th century when St Gregory lived in it. The district passed from the Byzantines to the Seljuks after the defeat of Romanus, 1071, and from the latter to the Mongols in 1243. After having been held by Mongols, Tatars and Turkomans, it was added to the Osmanli empire by Mahommed II. in 1473. In 1784 the town was almost destroyed by an earthquake.

(C. W. W.; F. R. M.)

ESAR-HADDON [Assur-akhi-iddina, “Assur has given a brother”], Assyrian king, son of Sennacherib; before his accession to the throne he had also borne another name, Assur-etil-ilani-yukin-abla. At the time of his father’s murder (the 20th of Tebet, 681 B.C.) he was commanding the Assyrian army in a war against Ararat. The conspirators, after holding Nineveh for 42 days, had been compelled to fly northward and invoke the aid of the king of Ararat. On the 12th of Iyyar (680 B.C.) a decisive battle was fought near Malatia, in which the veterans of Assyria won the day, and at the close of it saluted Esar-haddon as king. He returned to Nineveh, and on the 8th of Sivan was crowned king. A good general, Esar-haddon was also an able and conciliatory administrator. His first act was to crush a rebellion among the Chaldaeans in the south of Babylonia and then to restore Babylon, the sacred city of the West, which had been destroyed by his father. The walls and temple of Bel were rebuilt, its gods brought back, and after his right to rule had been solemnly acknowledged by the Babylonian priesthood Esar-haddon made Babylon his second capital. A year or two later Media was invaded and Median chiefs came to Nineveh to offer homage to their conqueror. He now turned to Palestine, where the rebellion of Abdi-milkutti of Zidon was suppressed, its leader beheaded, and a new Zidon built out of the ruins of the older city (676-675 B.C.). All Palestine now submitted to Assyria, and 12 Syrian and 10 Cyprian princes (including Manasseh of Judah) came to pay him homage and supply him with materials for his palace at Nineveh. But a more formidable enemy had appeared on the Assyrian frontier (676 B.C.). The Cimmerii (see Scythia) under Teuspa poured into Asia Minor; they were, however, overthrown in Cilicia, and the Cilician mountaineers who had joined them were severely punished. It was next necessary to secure the southern frontier of the empire. Esar-haddon accordingly marched into the heart of Arabia, to a distance of about 900 m., across a burning and waterless desert, and struck terror into the Arabian tribes. At last he was free to complete the policy of his predecessors by conquering Egypt, which alone remained to threaten Assyrian dominion in the West. Baal of Tyre had transferred his allegiance from Esar-haddon to the Egyptian king Tirhaka and opened to the latter the coast road of Palestine; leaving a force, therefore, to invest Tyre, Esar-haddon led the main body of the Assyrian troops into Egypt on the 5th of Adar, 673 B.C. The desert was crossed with the help of the Arabian sheikh. Egypt seems to have submitted to the invader and was divided into twenty satrapies. Another campaign, however, was needed before it could be finally subdued. In 670 B.C. Esar-haddon drove the Egyptian forces before him in 15 days (from the 3rd to the 18th of Tammuz) all the way from the frontier to Memphis, thrice defeating them with heavy loss and wounding Tirhaka himself. Three days after Memphis fell, and this was soon afterwards followed by the surrender of Tyre and its king. In 668 B.C. Egypt again revolted, and while on the march to reduce it Esar-haddon fell ill and died on the 10th of Marchesvan. His empire was divided between his two sons Assur-bani-pal and Samas-sum-yukin, Assur-bani-pal receiving Assyria and his brother Babylonia, an arrangement, however, which did not prove to be a success. Esar-haddon was the builder of a palace at Nineveh as well as of one which he erected at Calah for Assur-bani-pal.

Authorities.—E.A.W. Budge, History of Esarhaddon (1880); E. Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, ii. (1889) (Abel and Winckler in ii. pp. 120-153); G. Maspero, Passing of the Empires, pp. 345 sqq.; F. von Luschan, “Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli,” i. (Mitteilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen, 1893).

(A. H. S.)

ESAU, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, in the Bible, and the elder twin brother of Jacob. He was so called because he was red (admōnī) and hairy when he was born, and the name Edom (red) was given to him when he sold his birthright to Jacob for a meal of red lentil pottage (Gen. xxv. 21-34). Another story of the manner in which Jacob obtained the superiority is related in Gen. xxvii. Here the younger brother impersonated the elder, and succeeded in deceiving his blind father by imitating the hairiness of his brother. He thus gained the blessing intended for the first-born, and Esau, on hearing how he had been forestalled, vowed to kill him. Jacob accordingly fled to his mother’s relatives, and on his return, many years later, peace was restored between them (xxxii. sq.). These primitive stories of the relations between the eponymous heads of the Edomites and Israelites are due to the older (Judaean) sources; the late notices of the Priestly school (see Genesis) preserve a different account of the parting of the two (Gen. xxxvi. 6-8), and lay great stress upon Esau’s marriages with the Canaanites of the land, unions which were viewed (from the writer’s standpoint) with great aversion (Gen. xxvi. 34 sq., xxvii. 46). For “Esau” as a designation of the Edomites, cf. Jer. xlix. 8, Obad. vv. 6, 8, and on their history, see Edom.

Esau’s characteristic hairiness (Gen. xxv. 25, xxvii. 11) has given rise to the suggestion that his name is properly ‘ēshav, from a root corresponding to the Arab. ‘athiya, to have thick or matted hair. Mt Seir, too, where he resided, etymologically suggests a “shaggy” mountain-land. According to Hommel (Sud-arab. Chrestom. p. 39 sq.) the name Esau has S. Arabian analogies. On the possible identity of the name with Usoos, the Phoenician demi-god (Philo of Byblus, ap. Eusebius, Praep. Evang. i. 10), see Cheyne, Encyc. Bib. col. 1333; Lagrange, Études sur les religions sémitiques, p. 416 (Paris, 1905); Ed. Meyer, Israeliten, 278 sq. (and, on general questions, ib. 128 sq., 329 sqq.).

(S. A. C.)

ESBJERG, a seaport of Denmark in the amt (county) of Ribe, 18 m. from the German frontier on the west coast of Jutland. It has railway communication with the east and north of Jutland, and with Germany. It was granted municipal rights in 1900, having grown with astonishing rapidity from 13 inhabitants in 1868 to 13,355 in 1901. This growth it owes to the construction of a large harbour in 1868-1888. It is the principal outlet westward for S. Jutland; exports pork and meat, butter, eggs, fish, cattle and sheep, skins, lard and agricultural seeds, and has regular communication with Harwich and Grimsby in England. Three miles S.E. is Nordby on the island of Fanö, the northernmost of the North Frisian chain. It is an arid bank of heathland and dunes, but both Nordby and Sönderho in the south are frequented as seaside resorts. The former has a school of navigation. The fisheries are valuable.

ESCANABA, a city and the county-seat of Delta county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Little Bay de Noquette, an inlet of Green Bay, about 60 m. S. of Marquette. Pop. (1890) 6808; (1900) 9549, of whom 3214 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 13,194. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western and the Escanaba & Lake Superior railways. It is built on a picturesque promontory which separates the waters of Green Bay from Little Bay de Noquette, and its delightful summer climate, wild landscape scenery and facilities for boating and trout fishing make it a popular summer resort. Escanaba has a water front of 8 m., and is an important centre for the shipment of iron-ore, for which eight large and well-equipped docks are provided—there is an ore-crushing plant here; considerable quantities of lumber and fish are also shipped, and furniture, flooring (especially of maple) and wooden ware (butter-dishes and clothes-pins) are manufactured. There is a large tie-preserving plant here. Good water power is supplied by the Escanaba river. Escanaba was settled in 1863, was incorporated as a village in 1883, and was first chartered as a city in the same year.

ESCAPE (in mid. Eng. eschape or escape, from the O. Fr. eschapper, modern échapper, and escaper, low Lat. escapium, from ex, out of, and cappa, cape, cloak; cf. for the sense development the Gr. ἐκδύεσθαι, literally to put off one’s clothes, hence to slip out of, get away), a verb meaning to get away from, especially from impending danger or harm, to avoid capture, to regain one’s liberty after capture. As a substantive, “escape,” in law, is the regaining of liberty by one in custody contrary to due process of law. Such escape may be by force, if out of prison it is generally known as “prison-breach” or “prison-breaking,” or by the voluntary or negligent act of the custodian. Where the escape is caused by the force or fraud of others it is termed “rescue” (q.v.). “Escape” is used in botany of a cultivated plant found growing wild. The word is also used of a means of escape, e.g. “fire-escape,” and of a loss or leakage of gas, current of electricity or water.

ESCHATOLOGY (Gr. ἔσχατος, last, and λόγος, science; the “doctrine of last things”), a theological term derived from the New Testament phrases “the last day” (ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, John vi. 39), “the last times” (ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτων τῶν χρόνων, 1 Peter i. 20), “the last-state” (τὰ ἔσχατα, Matt. xii. 45), a conception taken over from ancient prophecy (Is. ii. 2; Mal. iv. 1). It was the common belief in the apostolic age that the second advent of Christ was near, and would give the divine completion to the world’s history. The use of the term, however, has been extended so as to include all that is taught in the Scriptures about the future life of the individual as well as the final destiny of the world. The reasons for the belief in a life after death are discussed in the article Immortality. The present article, after a brief glance at the conceptions of the future of the individual or the world found in other religions, will deal with the teaching of the Old and New Testaments, the Jewish and the Christian Church regarding the hereafter.

There is a bewildering variety in the views of the future life and world held by different peoples. The future life may be conceived as simply a continuation of the present life in its essential features, although under conditions more or less favourable. It may also be thought of as retributive, as a reversal of present conditions so that the miserable are comforted, and the prosperous laid low, or as a reward or punishment for good or evil desert here. Personal identity may be absorbed, as in the transmigration of souls, or it may even be denied, while the good or bad result of one life is held to determine the weal or woe of another. The scene of the future life may be thought of on earth, in some distant part of it, or above the earth, in the sky, sun, moon or stars, or beneath the earth. The abodes of bliss and the places of torment may be distinguished, or one last dwelling-place may be affirmed for all the dead. Sometimes the good find their abiding home with the gods; sometimes a number of heavens of varying degrees of blessedness is recognized (see F.B. Jevons, An Introduction to the History of Religion, chs. xxi. and xxii., 1902; and J.A. MacCulloch’s Comparative Theology, xiv., 1902).

(1) Confucius, though unwilling to discuss any questions concerning the dead, by approving ancestor-worship recognized a future life. (2) Taoism promises immortality as the reward of merit. (3) The Book of the Dead—a guide-book for the departed on his long journey in the unseen world to the abode of the blessed—shows the attention the Egyptian religion gave to the state of the dead. (4) Although the Babylonian religion presents a very gloomy view of the world of the dead, it is not without a few faint glimpses of a hope that a few mortals at least may gain deliverance from the dread doom. (5) A characteristic feature of Indian thought is the transmigration of the soul from one mode of life to another, the physical condition of each being determined by the moral and religious character of the preceding. But deliverance from this cycle of existences, which is conceived as misery, is promised by means of speculation and asceticism. Denying the continuance of the soul, Buddhism affirmed a continuity of moral consequences (Karma), each successive life being determined by the total moral result of the preceding life. Its doctrine of salvation was a guide to, if not absolute non-existence, yet cessation of all consciousness of existence (Nirvana). Later Buddhism has, however, a doctrine of many heavens and hells. (6) In Zoroastrianism not only was continuance of life recognized, but a strict retribution was taught. Heaven and hell were very clearly distinguished, and each soul according to its works passed to the one or to the other. But this faith did not concern itself only with the future lot of the individual soul. It was also interested in the close of the world’s history, and taught a decisive, final victory of Ormuzd over Ahriman, of the forces of good over the forces of evil. It is not at all improbable that Jewish eschatology in its later developments was powerfully influenced by the Persian faith. (7) Mahommedanism reproduces and exaggerates the lower features of popular Jewish and Christian eschatology (see the separate articles on these religions).

In the Old Testament we can trace the gradual development of an ever more definite doctrine of “the final condition of man and the world.” This is regarded as the last stage in a moral process, a redemptive purpose of God. The eschatology of the Old Testament is thus closely connected with, but not limited by, Messianic hope, as there are eschatological teachings that are not Messianic. As the Old Testament revelation is concerned primarily with the elect nation, and only secondarily (in the later writings) with the individual persons composing it, we follow the order of importance as well as of time in dealing first with the people. The universalism which marks the promise to the seed of the woman (Gen. iii. 15) appears also in the blessing of Noah (ix. 25). In the promise to Abraham (xii. 3) this universal good is directly related to God’s particular purpose for His chosen people; so also in the blessing of Jacob (xlix.) and of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.). David’s last words (2 Sam. xxiii.) blend together his desire that his family should retain the kingship, and his aspiration for a kingdom of righteousness on earth. The conception of the “Day of the Lord” is frequent and prominent in the prophets, and the sense given to the phrase by the people and by the prophets throws into bold relief the contrast between popular beliefs and the prophetic faith. The people simply expected deliverance from their miseries and burdens by the intervention of Yahweh, because He had chosen Israel for His people. The prophets had an ethical conception of Yahweh; the sin of His own people and of other nations called for His intervention in judgment as the moral ruler of the world. But judgment they conceived as preparing for redemption. The day of the Lord is always an eschatological conception, as the term is applied to the final and universal judgment, and not to any less decisive intervention of God in the course of human history. In the pre-exilic prophets the judgment of God is “primarily on Israel, although it also embraces the nations”; during the Exile and at the Restoration the judgment is represented as falling on the nations while redemption is being wrought for God’s people; after the Restoration the people of God is again threatened, but still the warning of judgment is mainly directed towards the nations and deliverance is promised to Israel. As the manifestation of God in grace as well as judgment, the day of the Lord will bring joy to Israel and even to the world. As a day of judgment it is accompanied by terrible convulsions of nature (not to be taken figuratively, but probably intended literally by the prophets in accordance with their view of the absolute subordination of nature to the divine purpose for man). It ushers in the Messianic age. While the moral issues are finally determined by this day, yet the world of the Messianic age is painted with the colours of the prophet’s own surroundings. Israel is restored to its own land, and to it the other nations are brought into subjugation, by force or persuasion. The contributions of the Old Testament to Christian eschatology embrace these features: “(1) The manifestation or advent of God; (2) the universal judgment; (3) behind the judgment the coming of the perfect kingdom of the Lord, when all Israel shall be saved and when the nations shall be partakers of their salvation; and (4) the finality and eternity of this condition, that which constitutes the blessedness of the saved people being the Presence of God in the midst of them—this last point corresponding to the Christian idea of heaven” (A.B. Davidson, in Hastings’s Bible Dictionary, i. p. 738). This hope is for the people on this earth though transfigured.

To the individual it would seem at first only old age is promised (Is. lxv. 20; Zech. viii. 4), but the abolition of death itself is also declared (Is. xxv. 8). The resurrection, which appears at first as a revival of the dead nation (Hos. vi. 2; Ez. xxxvii. 12-14), is afterwards promised for the pious individuals (Is. xxvi. 19), so that they too may share in the national restoration. Only in Daniel xii. 2 is taught a resurrection of the wicked “to shame and everlasting contempt” as well as of the righteous to “everlasting life.” It was only at the Exile, when the nation ceased to be, that the worth of the individual came to be recognized, and the hopes given to the nation were claimed for the individual. In dealing with the individual eschatology we must carefully distinguish the popular ideas regarding death and the hereafter which Israel shared with the other Semitic peoples, from the intuitions, inferences, aspirations evoked in the pious by the divine revelation itself. The former have not the moral significance or the religious value of the latter. The starting-point of the development was the common belief that the dead continued to exist in an unsubstantial mode of life, but cut off from fellowship with God and man; but faith left this far behind. Sheol is the common abode of the righteous and the ungodly: life there is shadowy and feeble, but seems to continue in a wavering and dim reflection features of this life. As the present life is, however, determined by moral issues, and as death does not change man’s relation to God, moral considerations could not be absolutely excluded from the future life. A forward step had to be taken. Pious men, in fellowship with God, when they faced the fact of death, were led either to challenge its right, or to give a new meaning to it. Either there was a protest against death itself, and a demand for immortality (Ps. xvi. 9-11), or death was conceived as something different for the saint and for the sinner; fellowship with God would not and could not be interrupted (Ps. xlix. 14, 15, lxxiii. 17-28). The vision of God is anticipated after death’s sleep (Ps. xvii. 15; Job xix. 25-27). This belief in individual immortality is expressed poetically and obscurely: it is later than the eschatology of the people. It assumes the moral distinction of the righteous and the ungodly, and seeks a solution for the problem of the lack of harmony of present character and condition. Its deepest motive, however, is religious. The soul once in fellowship with God cannot even by death be separated from God. The individual hoped that he would live to share the nation’s good, and thus the two streams of Old Testament eschatology at last flow together.

It is in the apocryphal and apocalyptic literature of Judaism that the fullest development of eschatology can be traced. Four words may serve to express the difference of the doctrine of these writings and the teaching of the Old Testament. Eschatology was universalized (God was recognized as the creator and moral governor of all the world), individualized (God’s judgment was directed, not to nations in a future age, but to individuals in a future life), transcendentalized (the future age was more and more contrasted with the present, and the transition from the one to the other was not expected as the result of historical movements, but of miraculous divine acts), and dogmatized (the attempt was made to systematize in some measure the vague and varied prophetic anticipations). Only a very brief summary of the conceptions current in these writings can be given. The coming of the Messiah will be preceded by the Last Woes. The Messiah is very variously conceived: (1) “a passive, though supreme member of the Messianic Kingdom”; (2) “an active warrior who slays his enemies with his own hand”; (3) “one who slays his enemies by the word of his mouth, and rules by virtue of his justice, faith and holiness”; (4) a supernatural person, “eternal Ruler and Judge of Mankind” (R.H. Charles in Hastings’s Bible Dictionary, i. p. 748). In some of the writings no Messianic kingdom is looked for; in others only a temporal duration on earth is assigned to it; in others still it abides for ever either on earth as it is, or on earth transformed. The dispersion among the nations is to return home. Sometimes the Resurrection is narrowed down to the resurrection of the righteous, at others widened out to the resurrection of all mankind for the last judgment. A blessed immortality after judgment, or even after death itself, is sometimes taught without reference to any resurrection. Retribution in human history is recognized, but attention is specially concentrated on the final judgment, which is usually conceived as taking place in two stages. (1) The Messianic is executed by the Messiah or the saints by victory in war, or by judicial sentence. (2) The final remains in God’s hands; but in one writing (the Ethiopic Enoch) is represented as Messiah’s function. This judgment either closes the Messianic age, if thought of as temporal, or ushers it in, if conceived as eternal, or closes the world’s history, if no Messianic age is expected. The place of torment for the wicked was called Gehenna (the valley of Hinnom or the Sons of Hinnom, where the bodies of criminals were cast out, is described in Is. lxvi. 24). Here corporal as well as spiritual punishment was endured; it was inflicted on apostate Jews or the wicked generally; the righteous witnessed its initial stages but not its final form. In later Judaism it was the purgatory of faithless Jews, who at last reached Paradise, but it remained the place of eternal torment for the Gentiles. Paradise was sometimes regarded as the division of Sheol to which the righteous passed after death, but at others it was conceived as the heavenly abode of Moses, Enoch and Elijah, to which other saints would pass after the last judgment.

The eschatology of the New Testament attaches itself not only to that of the Old Testament but also to that of contemporary Judaism, but it avoids the extravagances of the latter. Not at all systematic, it is occasional, practical, poetical and dominantly evangelical, laying stress on the hope of the righteous rather than the doom of the wicked. The teaching of Jesus centres, according to the Synoptists, in the great idea of the “Kingdom of God,” which is already present in the teacher Himself, but also future as regards its completion. In some parables a gradual realization of the kingdom is indicated (Matt. xiii.); in other utterances its consummation is connected with Christ’s own return, His Parousia (Matt. xxiv. 3, 37, 39), the time of which, however, is unknown even to Himself (Mark xiii. 32). In this eschatological discourse (Matt. xxiv., xxv.) He speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world as near, and seemingly as one. This is in accordance with the characteristic of prophecy, which sees in “timeless sequence” events which are historically separated from one another. While the Return is represented in the Synoptists as an external event, it is conceived in the fourth gospel as an internal experience in the operation of the Spirit on the believer (John xiv. 16-21); nevertheless here also the Parousia in the synoptic sense is looked for (John xxi. 22; cf. 1 John ii. 28). The object of the Second Coming is the execution of judgment by Christ (Matt. xxv. 31), both individual (xxii. 1-14) and universal (xiii. 36-42). The present subjective judgment, in which men determine their destiny by their attitude to Christ, on which the fourth gospel lays stress (John iii. 17-21, ix. 39), is not inconsistent with the anticipation of a final judgment (John xii. 48, v. 27). This judgment presupposes the resurrection, belief in which was rejected by the Sadducees, but accepted by the Pharisees and the majority of the Jewish people, and confirmed by Christ, not only as an individual spiritual renovation (John v. 25, 26), but as a universal physical resuscitation (28 and 29; Matt. xxii. 30). This resurrection is of the unjust as well as the just (Matt. v. 29, 30, x. 28; Luke xiv. 14). On the Intermediate State Jesus does not speak clearly. He uses the term Hades twice metaphorically (Matt. xi. 23, xvi. 18), and once in a parable, the “Rich Man and Lazarus” (Luke xvi. 23), in which he employs the current phrases such as “Abraham’s bosom” (verse 22), without any definite doctrinal intention, to unveil the secrets of the hereafter by confirming with His authority the common beliefs of His time. The term Paradise (Luke xxiii. 43) seems to be used “in a large and general sense as a word of hope and comfort,” and we need not attach to it any of the more definite associations which it had in Jewish eschatology. When he speaks of death as “sleep” (Luke viii. 52; John xi. 11) it is to give men gentler and sweeter thoughts of it, not to inculcate the doctrine of an intermediate state as an unconscious condition. There are words which suggest rather the hope of an immediate entrance of the just into the Father’s house and glory (John xiv. 2, 3, xvii. 24). He spoke frequently and distinctly both of final reward for the righteous and final penalty for the wicked. “The recompense of the righteous is described as an inheritance, entrance into the kingdom, treasure in heaven, an existence like the angelic, a place prepared, the Father’s house, the joy of the Lord, life, eternal life and the like; and there is no intimation that the reward is capable of change, that the condition is a terminable one. The retribution of the wicked is described as death, outer darkness, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, the undying worm, the quenchless fire, exclusion from the kingdom, eternal punishment and the like” (S.D.J. Salmond in Hastings’s Bible Dictionary, p. 752). Degrees of award are recognized (Luke xii. 47, 48). Gehenna is applied to the condition of the lost (Matt. xviii. 9). Two sayings are held to point to a terminable penalty (Matt. v. 25, 26, xii. 31, 32), but the one is so figurative and the other so obscure, that we are not warranted in drawing any such definite conclusion from either of them. The finality of destiny seems to be unmistakably expressed (Matt. vii. 23, x. 33, xiii. 30, xxv. 46, xxvi. 24; Mark ix. 43-48, viii. 36; Luke ix. 26; John iii. 16, viii. 21, 24). No second opportunity for deciding the issue of life or death is recognized by Jesus.

The apostolic eschatology presents resemblance amid difference. Jude (v. 6), as well as 2 Peter (ii. 4), refers to the judgment of the fallen angels. 2 Peter describes the place of their detention as Tartarus, and teaches that Christ’s Parousia is to bring the whole present system of things to its conclusion, and the world itself to an end (iii. 10, 13). After the destruction of the existing order by fire, “a new heaven and a new earth” will appear as the abode of righteousness. The question of greatest interest in 1 Peter is the relation of two passages in it, the preaching to the spirits in prison (iii. 18-22) and the preaching of the Gospel to the dead (iv. 6) to the “larger hope.” Peter’s discourse also contains a phrase which suggests the belief of a descent of Christ into Hades in the interval between His death and His resurrection (Acts ii. 31). No certainty has been reached in the interpretation of these passages, but they may suggest to the Christian mind the expectation that the final destiny of no soul can be fixed until in some way or other, in this life or the next, the opportunity of decision for or against Christ has been given. The phrase “the times of restoration of all things” (iii. 21) is too vague in itself, and is too isolated in its context to warrant the dogmatic teaching of universalism, although there are other passages which seem to point towards the same goal. While John’s Apocalypse is distinctly eschatological, the Epistles and the Gospels often give these conceptions an ethical and spiritual import, without, however, excluding the eschatological. Life is present while eternal (1 John v. 12, 13), but it is also future (ii. 25). There is expected a future manifestation of Christ as He is, and what the believer himself will be does not yet appear (iii. 2). The writer speaks of the last hour (ii. 18), the Antichrist that cometh (ii. 22, iv. 3), and the Christian’s full reward (2 John v. 8) as well as the Parousia (1 John ii. 28). The Apocalypse reproduces much of the current Jewish eschatology. A millennial reign of Christ on earth is interposed between the first resurrection, confined to the saints and especially the martyrs, and the second resurrection for the rest of the dead. A final outburst of Satan’s power is followed by his overthrow and the Last Judgment.

Although Paul sometimes describes the Kingdom of God as present (Rom. xiv. 17; 1 Cor. iv. 20; Col. i. 13), it is usually represented as future. The Parousia fills a large place in his thought, and, if more prominent in his earlier writings, is not altogether absent from his later, although the expectation of personal survival does seem to grow less confident (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 51 and Phil. i. 20-24). The doctrines of the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, the Reward of the Righteous and the Punishment of the Wicked are not less distinctly expressed than in the other apostolic writings. Peculiar elements in Paul’s eschatology are the doctrines of the Rapture of the Saints (1 Thess. iv. 17) and the Man of Sin (2 Thess. ii. 3-6), but these have affinities elsewhere. A reference to the millennial reign of Christ in the period between the two resurrections is sometimes sought in 1 Cor. xv. 22-24; but it is not a chronology of the last things Paul is here giving. So also a justification for the doctrine of purgatory is sought in iii. 12-15; but the day and the fire are of the last judgment. A descent of Christ into Hades, implying an extension of the opportunity of grace such as is supposed to be taught in 1 Peter, is also discovered in the obscure statements in Rom. x. 7 (where Paul is freely quoting Deut. xxx. 11-14), and Eph. iv. 10 (where he is commenting on Ps. lxviii. 18). Universal restoration is inferred from 1 Cor. xv. 24-28, “God all in all,” Phil. ii. 10-11, every knee bowing to, and every tongue confessing Jesus Christ, Eph. i. 9, 10, the summing up of all things in Christ, Col. i. 20, God reconciling all things unto Himself in Christ. These passages inspire a hope, but do not sustain a certainty. Paul’s shrinking from the disembodied state and longing to be clothed upon at death in 2 Cor. v. 1-8, cannot be regarded as a proof of an interim body prior to and preparatory for the resurrection body. Paul links the human resurrection with a universal renovation (Rom. viii. 19-23). Paul’s eschatology is not free of obscurities and ambiguities; and in the New Testament eschatology generally we are forced to recognize a mixture of inherited Jewish and original Christian elements (see Antichrist).

During the first century of the existence of the Gentile Christian Church, “the hope of the approaching end of the world and the glorious kingdom of Christ” was dominant, although warnings had to be given against doubt and indifference. Redemption was thought of as still future, as the power of the devil had not been broken but rather increased by the First Advent, and the Second Advent was necessary to his complete overthrow. The expectations were often grossly materialistic, as is evidenced by Papias’s quotation as the words of the Lord of a group of sayings from the Apocalypse of Baruch, setting forth the amazing fruitfulness of the earth in the Messianic time.

The Gnostics rejected this eschatology as in their view the enlightened spirit already possessed immortality. Marcion expected that the Church would be assailed by Antichrist; a visible return of Christ he did not teach, but he recognized that human history would issue in a separation of the good from the bad. Montanism sought to form a new Christian commonwealth which, separated from the world, should prepare itself for the descent of the Jerusalem from above, and its establishment in the spot which by the direction of the Spirit had been chosen in Phrygia. While Irenaeus held fast the traditional eschatological beliefs, yet his conception of the Christian salvation as a deification of man tended to weaken their hold on Christian thought. The Alogi in the 2nd century rejected the Apocalypse on account of its chiliasm, its teaching of a visible reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years. Montanism also brought these apocalyptic expectations into discredit in orthodox ecclesiastical circles. The Alexandrian theology strengthened this movement against chiliasm. Clement of Alexandria taught that justice is not merely retributive, that punishment is remedial, that probation continues after death till the final judgment, that Christ and the apostles preached the Gospel in Hades to those who lacked knowledge, but whose heart was right, that a spiritual body will be raised. Origen taught that a germ of the spiritual body is in the present body, and its development depends on the character, that perfect bliss is reached only by stages, that the evil are purified by pain, conscience being symbolized by fire, and that all, even the devil himself, will at last be saved. Both regarded chiliasm with aversion. But in the 5th century there were rejected as heretical (1) “the doctrine of universalism, and the possibility of the redemption of the devil; (2) the doctrine of the complete annihilation of evil; (3) the conception of the penalties of hell as tortures of conscience; (4) the spiritualizing version of the resurrection of the body; (5) the idea of the continued creation of new worlds” (A. Harnack, History of Dogma, iii. p. 186).

Epiphanius, following Methodius, insisted on the most perfect identity between the resurrection body and the material body; and this belief, enforced in the West by Jerome, soon established itself as alone orthodox. Augustine made experiments on the flesh of a peacock in order to find physical evidence for the doctrine. He held fast to eternal punishment, but allowed the possibility of mitigations. Some believers, he taught, may pass through purgatorial fires; and this middle class may be helped by the sacraments and the alms of the living. “There are many souls not good enough to dispense with this provision, and not bad enough to be benefited by it” (op. cit. v. 233). This doctrine was sanctioned and developed by Gregory the Great. “After God has changed eternal punishments into temporary, the justified must expiate these temporary penalties for sin in purgatory” (p. 268). This view was inferred indirectly from Matt. xii. 31, and directly from 1 Cor. iii. 12-15. Afterwards purgatory took more and more the place of hell, and was subject to the control of the church. As regards the saints, different degrees of blessedness were recognized; they were supposed to wait in Hades for the return of Christ, but gradually the belief gained ground, especially in regard to the martyrs, that their souls at once entered Paradise. The primitive Christian eschatology was preserved in the West as it was not in the East, and in times of exceptional distress the expectation of Antichrist emerged again and again. In the middle ages there was an extravagance of speculation on this subject, which may be seen in the last division of Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. He proposes thirty questions on these matters, among which are the following: “whether souls are conducted to heaven or hell immediately after death”; “whether the limbus of hell is the same as Abraham’s bosom”; “whether the sun and moon will be really obscured at the day of judgment”; “whether all the members of the human body will rise with it”; “whether the hair and nails will reappear”; could thought become “more lawless and uncertain”?

While rejecting purgatory, Protestantism took over this eschatology. Souls passed at once to heaven or to hell; a doctrine even less adequate to the complex quality of human life. Luther himself looked for the passing away of the present evil world. Socinianism taught a new spiritual body, an intermediate state in which the soul is near non-existence, an annihilation of the wicked, as immortality is the gift of God. Swedenborg discards a physical resurrection, as at death the eyes of men are opened to the spiritual world in which we exist now, and they continue to live essentially as they lived here, until by their affinities they are drawn to heaven or hell. The doctrine of eternal punishment has been opposed on many grounds, such as the disproportion between the offence and the penalty, the moral and religious immaturity of the majority of men at death, the diminution of the happiness of heaven involved in the knowledge of the endless suffering of others (Schleiermacher), the defeat of the divine purpose of righteousness and grace that the continued antagonism of any of God’s creatures would imply, the dissatisfaction God as Father must feel until His whole family is restored. It has been argued that the term “eternal” has reference not to duration of time but quality of being (Maurice); but it does seem certain that the writers in the Holy Scriptures who used it did not foresee an end either to the life or to the death to which they applied the term. The contention should not be based on the meaning of a single word, but on such broader considerations as have been indicated above. The doctrine of conditional immortality taught by Socinianism was accepted by Archbishop Whately, and has been most persistently advocated by Edward White, who “maintains that immortality is a truth, not of reason, but of revelation, a gift of God” bestowed only on believers in Christ; but he admits a continued probation after death for such as have not hardened their hearts by a rejection of Christ. According to Albrecht Ritschl “the wrath of God means the resolve of God to annihilate those men who finally oppose themselves to redemption, and the final purpose of the kingdom of God.” He thus makes immortality conditional on inclusion in the kingdom of God. The doctrine of universal restoration was maintained by Thomas Erskine of Linlathen on the ground of the Fatherhood of God, and Archdeacon Wilson anticipates such discipline after death as will restore all souls to God. C.I. Nitzsch argues against the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked, regards the teaching of Scripture about eternal damnation as hypothetical, and thinks it possible that Paul reached the hope of universal restoration. I.A. Dorner maintains that hopeless perdition can be the penalty only of the deliberate rejection of the Gospel, that those who have not had the opportunity of choice fairly and fully in this life will get it hereafter, but that the right choice will in all cases be made we cannot be confident. The attitude of theologians generally regarding individual destiny is well expressed by Dr James Orr, “The conclusion I arrive at is that we have not the elements of a complete solution, and we ought not to attempt it. What visions beyond there may be, what larger hopes, what ultimate harmonies, if such there are in store, will come in God’s good time; it is not for us to anticipate them, or lift the veil where God has left it down” (The Christian View of God and the World, 1893, p. 397).

Although in recent theological thought attention has been mainly directed to individual destiny, yet the other elements of Christian eschatology must not be altogether passed over. History has offered the authoritative commentary on the prophecy of the Parousia of Christ. The presence and power of His Spirit, the spread of His Gospel, the progress of His kingdom have been as much a fulfilment of the eschatological teaching of the New Testament as His life and work on earth were a fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, for fulfilment always transcends prophecy. Even if the common beliefs of the apostolic age have not modified the evangelist’s reports of Jesus’ teaching, it must be remembered that He used the common prophetic phraseology, the literal fulfilment of which is not to be looked for. Some parables (the leaven, the mustard seed) suggest a gradual progressive realization of His kingdom. The Fourth Gospel interprets both judgment and resurrection spiritually. Accordingly the general resurrection and the last judgment may be regarded as the temporal and local forms of thought to express the universal permanent truths that life survives death in the completeness of its necessary organs and essential functions, and that the character of that continued life is determined by personal choice of submission or antagonism to God’s purpose of grace in Christ, the perfect realization of which is the Christian’s hope for himself, mankind and the world.

Bibliography.—In addition to the works referred to above the following will be found useful: S.D.F. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality (4th ed., 1901); R.H. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity (1899); L.N. Dahle, Life after Death and the Future of the Kingdom of God (Eng. tr. by J. Beveridge, 1895); J.A. Beet, The Last Things (new ed., 1905); W.G.T. Shedd, Doctrine of Endless Punishment (New York, 1886); F.W. Farrar, The Eternal Hope (1892); E. Pétavel, The Problem of Immortality (Eng. tr. by F.A. Freer, 1892); E. White, Life in Christ (3rd ed., 1878); also the relevant sections in books on biblical and systematic theology.

(A. E. G.*)

ESCHEAT (O. Fr. eschete, from escheoir, to fall to one’s share; Lat. excidere, to fall out), in English law, the reversion of lands to the next lord on the failure of heirs of the tenant. “When the tenant of an estate in fee simple dies without having alienated his estate in his lifetime or by his will, and without leaving any heirs either lineal or collateral, the lands in which he held his estate escheat, as it is called, to the lord of whom he held them” (Williams on the Law of Real Property). This rule is explained by the conception of a freehold estate as an interest in lands held by the freeholder from some lord, the king being lord paramount. (See Estate.) The granter retains an interest in the land similar to that of the donor of an estate for life, to whom the land reverts after the life estate is ended. As there are now few freehold estates traceable to any mesne or intermediate lord, escheats, when they do occur, fall to the king as lord paramount. Besides escheat for defect of heirs, there was formerly also escheat propter delictum tenentis, or by the corruption of the blood of the tenant through attainder consequent on conviction and sentence for treason or felony. The blood of the tenant becoming corrupt by attainder was decreed no longer inheritable, and the effect was the same as if the tenant had died without heirs. The land, therefore, escheated to the next heir, subject to the superior right of the crown to the forfeiture of the lands,—in the case of treason for ever, in the case of felony for a year and a day. All this was abolished by the Felony Act 1870, which provided for the appointment of an administrator to the property of the convict. Escheat is also an incident of copyhold tenure. Trust estates were not subject to escheat until the Intestates’ Estates Act 1884, but now by that act the law of escheat applies in the same manner as if the estate or interest were a legal estate in corporeal hereditaments.

ESCHENBURG, JOHANN JOACHIM (1743-1820), German critic and literary historian, was born at Hamburg on the 7th of December 1743. After receiving his early education in his native town, he studied at Leipzig and Göttingen. In 1767 he was appointed tutor, and subsequently professor, at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick. The title of “Hofrat” was conferred on him in 1786, and in 1814 he was made one of the directors of the Carolinum. He is best known by his efforts to familiarize his countrymen with English literature. He published a series of German translations of the principal English writers on aesthetics, such as J. Brown, D. Webb, Charles Burney, Joseph Priestley and R. Hurd; and Germany owes also to him the first complete translation (in prose) of Shakespeare’s plays (William Shakespear’s Schauspiele, 13 vols., Zürich, 1775-1782). This is virtually a revised edition of the incomplete translation published by Wieland between 1762 and 1766. Eschenburg died at Brunswick on the 29th of February 1820.

Besides editing, with memoirs, the works of Hagedorn, Zachariä and other German poets, he was the author of a Handbuch der klassischen Literatur (1783); Entwurf einer Theorie und Literatur der schönen Wissenschaften (1783); Beispielsammlung zur Theorie und Literatur der schönen Wissenschaften (8 vols., 1788-1795); Lehrbuch der Wissenschaftskunde (1792); and Denkmäler altdeutscher Dichtkunst (1799). Most of these works have passed through several editions. Eschenburg was also a poet of some pretensions, and some of his religious hymns, e.g. Ich will dich noch im Tod erheben and Dir trau’ ich, Gott, und wanke nicht, are contained in many hymnals to this day.

ESCHENMAYER, ADAM KARL AUGUST VON (1768-1852), German philosopher and physicist, was born at Neuenburg in Württemberg in July 1768. After receiving his early education at the Caroline academy of Stuttgart, he entered the university of Tübingen, where he received the degree of doctor of medicine. He practised for some time as a physician at Sulz, and then at Kirchheim, and in 1811 he was chosen extraordinary professor of philosophy and medicine at Tübingen. In 1818 he became ordinary professor of practical philosophy, but in 1836 he resigned and took up his residence at Kirchheim, where he devoted his whole attention to philosophical studies. Eschenmayer’s views are largely identical with those of Schelling, but he differed from him in regard to the knowledge of the absolute. He believed that in order to complete the arc of truth philosophy must be supplemented by what he called “non-philosophy,” a kind of mystical illumination by which was obtained a belief in God that could not be reached by mere intellectual effort (see Höffding, Hist. of Mod. Phil., Eng. trans. vol. 2, p. 170). He carried this tendency to mysticism into his physical researches, and was led by it to take a deep interest in the phenomena of animal magnetism. He ultimately became a devout believer in demoniacal and spiritual possession; and his later writings are all strongly impregnated with the lower supernaturalism.

His principal works are—Die Philosophie in ihrem Übergange zur Nichtphilosophie (1803); Versuch die scheinbare Magie des thierischen Magnetismus aus physiol. und psychischen Gesetzen zu erklären (1816); System der Moralphilosophie (1818); Psychologie in drei Theilen, als empirische, reine, angewandte (1817, 2nd ed. 1822); Religionsphilosophie (3 vols., 1818-1824); Die Hegel’sche Religionsphilosophie verglichen mit dem christl. Princip (1834); Der Ischariotismus unserer Tage (1835) (directed against Strauss’s Life of Jesus); Konflikt zwischen Himmel und Hölle, an dem Dämon eines besessenen Mädchens beobachtet (1837); Grundriss der Naturphilosophie (1832); Grundzüge der christl. Philosophie (1840); and Betrachtungen über den physischen Weltbau (1852).

ESCHER VON DER LINTH, ARNOLD (1807-1872), Swiss geologist, the son of Hans Conrad Escher (1767-1823), was born at Zürich on the 8th of June 1807. In 1856 he became professor of geology at the École Polytechnique at Zürich. His researches led him to be regarded as one of the founders of Swiss geology. With B. Studer he produced (1852-1853) the first elaborate geological map of Switzerland. He was the author also of Geologische Bemerkungen über das nördliche Vorarlberg und einige angrenzenden Gegenden, published at Zürich in 1853. He died on the 12th of July 1872.

ESCHSCHOLTZ, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1793-1831), Russian traveller and naturalist, was born in November 1793, at Dorpat, where he died in May 1831. He was naturalist and physician to Otto von Kotzebue’s exploring expedition during 1815-1818. On his return he was appointed extraordinary professor of anatomy (1819) and director of the zoological museum of the university at Dorpat (1822), and in 1823-1826 he accompanied Kotzebue on his second voyage of discovery. He became ordinary professor of anatomy at Dorpat in 1828. Among his publications were the System der Akalephen (1829), and the Zoologischer Atlas (1829-1833). The botanical genus Eschscholtzia was named by Adelbert von Chamisso in his honour.

ESCHWEGE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on the Werra, and the railway Treysa-Leinefelde, 28 m. S.E. of Cassel. Pop. (1905) 11,113. It consists of the old town on the left, the new town on the right, bank of the Werra, and Brückenhausen on a small island connected with the old and new town by bridges. It is a thriving manufacturing town, its chief industries being leather-making, yarn-spinning, cotton- and linen-weaving, the manufactures of cigars, brushes, liquors and oil, and glue- and soap-boiling. It has two ancient buildings, the Nikolai-turm, built in 1455, and the old castle. After being part of Thuringia, Eschwege passed to Hesse in 1263. It was recovered by the landgrave of Thuringia in 1388, but soon reverted to Hesse, and it became the residence of one of the branches of the Hessian royal house, a branch which died out in 1655.

ESCHWEILER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the Inde, and the railways Cologne-Herbesthal and Munich-Gladbach-Stolberg, about 8 m. E.N.E. from Aix-la-Chapelle. Pop. (1905) 20,643. The town has an Evangelical and four Roman Catholic churches, a gymnasium and an orphanage. The manufacture of iron and steel goods is carried on; other industries include the manufacture of zinc wares, tanning, distilling and brewing. In the neighbourhood there are valuable coal mines.

See Koch, Geschichte der Stadt Eschweiler (Frankfort, 1890).

ESCOBAR Y MENDOZA, ANTONIO (1589-1669), Spanish churchman of illustrious descent, was born at Valladolid in 1589. He was educated by the Jesuits, and at the age of fifteen took the habit of that order. He soon became a famous preacher, and his facility was so great that for fifty years he preached daily, and sometimes twice a day. In addition he was a voluminous writer, and his works fill eighty-three volumes. His first literary efforts were Latin verses in praise of Ignatius Loyola (1613) and the Virgin Mary (1618); but he is best known as a writer on casuistry. His principal works belong to the fields of exegesis and moral theology. Of the latter the best known are Summula casuum conscientiae (1627); Liber theologiae moralis (1644), and Universae theologiae moralis problemata (1652-1666). The first mentioned of these was severely criticised by Pascal in the fifth and sixth of his Provincial Letters, as tending to inculcate a loose system of morality. It contains the famous maxim that purity of intention may be a justification of actions which are contrary to the moral code and to human laws; and its general tendency is to find excuses for the majority of human frailties. His doctrines were disapproved of by many Catholics, and were mildly condemned by Rome. They were also ridiculed in witty verses by Molière, Boileau and La Fontaine, and gradually the name Escobar came to be used in France as a synonym for a person who is adroit in making the rules of morality harmonize with his own interests. Escobar himself is said to have been simple in his habits, a strict observer of the rules of his order, and unweariedly zealous in his efforts to reform the lives of those with whom he had to deal. It has been said of him that “he purchased heaven dearly for himself, but gave it away cheap to others.” He died on the 4th of July 1669.

ESCOIQUIZ, JUAN (1762-1820), Spanish ecclesiastic, politician and writer, was born in Navarre in 1762. His father was a general officer and he began life as a page in the court of King Charles III. He entered the church and was provided for by a prebend at Saragossa. Godoy in his memoirs asserts that Escoiquiz sought to gain his favour by flattery. There is every reason to believe that this is an accurate statement of the case. The mere fact that he was selected to be the tutor of the heir-apparent, Ferdinand, afterwards King Ferdinand VII., is of itself a proof that he exerted himself to gain the goodwill of the reigning favourite. In 1797 he published a translation of Young’s Night Thoughts, which does not of itself show that he was well acquainted with English, for the version may have been made with the help of the French. In 1798 he published a long and worthless so-called epic on the conquest of Mexico. Escoiquiz was in fact a busy and pushing member of the literary clique which looked up to Godoy as its patron. But his position as tutor to the heir to the throne excited his ambition. He began to hope that he might play the part of those court ecclesiastics who had often had an active share in the government of Spain. As Ferdinand grew up, and after his marriage with a Neapolitan princess, he became the centre of a court opposition to Godoy and to his policy of alliance with France. Escoiquiz was the brains, as far as there were any brains, of the intrigue. His activity was so notorious that he was exiled from court, but was consoled by a canonry at Toledo. This half measure was as ineffective as was to have been expected. Escoiquiz continued to be in constant communication with the prince. Toledo is close to Madrid, and the correspondence was easily maintained. He had a large share in the conspiracy of the Escorial which was detected on the 28th of October 1807. He was imprisoned and sent for trial with other conspirators. But as they had appealed to Napoleon, who would not suffer his name to be mentioned, the government had to allow the matter to be hushed up, and the prisoners were acquitted. After the outbreak at Aranjuez on the 17th of March 1808, in which he had a share, he became one of the most trusted advisers of Ferdinand. The new king’s decision to go to meet Napoleon at Bayonne was largely inspired by him. In 1814 Escoiquiz published at Madrid his Idea Sencilla de las razones que motivaron el viage del Rey Fernando VII. à Bayona (Honest representation of the causes which inspired the journey of King Ferdinand VII. to Bayonne). It is a valuable historical document, and contains a singularly vivid account of an interview with Napoleon. Escoiquiz was far too firmly convinced of his ingenuity and merits to conceal the delusions and follies of himself and his associates. He displays his own vanity, frivolity and futile cleverness with much unconscious humour, but, it is only fair to allow, with some literary dexterity. When the Spanish royal family was imprisoned by Napoleon, Escoiquiz remained with Ferdinand at Valençay. In 1813 he published at Bourges a translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. When Ferdinand was released in 1814 he came back to Madrid in the hope that his ambition would now be satisfied, but the king was tired of him, and was moreover resolved never to be subjected by any favourite. After a very brief period of office in 1815 he was sent as a prisoner to Murcia. Though he was afterwards recalled, he was again exiled to Ronda, where he died on the 27th of November 1820.

ESCOMBE, HARRY (1838-1899), South African statesman, a member of a Somersetshire family, was born at Notting Hill, London, on the 25th of July 1838, and was educated at St Paul’s school. After four years in a stockbroker’s office, he emigrated, in 1859, to the Cape. The following year he moved to Natal, and, after trying other occupations, qualified as an attorney. He became recognized as the ablest pleader in the colony, and, in 1872, was elected for Durban as a member of the legislative council, and subsequently was also placed on the executive council. In 1880 he secured the appointment of a harbour board for Natal, and was himself made chairman. The transformation of the port of Durban into a harbour available for ocean liners was due entirely to his energy. In 1888-1889 he defended Dinizulu and other Zulu chiefs against a charge of high treason. For several years he opposed the grant of responsible government to Natal, but by 1890 had become convinced of its desirability, and on its conferment in 1893 he joined the first ministry formed, serving under Sir John Robinson as attorney-general. In February 1897, on Sir John’s retirement, Escombe became premier, remaining attorney-general and also holding the office of minister of education and minister of defence. In the summer of that year he was in London with the other colonial premiers at the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and was made a member of the privy council. Cambridge University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. The election that followed his return to Natal proved unfavourable to his policy, and he resigned office (October 1897). Throughout his life he took an active interest in national defence. He had served in the Zulu War of 1879, was commander of the Natal Naval Volunteers and received the volunteer long service decoration. In October 1899 he went to the northern confines of the colony to take part in preparing measures of defence against the invasion by the Boers. He died on the 27th of December 1899.

The Speeches of the late Right Hon. Harry Escombe (Maritzburg, 1903), edited by J.T. Henderson, contains brief biographical notes by Sir John Robinson and the editor.

ESCORIAL, or Escurial, in Spain, one of the most remarkable buildings in Europe, comprising at once a convent, a church, a palace and a mausoleum. The Escorial is situated 3432 ft. above the sea, on the south-western slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama, and thus within the borders of the province of Madrid and the kingdom of New Castile. By the Madrid-Ávila railway it is 31 m. N.W. of Madrid. The surrounding country is a sterile and gloomy wilderness exposed to the cold and blighting blasts of the Sierra.

According to the usual tradition, which there seems no sufficient reason to reject, the Escorial owes its existence to a vow made by Philip II. of Spain (1556-1598), shortly after the battle of St Quentin, in which his forces succeeded in routing the army of France. The day of the victory, the 10th of August 1557, was sacred to St Laurence; and accordingly the building was dedicated to that saint, and received the title of El real monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial. The last distinctive epithet was derived from the little hamlet in the vicinity which furnished shelter, not only to the workmen, but to the monks of St Jerome who were afterwards to be in possession of the monastery; and the hamlet itself is generally but perhaps erroneously supposed to be indebted for its name to the scoriae or dross of certain old iron mines. The preparation of the plans and the superintendence of the work were entrusted by the king to Juan Bautista de Toledo, a Spanish architect who had received most of his professional education in Italy. The first stone was laid in April 1563; and under the king’s personal inspection the work rapidly advanced. Abundant supplies of berroqueña, a granite-like stone, were obtained in the neighbourhood, and for rarer materials the resources of both the Old and the New World were put under contribution. The death of Toledo in 1567 threatened a fatal blow at the satisfactory completion of the enterprise, but a worthy successor was found in Juan Herrera, Toledo’s favourite pupil, who adhered in the main to his master’s designs. On the 13th of September 1584 the last stone of the masonry was laid, and the works were brought to a termination in 1593. Each successive occupant of the Spanish throne has done something, however slight, to the restoration or adornment of Philip’s convent-palace, and Ferdinand VII. (1808-1833) did so much in this way that he has been called a second founder. In all its principal features, however, the Escorial remains what it was made by the genius of Toledo and Herrera working out the grand, if abnormal, desires of their master.

The ground plan of the building is estimated to occupy an area of 396,782 sq. ft., and the total area of all the storeys would form a causeway 1 metre in breadth and 95 m. in length. There are seven towers, fifteen gateways and, according to Los Santos, no fewer than 12,000 windows and doors. The general arrangement is shown by the accompanying plan. Entering by the main entrance the visitor finds himself in an atrium, called the Court of the Kings (Patio de los reyes), from the 16th-century statues of the kings of Judah, by Juan Bautista Monegro, which adorn the façade of the church. The sides of the atrium are unfortunately occupied by plain ungainly buildings five storeys in height, awkwardly accommodating themselves to the upward slope of the ground. Of the grandeur of the church itself, however, there can be no question: it is the finest portion of the whole Escorial, and, according to Fergusson, deserves to rank as one of the great Renaissance churches of Europe. It is about 340 ft. from east to west by 200 from north to south, and thus occupies an area of about 70,000 sq. ft. The dome is 60 ft. in diameter, and its height at the centre is about 320 ft. In glaring contrast to the bold and simple forms of the architecture, which belongs to the Doric style, were the bronze and marbles and pictures of the high altar, the masterpiece of the Milanese Giacomo Trezzo, almost ruined by the French in 1808. Directly under the altar is situated the pantheon or royal mausoleum, a richly decorated octagonal chamber with upwards of twenty niches, occupied by black marble urnas or sarcophagi, kept sacred for the dust of kings or mothers of kings. There are the remains of Charles V. (1516-1556), of Philip II., and of all their successors on the Spanish throne down to Ferdinand VII., with the exception of Philip V. (1700-1746) and Ferdinand VI. (1746-1759). Several of the sarcophagi are still empty. For the other members of the royal family there is a separate vault, known as the Panteon de los Infantes, or more familiarly by the dreadfully suggestive name of El Pudridero. The most interesting room in the palace is Philip II.’s cell, from which through an opening in the wall he could see the celebration of mass while too ill to leave his bed.

Church

1. Principal entrance and portico.

2. Court of the kings (Patio de los reyes).

3. Vestibule of the church.

4. Choir of the seminarists.

5. Centre of the church and projection of the dome.

6. Greater chapel.

7. High altar.

8. Chapel of St John.

9. Chapel of St Michael.

10. Chapel of St Maurice.

11. Chapel of the Rosary.

12. Tomb of Louisa Carlota.

13. Chapel of the Patrocinio.

14. Chapel of the Cristo de la buena muerte.

15. Chapel of the Eleven Thousand Virgins.

16. Former Chapel of the Patrocinio.

17. Sacristy.

Palace

18. Principal court of the palace.

19. Ladies’ tower.

20. Court of the masks.

21. Apartments of the royal children.

22. Royal oratory.

23. Oratory where Philip II. died.

Seminary

24. Entrance to seminary.

25. Classrooms.

26. Old philosophical hall.

27. Old theological hall.

28. Chamber of secrets.

29. Old refectory.

30. Entrance to the college.

31. College yard.

Convent

32. Clock tower.

33. Principal cloister.

34. Court of the evangelists.

35. Prior’s cell.

36. Archives.

37. Old church.

38. Visitors’ hall.

39. Manuscript library.

40. Convent refectory.

The library, situated above the principal portico, was at one time one of the richest in Europe, comprising the king’s own collection, the extensive bequest of Diego de Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador to Rome, the spoils of the emperor of Morocco, Muley Zidan (1603-1628) and various contributions from convents, churches and cities. It suffered greatly in the fire of 1671, and has since been impoverished by plunder and neglect. Among its curiosities still extant are two New Testament Codices of the 10th century and two of the 11th; various works by Alphonso the Wise (1252-1284), a Virgil of the 14th century, a Koran of the 15th, &c. Of the Arabic manuscripts which it contained in the 17th century a catalogue was given in J.H. Hottinger’s Promptuarium sive bibliotheca orientalis, published at Heidelberg in 1658, and another in the 18th, in M. Casiri’s Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispanica (2 vols., Madrid, 1760-1770). Of the artistic treasures with which the Escorial was gradually enriched, it is sufficient to mention the frescoes of Peregrin or Pellagrino Tibaldi, Luis de Carbajal, Bartolommeo Carducci or Carducho, and Luca Giordano, and the pictures of Titian, Tintoretto and Velasquez. These paintings all date from the 15th or the 17th century. Many of those that are movable have been transferred to Madrid, and many others have perished by fire or sack. The conflagration of 1671, already mentioned, raged for fifteen days, and only the church, a part of the palace, and two towers escaped uninjured. In 1808 the whole building was exposed to the ravages of the French soldiers under General La Houssaye. On the night of the 1st of October 1872, the college and seminary, a part of the palace and the upper library were devastated by fire; but the damage was subsequently repaired. In 1885 the conventual buildings were occupied by Augustinian monks.

The reader will find a remarkable description of the emotional influence of the Escorial in E. Quinet’s Vacances en Espagne (Paris, 1846), and for historical and architectural details he may consult the following works:—Fray Juan de San Geronimo, Memorias sobre la fundacion del Escorial y su fabrica, in the Coleccion de documentos ineditos para la historia de España, vol. vii.; Y. de Herrera, Sumario y breve declaracion de los diseños y estampas de la fab. de S. Lorencio el Real del Escurial (Madrid, 1589); José de Siguenza, Historia de la orden de San Geronyno, &c. (Madrid, 1590). L. de Cabrera de Cordova, Felipe Segundo (Madrid, 1619); James Wadsworth, Further Observations of the English Spanish Pilgrime (London, 1629, 1630); Ilario Mazzorali de Cremona, Le Reali Grandezze del Escuriale (Bologna, 1648); De los Santos, Descripcion del real monasterio, &c. (Madrid, 1657); Andres Ximenes, Descripcion, &c. (Madrid, 1764); Y. Quevedo, Historia del Real Monasterio, &c. (Madrid, 1849); A. Rotondo, Hist. artistica, ... del monasterio de San Lorenzo (Madrid, 1856-1861); W.H. Prescott, Life of Philip II. (London, 1887); J. Fergusson, History of the Modern Styles of Architecture (London, 1891-1893); Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, Annals of the Artists of Spain (London, 1891).

Reduced from a large plan of the Escorial in the British Museum, Monasterio del Escorial, published at Madrid in 1876.

ESCOVEDO, JUAN DE (d. 1578), Spanish politician, secretary of Don John of Austria, and chiefly notable as having been the victim of one of the mysteries of the 16th century, began life in the household of Ruy Gomez de Silva, prince of Eboli, the most trusted minister of the early years of the reign of Philip II. By the will of the prince he was endowed for life with the post of Regidor, or legal representative of the king in the municipality of Madrid. He was also associated with Antonio Perez as one of the secretaries who acted as the agents of the king in all dealings with the various governing boards which formed the Spanish administration. When Don John of Austria, after the battle of Lepanto in 1571, began to launch on a policy of self-seeking adventure, Escovedo was appointed as his secretary with the intention that he should act as a check on these follies. Unhappily for himself and for Don John he went heart and soul into all the prince’s schemes. He began to disobey orders from Madrid and became entangled in intrigues to manage or even to coerce the king. In July 1577, and contrary to the king’s orders, he came to Spain from Flanders, where Don John was then governor. It is said that he discovered the love intrigue between Antonio Perez and the widowed princess of Eboli, Ana Mendoza de la Cerda. This is, however, mere gossip and supposition. There can be no doubt that he was a busy intriguer, or that the king, acting on the then very generally accepted doctrine that the sovereign has a right to act for the public interest without regard to forms of law, gave orders to Antonio Perez that he was to be put out of the way. After two clumsy attempts had been made to poison him at Perez’s table, he was killed by bravos on the night of Easter Monday, the 31st of March 1578. According to an old tradition the murder took place outside the church of St Maria in Madrid, which was pulled down in 1868.

See Gaspar Muro, La Princesse d’Eboli (Paris, 1878); and W.H. Prescott, Reign of Philip II. (1855-59).

ESCUINTLA, the capital of the department of Escuintla, Guatemala; on the southern slope of the Sierra Madre, 45 m. S.W. of Guatemala city. Pop. (1905) about 12,000. Escuintla is locally celebrated for its hot mineral springs. It is the commercial centre of a fertile district, which produces coffee, cane-sugar and cocoa; it has also a brisk transit trade in most of the products of Guatemala, owing to its position on the interoceanic railway between Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic and San José (30 m. S.) on the Pacific. A branch railway which goes westward to San Augustin meets this line at Escuintla.

ESCUTCHEON (O. Fr. escucheon, escusson, modern écusson, through a Late Lat. form from Lat. scutum, shield), an heraldic term for a shield with armorial bearings displayed (see Heraldry). The word is also applied to the shields used on tombs, in the spandrils of doors or in string-courses, and to the ornamented plates from the centre of which door-rings, knockers, &c., are suspended, or which protect the wood of the key-hole from the wear of the key. In medieval times these were often worked in a very beautiful manner.

ESHER, WILLIAM BALIOL BRETT, 1st Viscount (1817-1899), English lawyer and master of the rolls, was a son of the Rev. Joseph G. Brett, of Chelsea, and was born on the 13th of August 1817. He was educated at Westminster and at Caius College, Cambridge. Called to the bar in 1840, he went the northern circuit, and became a Q.C. in 1861. On the death of Richard Cobden he unsuccessfully contested Rochdale as a Conservative, but in 1866 was returned for Helston in unique circumstances. He and his opponent polled exactly the same number of votes, whereupon the mayor, as returning officer, gave his casting vote for the Liberal candidate. As this vote was given after four o’clock, however, an appeal was lodged, and the House of Commons allowed both members to take their seats. Brett rapidly made his mark in the House, and in 1868 he was appointed solicitor-general. On behalf of the crown he prosecuted the Fenians charged with having caused the Clerkenwell explosion. In parliament he took a leading part in the promotion of bills connected with the administration of law and justice. He was (August 1868) appointed a justice in the court of common pleas. Some of his sentences in this capacity excited much criticism, notably so in the case of the gas stokers’ strike, when he sentenced the defendants to imprisonment for twelve months, with hard labour, which was afterwards reduced by the home secretary to four months. On the reconstitution of the court of appeal in 1876, Brett was elevated to the rank of a lord justice. After holding this position for seven years, he succeeded Sir George Jessel as master of the rolls in 1883. In 1885 he was raised to the House of Lords as Baron Esher. He opposed the bill proposing that an accused person or his wife might give evidence in their own case, and supported the bill which empowered lords of appeal to sit and vote after their retirement. The Solicitors Act of 1888, which increased the powers of the Incorporated Law Society, owed much to his influence. In 1880 he delivered a remarkable speech in the House of Lords, deprecating the delay and expense of trials, which he regarded as having been increased by the Judicature Acts. Lord Esher suffered, perhaps, as master of the rolls from succeeding a lawyer of such eminence as Jessel. He had a caustic tongue, but also a fund of shrewd common sense, and one of his favourite considerations was whether a certain course was “business” or not. He retired from the bench at the close of 1897, and a viscounty was conferred upon him on his retirement, a dignity never given to any judge, lord chancellors excepted, “for mere legal conduct since the time of Lord Coke.” He died in London on the 24th of May 1899.

Lord Esher was succeeded in the title by his only surviving son, Reginald Baliol Brett (b. 1852), who was secretary to the office of works from 1895 to 1902, but subsequently came into far greater public prominence in 1904 as Chairman of the war office reconstitution committee after the South African War.

ESHER, a township in the Epsom parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 14½ m. S.W. of London by the London & South Western railway (Esher and Claremont station). It is pleasantly situated on rising ground above the river Mole, 3 m. from its junction with the Thames. To the north-west lie the grounds of Esher Place. Of the mansion-house founded by William of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester (c. 1450), in which Cardinal Wolsey resided for three or four weeks after his sudden fall from power in 1529, only the gatehouse remains. It is known as Wolsey’s Tower, but is apparently part of Waynflete’s foundation. A new mansion was erected in 1803. To the south is Claremont Palace, built by the great Lord Clive (1769) on the site of a mansion of Sir John Vanbrugh. In 1816 it was the residence of Princess Charlotte, wife of Prince (afterwards King) Leopold. She died here in 1817, and on the death of her husband in 1865 the property passed to the crown. Louis Philippe, ex-king of the French, resided here from 1848 until his death in 1850. In 1882 Claremont became the private property of Queen Victoria. Christ Church, Esher, contains fine memorials of King Leopold and others, and one of its three bells is said to have been brought from San Domingo by Sir Francis Drake. To the north near the railway station is Sandown Park, where important race meetings are held. Esher is included in the urban district of Esher and The Dittons, of which Thames Ditton is a favourite riverside resort. The whole district is largely residential. Pop. (1901) 9489.

ESKER (O. Irish eiscir), a local name for long mounds of glacial gravel frequently met with in Ireland. Eskers (the Swedish åsar) are among the occasionally puzzling relics of the British glacial period. They wind from side to side across glaciated country and have evidently been formed by channels upon or under the ice. “Where streams of considerable size form tunnels under or in the ice these may become more or less filled with wash, and when the ice melts the aggraded channels appear as long ridges of gravel and sand known as eskers. It has been thought that similar ridges are sometimes formed in valleys cut in the ice from top to bottom, and even that they rise from gravel and sand lodged in super-glacial channels. The latter at least is probably rare, as the surface streams have usually high gradients, swift currents and smooth bottoms, and hence give little opportunity for lodgment. In the case of ice-sheets, too, in which eskers are chiefly developed, there is usually no surface material except at the immediate edge, where the ice is thin and its layers upturned” (T.C. Chamberlin and R.D. Salisbury, Geology, Processes and their Results). Eskers are to be distinguished from kames (q.v.).

ESKILSTUNA, a town of Sweden in the district (län) of Södermanland, on the Hjelmar river, which unites lakes Hjelmar and Mälar, 65 m. W. of Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1900) 13,663. The place is mentioned in the 13th century, and is said to derive its name from Eskil, an English missionary who suffered martyrdom on the spot. It rose into importance in the reign of Charles X., who bestowed on it considerable privileges, and gave the first impulse to its manufacturing activity. It is the chief seat in Sweden of the iron and steel industries, its cutlery being especially noted, while damascened work is a specialty. There is a technical school for the metal industries. There are, in the town or its neighbourhood, great engineering, gun-making, and rolling and polishing works and breweries. The largest mechanical works are those of Munktell and Tunafors. The Karl Gustaf Stads rifle factory was established in 1814.

ESKIMO, Eskimos or Esquimaux (a corruption of the Abnaki Indian Eskimantsic or the Ojibway Ashkimeq, both terms meaning “those who eat raw flesh”: they call themselves “Innuit,” “the people”), a North American Indian people, inhabiting the arctic coast of America from Greenland to Alaska, and a small portion of the Asiatic shore of Bering Strait. On the American shores they are found, in broken tribes, from East Greenland to the western shores of Alaska—never far inland, or south of the region where the winter ice allows seals to congregate. Even on hunting expeditions they never travel more than 30 m. from the coast. Save a slight admixture of European settlers, they are the only inhabitants of both sides of Davis Strait and Baffin Bay. They extend as far south as about 50° N. lat. on the eastern side of America, and in the west to 60° on the eastern shore of Bering Strait, while 55° to 60° are their southern limits on the shore of Hudson Bay. Throughout all this range there are no other tribes save where the Kennayan and Ugalenze Indians (of western America) come down to the shore to fish. The Aleutians are closely allied to the Eskimo in habits and language. H.J. Rink divides the Eskimo into the following groups, the most eastern of which would have to travel nearly 5000 m. to reach the most western: (1) The East Greenland Eskimo, few in number, every year advancing farther south, and coming into contact with the next section. (2) The West Greenlanders, civilized, living under the Danish crown, and extending from Cape Farewell to 74° N. lat. (3) The Northern-most Greenlanders—the Arctic Highlanders of Sir John Ross—confined to Smith, Whale, Murchison and Wolstenholme Sounds, north of the Melville Bay glaciers. These—the most isolated and uncivilized of all the Eskimo—had no boats or bows and arrows until about 1868. (4) The Labrador Eskimo, mostly civilized. (5) The Eskimo of the middle regions, occupying the coasts from Hudson Bay to Barter Island, beyond Mackenzie river, inhabiting a stretch of country 2000 m. in length and 800 in breadth. (6) The Western Eskimo, from Barter Island to the western limits in America. (7) The Asiatic Eskimo.

The Eskimo are not a tall race, their height varying from 5 ft. 4 in. to 5 ft. 10 in., but men of 6 ft. are met. Both men and women are muscular and active, the former often inclining to fat. The faces of both have a pleasing, good-humoured expression, and not infrequently are even handsome. The typical face is broadly oval, flat, with fat cheeks; forehead not high, and rather retreating; teeth good, though, owing to the character of the food, worn down to the gums in old age; nose very flat; eyes rather obliquely set, small, black and bright; head largish, and covered with coarse black hair, which the women fasten up into a knot on the top, and the men clip in front and allow to hang loose and unkempt behind. Their skulls are of the mesocephalic type, the height being greater than the breadth; according to Davis, 75 is the index of the latter and 77 of the former. Some of the tribes slightly compress the skulls of their new-born children laterally (Hall), but this practice is a very local one. The men have usually a slight moustache, but no whiskers, and rarely any beard. The skin has generally a “bacony” feel, and when cleaned of the smoke, grease and other dirt—the accumulation of which varies according to the age of the individual—is only so slightly brown that red shows in the cheeks of the children and young women. The hands and feet are small and well formed. The Eskimo dress entirely in skins of the seal, reindeer, bear, dog, or even fox, the first two being, however, the most common. The men’s and women’s dress is much the same, a jacket suit, the trousers tucked into seal-skin boots. The jacket has a hood, which in cold weather is used to cover the head, leaving only the face exposed. The women’s jacket has a large hood for carrying a child and an absurd-looking tail behind, which is, however, usually tucked up. The women’s trousers are usually ornamented with eider-duck neck feathers or embroidery of native dyed leather; their boots, which are of white leather, or (in Greenland) dyed of various colours, reach over the knees, and in some tribes are very wide at the top, thus giving them an awkward appearance and a clumsy waddling walk. In winter two suits are worn, one with the hair inside, the other with it outside. They also sometimes wear shirts of bird-skins, and stockings of dog or young reindeer skins. Their clothes are very neatly made, fit beautifully, and are sewn with “sinew-thread,” with a bone needle if a steel one cannot be had. In person the Eskimo are usually filthy, and never wash. Infants are, however, sometimes cleaned by being licked by their mother before being put into the bag of feathers which serves as their bed, cradle and blankets.

In summer the Eskimo live in conical skin tents, and in winter usually in half-underground huts of stone, turf, earth and bones, entered by a long tunnel-like passage, which can only be traversed on all fours. Sometimes, if residing temporarily at a place, they will erect neat round huts of blocks of snow with a sheet of ice for a window. In the roof are deposited their spare harpoons, &c; and from it is suspended the steatite basin-like lamp, the flame of which, the wick being of moss, serves as fire and light. On one side of the hut is the bench which is used as sofa, seats and common sleeping place. The floor is usually very filthy, a pool of blood or a dead seal being often to be seen there. Ventilation is almost non-existent; and after the lamp has blazed for some time, the heat is all but unbearable. In the summer the wolfish-looking dogs lie outside on the roof of the huts, in the winter in the tunnel-like passage just outside the family apartment. The Western Eskimo build their houses chiefly of planks, merely covered on the outside with green turf. The same Eskimo have, in the more populous places, a public room for meetings. “Council chambers” are also said to exist in Labrador, but are only known in Greenland by tradition. Sometimes in south Greenland and in the Western Eskimo country the houses are made to accommodate several families, but as a rule each family has a house to itself.

The Eskimo are solely hunters and fishers, and derive most of their food from the sea. Their country allows of no cultivation; and beyond a few berries, roots, &c., they use no vegetable food. The seal, the reindeer and the whale supply the bulk of their food, as well as their clothing, light, fuel, and frequently also, when driftwood is scarce or unavailable, the material for various articles of domestic economy. Thus the Eskimo canoe is made of seal-skin stretched on a wooden or whalebone frame, with a hole in the centre for the paddler. It is driven by a bone-tipped double-bladed paddle. A waterproof skin or entrail dress is tightly fastened round the mouth of the hole so that, should the canoe overturn, no water can enter. A skilful paddler can turn a complete somersault, boat and all, through the water. The Eskimo women use a flat-bottomed skin luggage-boat. The Eskimo sledge is made of two runners of wood or bone—even, in one case on record, of frozen salmon (Maclure)—united by cross bars tied to the runners by hide thongs, and drawn by from 4 to 8 dogs harnessed abreast. Some of their weapons are ingenious—in particular, the harpoon, with its detachable point to which an inflated sealskin is fastened. When the quarry is struck, the floating skin serves to tire it out, marks its course, and buoys it up when dead. The bird-spears, too, have a bladder attached, and points at the sides which strike the creature should the spear-head fail to wound. An effective bow is made out of whale’s rib. Altogether, with meagre material the Eskimo show great skill in the manufacture of their weapons. Meat is sometimes boiled, but, when it is frozen, it is often eaten raw. Blood, and the half-digested contents of the reindeer’s paunch, are also eaten; and sometimes, but not habitually, blubber. As a rule this latter is too precious: it must be kept for winter fuel and light. The Eskimo are enormous eaters; two will easily dispose of a seal at a sitting; and in Greenland, for instance, each individual has for his daily consumption, on an average, 2½ ℔ of flesh with blubber, and 1 ℔ of fish, besides mussels, berries, sea-weed, &c., to which in the Danish settlements may be added 2 oz. of imported food. Ten pounds of flesh, in addition to other food, is not uncommonly consumed in a day in time of plenty. A man will lie on his back and allow his wife to feed him with tit-bits of blubber and flesh until he is unable to move.

The Eskimo cannot be strictly called a wandering race. They are nomadic only in so far that they have to move about from place to place during the fishing and shooting season, following the game in its migrations. They have, however, no regular property. They possess only the most necessary utensils and furniture, with a stock of provisions for less than one year; and these possessions never exceed certain limits fixed upon by tradition or custom. Long habit and the necessities of their life have also compelled those having food to share with those having none—a custom which, with others, has conduced to the stagnant conditions of Eskimo society and to their utter improvidence.

Their intelligence is considerable, as their implements and folk-tales abundantly prove. They display a taste for music, cartography and drawing, display no small amount of humour, are quick at picking up peculiar traits in strangers, and are painfully acute in detecting the weak points or ludicrous sides of their character. They are excellent mimics and easily learn the dances and songs of the Europeans, as well as their games, such as chess and draughts. They gamble a little—but in moderation, for the Eskimo, though keen traders, have a deep-rooted antipathy to speculation. When they offer anything for sale—say at a Danish settlement in Greenland—they always leave it to the buyer to settle the price. They have also a dislike to bind themselves by contract. Hence it was long before the Eskimo in Greenland could be induced to enter into European service, though when they do they pass to almost the opposite extreme—they have no will of their own. Public licentiousness or indecency is rare among them. In their private life their morality is, however, not high. The women are especially erring; and in Greenland, at places where strangers visit, their extreme laxity of morals, and their utter want of shame, are not more remarkable than the entire absence of jealousy or self-respect on the part of their countrymen and relatives. Theft in Greenland is almost unknown; but the wild Eskimo make very free with strangers’ goods—though it must be allowed that the value they attach to the articles stolen is some excuse for the thieves. Among themselves, on the other hand, they are very honest—a result of their being so much under the control of public opinion. Lying is said to be as common a trait of the Eskimo as of other savages in their dealings with Europeans. They have naturally not made any figure in literature. Their folk-lore is, however, extensive, and that collected by Dr Rink shows considerable imagination and no mean talent on the part of the story-tellers. In Greenland and Labrador most of the natives have been taught by the missionaries to read and write in their own language. Altogether, the literature published in the Eskimo tongue is considerable. Most of it has been printed in Denmark, but some has been “set up” in a small printing-office in Greenland, from which about 280 sheets have issued, beside many lithographic prints. A journal (Atuagagldliutit nalinginarmik tusaruminásassumik univkat, i.e. “something for reading, accounts of all entertaining subjects”) has been published since 1861.

The Eskimo in Greenland and Labrador are, with few exceptions, nominally at least, Christians. The native religion is a vague animism, and consists of a belief in good and evil spirits, limited each to its own sphere; in a Heaven and Hell; and a childish faith is placed in the native wizards, who are regarded as intermediaries between mankind and the spirit-powers. The worship of the whale-spirit, so important a factor in their daily economy, is prevalent.

As regards language, the idiom spoken from Greenland to north-eastern Siberia is, with a few exceptions, the same; any difference is only that of dialect. It differs from the whole group of European languages, not merely in the sound of the words, but more especially, according to Rink, in the construction. Its most remarkable feature is that a sentence of a European language is expressed in Eskimo by a single word constructed out of certain elements, each of which corresponds in some degree to one of our words. One specimen commonly given to visitors to Greenland may suffice: Savigiksiniariartokasuaromaryotittogog, which is equivalent to “He says that you also will go away quickly in like manner and buy a pretty knife.” Here is one word serving in the place of 17. It is made up as follows: Savig a knife, ik pretty, sini buy, ariartok go away, asuar hasten, omar wilt, y in like manner, otit thou, tog also, og he says.

The Eskimo have no chiefs or political and military rulers. Fabricius concisely described them in his day: “Sine Deo, domino, reguntur consuetudine.” The government is mainly a family one, though a man distinguished for skill in the chase, and for strength and shrewdness, often has considerable power in the village. No political or social tie is recognized between the villages, though general good-fellowship seems to mark their relations. They never go to war with each other; and though revengeful and apt to injure an enemy secretly, they rarely come to blows, and are morbidly anxious not to give offence. Indeed, in their intercourse with each other, all Eskimo indulge in much hyperbolical compliment. But they are not without courage. On the Coppermine and Mackenzie rivers, where they sometimes come into collision with their American-Indian kinsmen, they fight fiercely. Polygamy is rare, but the rights of divorce and re-marriage are unrestricted. The Eskimo have intricate rules governing the ownership of property and the rights of the hunter. As a race they are singularly undemonstrative. When they met each other they used to rub noses together, but this, though a common custom still among the wild Eskimo, is entirely abandoned in Greenland except for the petting of children. There is, in Greenland at least, no national mode of salutation, either on meeting or parting. When a guest enters a house, commonly not the least sign is made either by him or his host. On leaving a place they sometimes say “inûvdluaritse,” i.e. live well, and to a European “aporniakinatit,” i.e. do not hurt thy head, viz. against the upper part of the doorway. The Eskimo, excluding the few on the Asiatic coast, are estimated at about 29,000.

Bibliography.—Dr H.J. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo (1875); Danish Greenland; its People and its Products (1877); Eskimo Tribes (1887); J. Richardson, Polar Regions (1861), pp. 298-331; Sir Clements Markham, Arctic Papers of the R. G. S. (1875), pp. 163-232; Simpson, ibid. pp. 233-275; “Hans Hendriks the Eskimo’s Memoirs,” Geographical Magazine (Feb. 1878, et seq.); Fridtjof Nansen, Eskimo Life (1894); R.E. Peary, Northward over the Great Ice, vol. i. appendix ii.; F. Boas, “The Central Eskimo,” Sixth Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology (1884-1885); J. Murdoch, “The Point Barrow Eskimo,” Ninth Annual Report (1887-1888); E.W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” Eighteenth Annual Report, part 1 (1896-1897).

ESKI-SHEHR, a town of Asia Minor, in the Kutaiah sanjak of the Brusa (Khudavendikiar) vilayet. It is a station on the Haidar Pasha-Angora railway, 194½ m. from the former and 164 m. from Angora, and the junction for Konia; and is situated on the right bank of the Pursak Su (Tembris), a tributary of the Sakaria, at the foot of the hills that border the broad treeless valley. Pop. 20,000 (Moslems 15,000, Christians 5000). Eski-Shehr, i.e. “the old town,” lies about a mile from the ruins of the ancient Phrygian Dorylaeum. The latter is mentioned in connexion with the wars of Lysimachus and Antigonus (about 302 B.C.), and frequently figures in Byzantine history as an imperial residence and military rendezvous. It was the scene of the defeat of the Turks under Kilij-Arslan by the crusaders in 1097, and fell finally to the Turks of Konia in 1176. The town is divided by a small stream into a commercial quarter on low ground, in which are the bazaars, khans and the hot sulphur springs (122° F.) which are mentioned as early as the 3rd century by Athenaeus; and a residential quarter on the higher ground. The town is noted for its good climate, the Pursak Su for the abundance of its fish, and the plain for its fertility. About 18 m. to the E. are extensive deposits of meerschaum. The clay is partly manufactured into pipes in the town, but the greater proportion finds its way to Europe and especially to Germany. The annual output is valued at £272,000.

See Murray’s Hdbk. to Asia Minor (1893); V. Cuinet, Turquie d’Asie (Paris, 1894).

ESMARCH, JOHANNES FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON (1823-1908), German surgeon, was born at Tönning, in Schleswig-Holstein, on the 9th of January 1823. He studied at Kiel and Göttingen, and in 1846 became B.R.K. von Langenbeck’s assistant at the Kiel surgical hospital. He served in the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848 as junior surgeon, and this directed his attention to the subject of military surgery. He was taken prisoner, but afterwards exchanged, and was then appointed as surgeon to a field hospital. During the truce of 1849 he qualified as Privatdocent at Kiel, but on the fresh outbreak of war he returned to the troops and was promoted to the rank of senior surgeon. In 1854 he became director of the surgical clinic at Kiel, and in 1857 head of the general hospital and professor at the university. During the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864 Esmarch rendered good service to the field hospitals of Flensburg, Sundewitt and Kiel. In 1866 he was called to Berlin as member of the hospital commission, and also to take the superintendence of the surgical work in the hospitals there. When the Franco-German War broke out in 1870 he was appointed surgeon-general to the army, and afterwards consulting surgeon at the great military hospital near Berlin. In 1872 he married Princess Henrietta of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, aunt of the Empress Auguste Victoria. In 1887 a patent of nobility was conferred on him. He died at Kiel on the 23rd of February 1908. Esmarch was one of the greatest authorities on hospital management and military surgery. His Handbuch der kriegschirurgischen Technik was written for a prize offered by the empress Augusta, on the occasion of the Vienna Exhibition of 1877, for the best handbook for the battlefield of surgical appliances and operations. This book is illustrated by admirable diagrams, showing the different methods of bandaging and dressing, as well as the surgical operations as they occur on the battlefield. Esmarch himself invented an apparatus, which bears his name, for keeping a limb nearly bloodless during amputation. No part of Esmarch’s work is more widely known than that which deals with “First Aid,” his First Aid on the Battlefield and First Aid to the Injured being popular manuals on the subject. The latter is the substance of a course of lectures delivered by him in 1881 to a “Samaritan School,” the first of the kind in Germany, founded by Esmarch in 1881, in imitation of the St John’s Ambulance classes which had been organized in England in 1878. These lectures were very generally adopted as a manual for first aid students, edition after edition having been called for, and they have been translated into numerous languages, the English version being the work of H.R.H. Princess Christian. No ambulance course would be complete without a demonstration of the Esmarch bandage. It is a three-sided piece of linen or cotton, of which the base measures 4 ft. and the sides 2 ft. 10 in. It can be used folded or open, and applied in thirty-two different ways. It answers every purpose for temporary dressing and field-work, while its great recommendation is that the means for making it are always at hand.

ESNA, or Esneh, a town of Upper Egypt on the W. bank of the Nile, 454 m. S.S.E. of Cairo by rail, the railway station being on the opposite side of the river. Pop. (1897) 16,000, mostly Copts. Esna, one of the healthiest towns in Egypt, is noted for its manufactures of pottery and its large grain and live stock markets. It formerly had a large trade with the Sudan. A caravan road to the south goes through the oasis of Kurkur. The trade, almost stopped by the Mahdist Wars, is now largely diverted by railway and steamboat routes. There is, however, considerable traffic with the oasis of Kharga, which lies almost due west of the town. Nearly in the centre of the town is the Ptolemaic and Roman temple of the ram-headed Khnūm, almost buried in rubbish and houses. The interior of the pronaos is accessible to tourists, and contains the latest known hieroglyphic inscription, dating from the reign of Decius (A.D. 249-251). With Khnūm are associated the goddesses Sati and Neith. In the neighbourhood are remains of Coptic buildings, including a subterranean church (discovered 1895) in the desert half a mile beyond the limits of cultivation. The name Esna is from the Coptic Sne. By the Greeks the place was called Latopolis, from the worship here of the latus fish. In the persecutions under Diocletian A.D. 303, the Christians of Esna, a numerous body, suffered severely. In later times the town frequently served as a place of refuge for political exiles. The so-called Esna barrage across the Nile (built 1906-1908) is 30 m. higher up stream at Edfu.

ESOTERIC, having an inner or secret meaning. This term, and its correlative “exoteric,” were first applied in the ancient Greek mysteries to those who were initiated (ἔσω, within) and to those who were not (ἔξω, outside), respectively. It was then transferred to a supposed distinction drawn by certain philosophers between the teaching given to the whole circle of their pupils and that containing a higher and secret philosophy which was reserved for a select number of specially advanced or privileged disciples. This distinction was ascribed by Lucian (Vit. Auct. 26) to Aristotle (q.v.), who, however, uses ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι (Nic. Ethics) merely of “popular treatises.” It was probably adopted by the Pythagoreans and was also attributed to Plato. In the sense of mystic it is used of a secret doctrine of theosophy, supposed to have been traditional among certain disciples of Buddhism.

ESPAGNOLS SUR MER, LES, the name given to the naval victory gained by King Edward III. of England over a Spanish fleet off Winchelsea, on the 29th of August 1350. Spanish ships had fought against England as the allies or mercenaries of France, and there had been instances of piratical violence between the trading ships of both nations. A Spanish merchant fleet was loading cargoes in the Flemish ports to be carried to the Basque coast. The ships were armed and had warships with them. They were all under the command of Don Carlos de la Cerda, a soldier of fortune who belonged to a branch of the Castilian royal family. On its way to Flanders the Spanish fleet had captured a number of English trading ships, and had thrown the crews overboard. Piratical violence and massacre of this kind was then universal on the sea. On the 10th of August, when the king was at Rotherhithe, he announced his intention of attacking the Spaniards on their way home. The rendezvous of his fleet was at Winchelsea, and thither the king went by land, accompanied by his wife and her ladies, by his sons, the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, as well as by many nobles. The ladies were placed in a convent and the king embarked on his flagship, the “Cog Thomas,” on the 28th of August. The English fleet did not put to sea but remained at anchor, waiting for the appearance of the Spaniards. Its strength is not known with certainty, but Stow puts it at 50 ships and pinnaces. Carlos de la Cerda was obviously well disposed to give the king a meeting. He might easily have avoided the English if he had kept well out in the Channel. But he relied on the size and strength of his 40 large ships, and in expectation of an encounter had recruited a body of mercenaries—mostly crossbowmen—in the Flemish ports. In the afternoon of the 29th of August he bore down boldly on King Edward’s ships at anchor at Winchelsea. When the Spaniards hove in sight, the king was sitting on the deck of his ship, with his knights and nobles, listening to his minstrels who played German airs, and to the singing of Sir John Chandos. When the look-out in the tops reported the enemy in sight, the king and his company drank to one another’s health, the trumpet was sounded, and the whole line stood out. All battles at that time, whether on land or sea, were finally settled by stroke of sword. The English steered to board the Spaniards. The king’s own ship was run into by one of the enemy with such violence that both were damaged, and she began to sink. The Spaniard stood on, and the “Cog Thomas” was laid alongside another, which was carried by boarding. It was high time, for the king and his following had barely reached the deck of the Spaniard before the “Cog Thomas” went to the bottom. Other Spaniards were taken, but the fight was hot. La Cerda’s crossbowmen did much execution, and the higher-built Spaniards were able to drop bars of iron or other weights on the lighter English vessels, by which they were damaged. The conflict was continued till twilight. At the close the large English vessel called “La Salle du Roi,” which carried the king’s household, and was commanded by the Fleming, Robert of Namur, afterwards a knight of the Garter, was grappled by a big Spaniard, and was being dragged off by him. The crew called loudly for a rescue, but were either not heard or, if heard, could not be helped. The “Salle du Roi” would have been taken if a Flemish squire of Robert of Namur, named Hannequin, had not performed a great feat of arms. He boarded the Spaniard and cut the halyards of her mainsail with his sword. The Spanish ship was taken. King Edward is said to have captured 14 of the enemy. What his own loss was is not stated, but as his own vessel, and also the vessel carrying the Black Prince, were sunk, and from the peril of “La Salle du Roi,” we may conclude that the English fleet suffered heavily. There was no pursuit, and a truce was made with the Basque towns the next year.

The battle with “the Spaniards on the sea” is a very typical example of a medieval sea-fight, when the ships were of the size of a small coaster or a fishing smack, were crowded with men, and when the personal prowess of a single knight or squire was an important element of strength.

The only real authority for the battle is Froissart, who was at different times in the service of King Edward or of his wife, Philippa of Hainaut, and of the counts of Namur. He repeated what was told him by men who had been present, and dwells as usual on the “chivalry” of his patrons. See his Chroniques, iv. 91.

(D. H.)

ESPALIER (a French word, derived from the Ital. spalliera, something to rest the spalla or shoulder against; the word is ultimately the same as épaulière, a shoulder-piece), a lattice-work or row of stakes, originally shoulder high, on which fruit trees, shrubs and flowers, particularly roses and creepers, are trained. Espaliers are usually made of larch or other wood, iron and metal rails being too great conductors of heat and cold. The advantage of this method of training is that the fruit, &c, is more easily got at, and while protected from wind, is freely exposed to sun and air, and not so open to extreme changes of temperature as when trained on a wall. (See Horticulture.)

ESPARTERO, BALDOMERO (1792-1879), duke of Vitoria, duke of Morella, prince of Vergara, Count Luchana, knight of the Toison d’Or, &c. &c., Spanish soldier and statesman, was born at Granatulu, a town of the province of Ciudad Real, on the 27th of February 1792. He was the ninth child of a carter, who wanted to make him a priest, but the lad at fifteen enlisted in a battalion of students to fight against the armies of Napoleon I. In 1811 Espartero was appointed a lieutenant of Engineers in Cadiz, but having failed to pass his examination he entered a line regiment. In 1815 he went to America as a captain under General Morillo, who had been made commander-in-chief to quell the risings of the colonies on the Spanish Main. For eight years Espartero distinguished himself in the struggle against the colonists. He was several times wounded, and was made major and colonel on the battlefields of Cochabamba and Sapachni. He had to surrender to Sucre at the final battle of Ayacucho, which put an end to Castilian rule. He returned to Spain, and, like most of his companions in arms, remained under a cloud for some time. He was sent to the garrison town of Logroño, where he married the daughter of a rich landowner, Doña Jacinta Santa Cruz, who eventually survived him. Henceforth Logroño became the home of the most prominent of the Spanish political generals of the 19th century. Espartero became in 1832, on the death of King Ferdinand VII., one of the most ardent defenders of the rights of his daughter, Isabella II. The government sent him to the front, directly the Carlist War broke out, as commandant of the province of Biscay, where he severely defeated the Carlists in many encounters. He was quickly promoted to a divisional command, and then made a lieutenant-general. At times he showed qualities as a guerillero quite equal to those of the Carlists, like Zumalacarregui and Cabrera, by his daring marches and surprises. When he had to move large forces he was greatly superior to them as an organizer and strategist, and he never disgraced his successes by cruelty or needless severity. Twice he obliged the Carlists to raise the siege of Bilbao before he was appointed commander-in-chief of the northern army on the 17th of September 1836, when the tide of war seemed to be setting in favour of the pretender in the Basque provinces and Navarre, though Don Carlos had lost his ablest lieutenant, the Basque Zumalacarregui. His military duties at the head of the principal national army did not prevent Espartero from showing for the first time his political ambition. He displayed such radical and reforming inclinations that he laid the foundations of his popularity among the lower and middle classes, which lasted more than a quarter of a century, during which time the Progressists, Democrats and advanced Liberals ever looked to him as a leader and adviser. In November 1836 he again forced the Carlists to raise the siege of Bilbao. His troops included the British legion under Sir de Lacy Evans. This success turned the tide of war against Don Carlos, who vainly attempted a raid towards Madrid. Espartero was soon at his heels, and obliged him to hurry northwards, after several defeats. In 1839 Espartero carefully opened up negotiations with Maroto and the principal Carlist chiefs of the Basque provinces. These ended in their accepting his terms under the famous convention of Vergara, which secured the recognition of their ranks and titles for nearly 1000 Carlist officers. Twenty thousand Carlist volunteers laid down their arms at Vergara; only the irreconcilables led by Cabrera held out for a while in the central provinces of Spain. Espartero soon, however, in 1840, stamped out the last embers of the rising, which had lasted seven years. He was styled “El pacificador de España,” was made a grandee of the first class, and received two dukedoms.

During the last three years of the war Espartero, who had been elected a deputy, exercised from his distant headquarters such influence over Madrid politics that he twice hastened the fall of the cabinet, and obtained office for his own friends. At the close of the war the queen regent and her ministers attempted to elbow out Espartero and his followers, but a pronunciamiento ensued in Madrid and other large towns which culminated in the marshal’s accepting the post of prime minister. He soon became virtually a dictator, as Queen Christina took offence at his popularity and resigned, leaving the kingdom very soon afterwards. Directly the Cortes met they elected Espartero regent by 179 votes to 103 in favour of Arguelles, who was appointed guardian of the young queen. For two years Espartero ruled Spain in accordance with his Radical and conciliatory dispositions, giving special attention to the reorganization of the administration, taxation and finances, declaring all the estates of the church, congregations and religious orders to be national property, and suppressing the diezma, or tenths. He suppressed the Republican risings with as much severity as he did the military pronunciamientos of Generals Concha and Diego de Leon. The latter was shot in Madrid. Espartero crushed with much energy a revolutionary rising in Barcelona, but on his return to Madrid was so coldly welcomed that he perceived that his prestige was on the wane. The advanced Progressists coalesced with the partisans of the ex-regent Christina to promote pronunciamientos in Barcelona and many cities. The rebels declared Queen Isabel of age, and, led by General Narvaez, marched upon Madrid. Espartero, deeming resistance useless, embarked at Cadiz on the 30th of July 1843 for England, and lived quietly apart from politics until 1848, when a royal decree restored to him all his honours and his seat in the senate. He retired to his house in Logroño, which he left six years later, in 1854, when called upon by the queen to take the lead of the powerful Liberal and Progressist movement which prevailed for two years. The old marshal vainly endeavoured to keep his own Progressists within bounds in the Cortes of 1854-1856, and in the great towns, but their excessive demands for reforms and liberties played into the hands of a clerical and reactionary court and of the equally retrograde governing classes. The growing ambition of General O’Donnell constantly clashed with the views of Espartero, until the latter, in sheer disgust, resigned his premiership and left for Logroño, after warning the queen that a conflict was imminent between O’Donnell and the Cortes, backed by the Progressist militia. O’Donnell’s pronunciamiento in 1856 put an end to the Cortes, and the militia was disarmed, after a sharp struggle in the streets of the capital. After 1856 Espartero resolutely declined to identify himself with active politics, though at every stage in the onward march of Spain towards more liberal and democratic institutions he was asked to take a leading part. He refused to allow his name to be brought forward as a candidate when the Cortes of 1868, after the Revolution, sought for a ruler. Espartero, strangely enough, adopted a laconic phrase when successive governments on their advent to power invariably addressed themselves to the venerable champion of liberal ideas. To all—to the Revolution of 1868, the Constituent Cortes of 1869, King Amadeus, the Federal Republic of 1873, the nameless government of Marshal Serrano in 1874, the Bourbon restoration in 1875—he simply said: “Cumplase la voluntad nacional” (“Let the national will be accomplished”). King Amadeus made him prince of Vergara. The Restoration raised a statue to him near the gate of the Retiro Park in Madrid. Spaniards of all shades, except Carlists and Ultramontanes, paid homage to his memory when he passed away at his Logroño residence on the 8th of January 1879. His tastes were singularly modest, his manners rather reserved, but always kind and considerate for humble folk. He was a typical Spanish soldier-politician, though he had more of the better traits of the soldier born and bred than of the arts of the statesman. His military instincts did not always make it easy for him to accommodate himself to courtiers and professional politicians.

(A. E. H.)

ESPARTO, or Spanish Grass, Stipa tenacissima, a grass resembling the ornamental feather-grass of gardens. It is indigenous to the south of Spain and the north of Africa (where it is known as Halfa or Alfa), and is especially abundant in the sterile and rugged parts of Murcia and Valencia, and in Algeria, flourishing best in sandy, ferruginous soils, in dry, sunny situations on the sea coast. Pliny (N.H. xix. 2) described what appears to have been the same plant under the name of spartum, whence the designation campus spartarius for the region surrounding New Carthage. It attains a height of 3 or 4 ft. The stems are cylindrical, and clothed with short hair, and grow in clusters of from 2 to 10 ft. in circumference; when young they serve as food for cattle, but after a few years’ growth acquire great toughness of texture. The leaves vary from 6 in. to 3 ft. in length, and are grey-green in colour; on account of their tenacity of fibre and flexibility they have for centuries been employed for the making of ropes, sandals, baskets, mats and other articles. Ships’ cables of esparto, being light, have the quality of floating on water, and have long been in use in the Spanish navy.

Esparto leaves contain 56% by weight of fibre, or about 10% more than straw, and hence have come into requisition as a substitute for linen rags in the manufacture of paper. For this purpose they were first utilized by the French, and in 1857 were introduced into Great Britain. When required for paper-making the leaves should be gathered before they are quite matured; if, however, they are obtained too young, they furnish a paper having an objectionable semi-transparent appearance. The leaves are gathered by hand, and from 2 to 3 cwt. may be collected in a day by a single labourer. They are generally obtained during the dry summer months, as at other times their adherence to the stems is so firm as often to cause the uprooting of the plants in the attempt to remove them. Esparto may be raised from seed, but cannot be harvested for twelve or fifteen years after sowing.

Another grass, Lygeum Spartum, with stiff rush-like leaves, growing in rocky soil on the high plains of countries bordering on the Mediterranean, especially of Spain and Algeria, is also a source of esparto.

For the processes of the paper manufacturer esparto is used in the dry state, and without cutting; roots and flowers and stray weeds are first removed, and the material is then boiled with caustic soda, washed, and bleached with chlorine solution. Sundry experiments have been made to adapt esparto for use in the coarser textile fabrics. Messrs A. Edger and B. Proctor in 1877 directed attention to the composition of the slag resulting from the burning of esparto, which they found to be strikingly similar to that of average medical bottle glass, the latter yielding on analysis 66.3% of silica and 25.1% of alkalies and alkaline earths, and the slag 64.6 and 27.45% of the same respectively.

ESPERANCE, a small seaport on a fine natural harbour on the south coast of West Australia, 275 m. north-east from Albany. It is a summer resort, and in the neighbourhood are interesting caves. Its importance as a seaport is due to its being on the high road between the eastern states and the gold-fields, and the nearest place for the shipment of gold from the Coolgardie fields.

ESPERANTO, an artificial international auxiliary language (see Universal Languages), first published in 1887, seven years after the appearance of its predecessor Volapük (q.v.), which it has now completely supplanted. Its author was a Russian physician, Dr L. Zamenhof, born in 1859 at Bielostok, where the spectacle of the feuds of the four races—each speaking different languages—which inhabit it (Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews) at an early date suggested to him the idea of remedying the evil by the introduction of a neutral language, standing apart from the existing national languages. His first idea was to resuscitate some dead language. Then he tried to construct a new language on an a priori basis. At the same time he made what he appears to have considered the great discovery that the bulk of the vocabulary of a language consists not of independent roots, but of compounds and derivatives formed from a comparatively small number of roots.

At first he tried to construct his roots a priori by arbitrary combinations of letters. Then he fell back on the plan of taking his roots ready-made from existing languages, as the inventor of Volapük had done before him. But instead of taking them mainly from one language, he has selected them from the chief European languages, but not impartially. Like all inventors of artificial languages, he is more ready to experiment with foreign languages than with his own; and hence the Slavonic roots in Esperanto are much less numerous than those taken from the other European languages. Here his choice has been to some extent guided by considerations of internationality, although he has not fully grasped the importance of the principle of maximum internationality, so well worked out in the latest rival of Esperanto—Idiom Neutral (see Universal Languages). Thus he adopts a large number of international words—generally unaltered except in spelling—such as teatr, tabak, even when it would be easy to form equivalent terms from the roots already existing in the language. Where there is no one international word, he selects practically at random, keeping, however, a certain balance between the Romance words, taken chiefly from Latin (tamen) and French (trotuar), on the one hand, and the Germanic on the other hand, the latter being taken sometimes from German (nur, “only”), sometimes from English, the words being generally written more or less phonetically (rajt = right). Most of the Germanic words are badly chosen from the international point of view. Thus the German word quoted above would not be intelligible to any one ignorant of German. Indeed, from the international point of view all specially German words ought to be excluded, or else reduced to the common Germanic form; thus trink ought to be made into drink, the t being a specially German modification of the d, preserved not only in English but in all the remaining Germanic languages. This incongruous mixture of languages is not only jarring and repulsive, but adds greatly to the difficulty of mastering the vocabulary for the polyglot as well as the monolingual learner.

The inventor has taken great pains to reduce the number of his roots to a minimum; there are 2642 of them in his dictionary, the Universala Vortaro (from Ger. Wort, “word”), which does not include such international words as poezio, telefono; these the learner is supposed to recognize and form without help. The most eccentric feature of the vocabulary, and the one to which it owes much of its brevity, is the extensive use of the prefix mal- to reverse the meaning of a word, as in malamiko, “enemy,” and even malbona, “bad.”

The phonology of the language is very simple. The vowels are only five in number, a, e, i, o, u, used without any distinction of quantity, as in Russian. There are six diphthongs, expressed by an unnecessarily complicated notation. The consonant-system is simple enough in itself, but is greatly complicated in writing by the excessive and mostly unnecessary use made of diacritical letters not only for simple sounds but also for consonant-groups. c is used for ts, as in Polish.

The grammar is, like that of Volapük, partly borrowed from existing languages, partly a priori and arbitrary. The use of the final vowels belongs to the latter category. The use of -a to indicate adjectives and of -o to indicate nouns as in kara amiko, “dear (male) friend,” is a source of confusion to those familiar with the Romance languages, and has proved a bar to the diffusion of Esperanto among the speakers of these languages. On the other hand, the following paradigm will show how faithfully Esperanto can reproduce the defects of conventional European grammar:—

Singular. Plural.

Nominative la bona patro la bonaj patroj

Accusative la bonan patron la bonajn patrojn.

It is difficult to see why the accusative should be kept when all the other cases are replaced by prepositions.

The verb is better than the noun. Its inflections are -as present, -is preterite, -os future, -us conditional, -u imperative and subjunctive, -i infinitive, together with the following participles:—

Active. Passive.

Present -anta -ata

Preterite -inta -ita

Future -onta -ota

The inventor has followed the good example of his native language in using esti, “to be,” as the auxiliary verb both in the passive, where it is combined with passive participles, and in the secondary tenses of the active (perfect, pluperfect, &c.), where it is of course combined with the active participles. The participles can be made into nouns and adverbs by changing the final -a into -o and -e respectively: thus tenonto, “the future holder,” perdinte, “through having lost.”

The table of the forty-five correlative pronouns, adjectives and adverbs is also elaborate and ingenious.

Much ingenuity is displayed in the syntax, as well as some happy simplifications. But, on the other hand, there is much in it that is fanciful, arbitrary and vague, as in the use of the definite article—where the author has unfortunately followed French rather than English usage—and in the moods of the verb.

The following specimens will show the general character of this easy-flowing but somewhat heavy and monotonous language—“bad Italian,” as it is called by its detractors:—

Patro nia, kiu estas en la ĉielo, sankta estu via nomo; venu regeco via; estu volo via, kiel en la ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero. Panon nian ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ; kaj pardonu al ni ŝuldojn niajn, kiel ni ankaŭ pardonas al niaj ŝuldantoj; kaj ne konduku nin en tenton, sed liberigu nin de la malbono.

Estimata Sinjoro. Per tiu ĉi libreto mi havas la honoron prezenti al vi la lingvon internacian Esperanto. Esperanto tute ne havas la intencon malfortigi la lingvon naturan de ia popolo. Ĝi devas nur servi por la rilatoj internaciaj kaj por tiuj verkoj aŭ produktoj, kiuj interesas egale la tutan mondon.