Empe`docles, a philosopher of Agrigentum, in Sicily; "extolled in antiquity as a statesman and orator, as physicist, physician, and poet, and even as prophet and worker of miracles," who flourished about the year 440 B.C.; he conceived the universe as made up of "four eternal, self-subsistent, mutually underivative, but divisible, primal material bodies, mingled and moulded by two moving forces, the uniting one of friendship and the disuniting one of strife"; of him it is fabled that, to persuade his fellow-citizens, with whom he had been in high favour as their deliverer from the tyranny of the aristocracy, of his bodily translation from earth to heaven, he threw himself unseen into the crater of Etna, but that at the next eruption of the mountain his slipper was cast up and revealed the fraud.
Empires: the Roman, capital Rome, dates from the reign of Augustus, 25 B.C., to that of Theodosius, A.D. 395; of the East, or Low Empire, capital Constantinople, being part of the Roman empire, dates from 295 to 1453; of the West, capital Rome, dates from 295 to 476; the Holy, or Second Empire of the West, founded by Charlemagne, dates from 800 to 911; the Latin, capital Constantinople, founded by the Crusaders, dates from 1204 to 1261; the German, founded by Otho the Great in 962, ended by abdication of Francis II. of Austria in 1806, and restored under William I. in 1870; the French, founded by Napoleon I., dates from 1804 to 1815, and as established by Napoleon III. dates from 1852 to 1870; of the Indies, founded in 1876 under the crown of England.
Empiric, the name given to any who practises an art from the mere experience of results, apart from all reference to or knowledge of the scientific explanation.
Empiricism, a philosophical term applied to the theory that all knowledge is derived from the senses and experience alone, to the rejection of the theory of innate ideas; Locke, in modern times, is the great representative of the school that advocates this doctrine supported by Aristotle.
Empson, Sir Richard, a lawyer in the reign of Henry VII.; was Speaker of the House of Commons; incurred the hatred of the populace by acting as the king's agent in forcing payment of taxes and penalties; was convicted of tyranny and treason, and beheaded in 1510.
Empyema, a medical term signifying a diseased condition of the chest, in which pus accumulates in the pleura, cures of which are sometimes effected by drawing off the pus by means of tubes.
Empyrean, the highest heaven, or region of pure elemental fire, whence everything of the nature of fire has been conceived to emanate, whether in the phenomena of nature or the life of man.
Ems, 1, a river of NW. Germany, rises in Westphalia, and after a course of 205 m. discharges into Dollart Bay, an inlet of the North Sea; is navigable, and is joined to the Lippe by means of a canal, and also similarly to Dortmund. 2, A celebrated German watering-place, on the Lahn, near Coblenz; its mineral springs, known to the Romans, vary in warmth from 80° to 135° F.
Enamel, a vitreous compound, easily fusible, and coloured in various tints by the admixture of different metallic oxides; is fused to the surface of metals for utility and ornament; was known to the European and Asiatic ancients, and has maintained its popularity to the present day. Various schools have been formed, of which the Byzantine, Rhenish, and Limoges are the most noted.
Encaustic Painting, an ancient style of decorative art somewhat similar to enamelling, which consisted in overlaying the surface (e. g. of walls) with wax, then inlaying a coloured design, the whole being subsequently polished.
Enceladus, one of the chief giants that revolted against Zeus, and who, as he fled and took refuge in Sicily, was transfixed by a thunderbolt, and buried under Etna. The fiery eruptions of the mountain are his breath, and the shaking of it ascribed to his shifting from one side to another. In the latter regard he serves in literature as the symbol of a blind, often impotent, struggle to throw off some oppressive incubus.
Enceladus, Manuel Blanco, a distinguished Chilian statesman and soldier, born in Buenos Ayres; trained for the navy in Spain, but joined the Chilian revolutionaries; served with distinction under Lord Cochrane, and rose to high rank both in the army and navy; was commander of the Chilian forces in 1825, and for two months in the following year President of the Republic; was subsequently Governor of Valparaiso, and minister to France (1790-1876).
Enchiridion of Epictetus. See Epictetus.
Encina or Enzina, Juan de la, a Spanish dramatist, whose works mark the rise of the Spanish drama, born at Salamanca; was at one time secretary to the Duke of Alva, and afterwards conductor of music in the chapel of Leo X. at Rome (1469-1534).
Encke, Johann Franz, a celebrated German astronomer, born at Hamburg; determined the sun's distance, and the orbit of the comet of 1680; calculated the time of the revolution of the comet which now bears his name, and which appeared in 1818; determined also the distance of the sun by the two transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769 (1791-1865).
Encyclical Letter, a letter addressed by the Pope to the bishops of the Church, condemnatory of prevailing errors or counselling them how to act in connection with public questions of the day.
Encyclopædia, a name of Greek derivation, given to works which embrace within their pages a more or less complete account, in alphabetical order, of the whole round of human knowledge, or of some particular section of it. Attempts in this direction were made as far back as Aristotle's day, and various others have since been made from time to time, according as the circle of knowledge widened. Amongst famous encyclopædias which have appeared, mention may be made of the French "Encyclopédie" (q. v.); the "Encyclopædia Britannica," Edinburgh (1708-1771), now in its ninth edition (1889); the German "Encyclopedie," begun in 1818 by Ersch and Gruber, and not yet completed, although 170 volumes have appeared; while the largest of all is the Chinese encyclopædia, in 5020 vols., printed in Pekin in 1726.
Encyclopédie, a French encyclopædia consisting of 28 vols., to which a supplement of 5 vols. was added; edited by D'Alembert and Diderot; contributed to by a number of the eminent savants of France, and issued in 1751-1777, and which contributed to feed, but did nothing to allay, or even moderate, the fire of the Revolution.
Encyclopedist, generally a man of encyclopedic knowledge, or who conducts or contributes to an encyclopædia; specially one who has, as the French encyclopedists, an overweening, false, and illusory estimate of the moral worth and civilising power of such knowledge. See Carlyle's "Sartor," Bk. I. chap. 10, on the "Encyclopedic Head."
Endemic, a term applied to diseases which affect the inhabitants of certain countries and localities, and which arise from strictly local causes, e.g. neighbouring swamps, bad sanitation, impure water, climate, &c.
Endogens, those plants in which the new fibrous matter is developed in the centre of the stem, and which is pushed outward by the formation of new tissue within, thus developing the stem outwards from the inside. See Exogens.
Endor, a place on the S. of Mount Tabor, in Palestine, where the sorceress lived who was consulted by Saul before the battle of Gilboa, and who professed communication with the ghost of Samuel (1 Sam, xxviii. 7).
Endosmose, a word used in physics to describe the intermingling of two liquids of different densities, in close juxtaposition, but separated by a thin membranous tissue. The liquid of lesser density passes more rapidly through the dividing tissue, and raises the level of the liquid in the other vessel, this action is named endosmose; while the flowing of the liquid of greater density into the vessel whose level is falling, is called exosmose.
Endymion, a beautiful shepherd, son of Zeus, whom Selene (q. v.) carried off to Mount Lemnos, in Caria, where, as she kissed him, he sank into eternal sleep. This is one version of the story.
Eneid, an epic poem of Virgil, the hero of which is Æneas of Troy.
Energy, Conservation of, the doctrine that, however it may change in form and character, or be dissipated, no smallest quantity of force in the universe is ever lost.
Enfantin, Barthélemy Prosper, a Socialist and journalist, born in Paris, adopted the views of Saint-Simon (q. v.); held subversive views on the marriage laws, which involved him in some trouble; wrote a useful and sensible book on Algerian colonisation, and several works, mainly interpretative of the theories of Saint-Simon (1796-1864).
Enfield (32), a town in Middlesex, 10 m. NE. of London, has a celebrated Government rifle factory; was for six years the dwelling-place of Charles Lamb.
Engadine, a noted Swiss valley in the canton of the Grisons, stretches about 65 m. between the Lepontine or Rhætian Alps; is divided into the Lower Engadine, wild and desolate, and the Upper Engadine, fertile and populous, and a favourite health resort; the river Inn flows through it, its waters collected here and there into lakes.
Engedi, an oasis, a spot of rare beauty, once a place of palm-trees, 23 m. W. of the N. end of the Dead Sea.
Enghien, Louis de Bourbon, Duc d', an ill-fated French Royalist, born at Chantilly; joined the Royalists under his grandfather, Prince of Condé, and took part in the Rhine campaign against the Republicans; was suspected of being concerned in a Bourbon plot to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon; was seized in the neutral territory of Baden, brought to Vincennes, and, after an inconclusive and illegal trial, shot by Napoleon's orders, a proceeding which gave rise to Fouché's remark, "It is worse than a crime—it is a blunder" (1772-1804).
Engineers, Royal Naval, since 1848 have ranked as commissioned officers; salaries vary from £110 to £639 a year; admission is by examination; duties include the entire oversight and management of the ship-machinery; there are three ranks—inspectors of machinery, chief engineers, and assistants, the latter being of three grades; in 1888 engineer studentships were created.
Engineers, the Corps of Royal, in the British army, instituted in 1763, consists of about 900 officers and 5000 non-commissioned officers and men, usually recruited from skilled artisans; their duties comprise the undertaking of all engineering operations necessary in the conduct of war, e. g. bridging and mining, road and railway and telegraph construction, building of fortifications, &c.; their term of service is 7 years in the active army and 5 in the reserve, or maybe 3 in the former and 9 in the latter.
England (27,000), the "predominant partner" of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, comprises along with Wales the southern, and by far the greater, portion of Great Britain, the largest of the European islands; it is separated from the Continent on the E. and S. by the North Sea and English Channel, and from Ireland on the W. by St. George's Channel, while Scotland forms its N. boundary; its greatest length N. and S. is 430 m., and greatest breadth (including Wales) 370. It is of an irregular triangular shape; has a long and highly-developed coast-line (1800 m.); is divided into 40 counties (with Wales 52); has numerous rivers with navigable estuaries, while transit is facilitated by a network of railways and canals; save the highlands in the N., and the Pennine Range running into Derby, England is composed (if we except the mountainland of Wales) of undulating plains, 80 per cent, of which is arable; while coal and iron are found in abundance, and copper, lead, zinc, and tin in lesser quantities; in the extent and variety of its textile factories, and in the production of machinery and other hardware goods, England is without an equal; the climate is mild and moist, and affected by draughts; but for the Gulf Stream, whose waters wash its western shores, it would probably resemble that of Labrador. Under a limited monarchy and a widely embracing franchise, the people of England enjoy an unrivalled political freedom. Since Henry VIII.'s time, the national religion has been an established Protestantism, but all forms are tolerated. In 1896 education was made free. The name England is derived from Engle-land, or land of the Angles, a Teutonic people who, with kindred Saxons and Jutes, came over from the mainland in the 5th century, and took possession of the island, driving Britons and Celts before them. Admixtures to the stock took place during the 11th century through the Danish and Norman conquests. E. annexed Wales in 1284, and was united with Scotland under one crown in 1603, and under one Parliament in 1707.
England, The Want Of, "England needs," says Ruskin, "examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek, not greater wealth, but simpler pleasures; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions self-possession, and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace."
Engles, Friedrich, a Socialist, the friend of Karl Marx; an active propagandist of socialistic theories; author of several works on Socialism (1820-1895).
Enid, the daughter of Yniol and the wife of Geraint; one of the ladies of the court of King Arthur; celebrated for her steadfast conjugal affection, the story regarding whom is given in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King."
Enniskillen (5), the county town of Fermanagh, Ireland, on an isle in the river which joins Lower and Upper Loughs Erne; the scene of the defeat of James II.'s troops by those of William of Orange; gives its name to a well-known dragoon regiment.
Ennius, an early Roman poet, the father of Roman epic poetry, born in Rudiæ, Calabria; promoted the study of Greek literature in Rome; of his poems, dramatic and epic, only a few fragments are extant (239-169 B.C.).
Enoch, a godly man, who lived in antediluvian times among a race gone godless, and whom the Lord in judgment removed from the earth to return Himself by-and-by with a flood in order to clear the world of the ungodly.
Enoch, The Book of, an apocryphal book, quoted from by Jude, discovered over a century ago, composed presumably about the 2nd century, though subsequently enlarged and ascribed to Enoch; it professes to be a series of revelations made to the patriarch bearing upon the secrets of the material and spiritual universe and the course of Providence, and written down by him for the benefit of posterity.
Enoch Arden, a poem of Tennyson, and one of his happiest efforts to translate an incident of common life into the domain of poetry; the story is: A sailor, presumed to be lost, and whose wife marries another, returns, finds her happily wedded, and bears the sorrow rather than disturb her felicity by revealing himself.
Entablature, a term in classic architecture applied to the ornamented portion of a building which rests in horizontal position upon supporting columns; is subdivided into three parts, the lower portion being called the architrave, the middle portion the frieze, and the uppermost the cornice; the depth assigned to these parts varies in the different schools, but the whole entablature generally measures twice the diameter of the column.
Entail, a term in law which came to be used in connection with the practice of limiting the inheritance of estates to a certain restricted line of heirs. Attempts of the kind, which arise naturally out of the deeply-seated desire which men have to preserve property—especially landed estates—in their own families, are of ancient date; but the system as understood now, involving the principle of primogeniture, owes its origin to the feudal system. Sometimes the succession was limited to the male issue, but this was by no means an invariable practice; in modern times the system has been, by a succession of Acts of Parliaments (notably the Cairns Act of 1882), greatly modified, and greater powers given to the actual owner of alienating the estates to which he has succeeded, a process which is called "breaking the entail."
Entsagen, the renunciation with which, according to Goethe, life, strictly speaking, begins, briefly explained by Froude as "a resolution, fixedly and clearly made, to do without pleasant things—wealth, promotion, fame, honour, and the other rewards with which the world recompenses the services it appreciates," or, still more briefly, the renunciation of the flesh symbolised in the Christian baptism by water.
Environment, a term of extensive use in biological science, especially employed to denote the external conditions which go to determine modifications in the development of organic life to the extent often of producing new species.
Eon de Beaumont, Charles d', the "Chevalier d'Eon," a noted French diplomatist, born at Tonnerre, Burgundy; notorious as having, while on secret missions, adopted a woman's dress for purposes of disguise; was ambassador at the English Court, but degraded and recalled by Louis XVI., and condemned to wear feminine garb till the close of his life; died in destitution, when the popular doubt as to his real sex was set at rest (1728-1810).
Eos, the goddess of the dawn, the daughter of Hyperion, and the sister of Helios and Selene. See Aurora.
Eötvös, Jozsef, Hungarian statesman and author, born at Buda; adopted law as a profession, but devoted himself to literature, and eventually politics; Minister of Public Instruction, and then of Worship and Education; published some powerful dramas and novels, notably "The Village Notary," a work pronounced equal in many respects to the best of Scott's novels; also vigorous political essays (1813-1871).
Epact, a name given to the excess of the solar month over the lunar, amounting to 1 day 11 hours 11 minutes and 57 seconds, and of the solar year over the lunar amounting to 11 days.
Epaminondas, a famous Theban statesman and soldier, defeated Sparta in the great victory of Leuctra, and during his lifetime raised Thebes to a position of dominant power; was slain in the battle of Mantinea when again successfully engaging the Spartans; blameless in his private life as he was heroic in the field, he figures as the great hero of Theban history; born about the close of the 5th century B.C.
Epée, Charles Michel, Abbé de l', a noted philanthropist, born at Versailles; took holy orders, but was divested of them on account of Jansenist views; devoted his life to the instruction of deaf-mutes, for whom he founded an institute, and invented a language of signs (1712-1789).
Epeius, the contriver of the wooden horse, by means of which the Greeks entered and took possession of Troy, and who was assisted by Athena in the building of it.
Épernay (18), a French town on the Marne, 20 m. NW. of Châlons; the chief emporium of the champagne district.
Ephesians, The Epistle to, a presumably circular letter of St. Paul to the Church at Ephesus, among other Churches in the East, written to show that the Gentile had a standing in Christ as well as the Jew, and that it was agreeable to the eternal purpose of God that the two should form one body in Him; it contains Paul's doctrine of the Church, and appears to have been written during his first imprisonment in Rome (61-63); it appears from the spirit that breathes in it and the similar thoughts and exhortations, contained to have been written at the same time as the Epistle to the Colossians.
Ephialtes, one of the giants who revolted against Zeus and threatened to storm heaven; he appears to have been maimed by Apollo and Hercules.
Ephialtes, a Malian Greek who led the Persians across a pass in the mountains, whereby they were able to surround and overcome Leonidas and his Spartans at Thermopylæ.
Ephod, a richly and emblematically embroidered vestment worn by the high-priest of the Jews, and consisting of two parts, one covering the breast and supporting the breastplate, and the other covering the back, these being clasped to the shoulders by two onyx stones, with names inscribed on them, six on each, of the 12 tribes, and the whole bound round the waist with a girdle of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine-twined linen.
Eph`ori (i. e. overseers), the name of five magistrates annually elected in ancient Sparta from among the people as a countercheck to the authority of the kings and the senate; had originally to see to the execution of justice and the education of youth; their authority, which resembled that of the tribunes in Rome, was at last destroyed in 225 B.C.
Ephraem Syrus, the most famous of the Church Fathers in Syria, and called "prophet of the Syrians," also "Pillar of the Church" and "Help of the Holy Ghost," born at Nisibis, Mesopotamia; lived a hermit's life in a cave near Edessa; left exegetical writings, homilies, and poems, and so great was his piety and self-denial, that he was looked upon as a saint, and is still so reverenced in several Churches (320-370).
Ephraim, one of the 12 tribes of Israel, the one to which Joshua belonged, located in the centre of the land; powerful in the days of the Judges, the chief of the 10 tribes that revolted under Jeroboam after the death of Solomon, and is found often to give name to the whole body of them.
Epic, a poem that treats of the events in the life of a nation or a race or the founder of one, agreeably to the passion inspiring it and in such form as to kindle and keep alive the heroism thereof in the generations thereafter; or a poem in celebration of the thoughts, feelings, and feats of a whole nation or race; its proper function is to disimprison the soul of the related facts and give a noble rendering of them; of compositions of this kind the "Iliad" of Homer, the "Æneid" of Virgil, and the "Divine Comedy" of Dante take the lead.
Epic melody, melody in accord with the feeling of the whole race or the subject as a whole.
Epicharis, a Roman lady who conspired against Nero and strangled herself rather than reveal her accomplices after undergoing the cruellest tortures.
Epicharmus, a Greek philosopher and poet in the island of Cos; studied philosophy under Pythagoras; conceived a taste for comedy; gave himself up to that branch of the drama, and received the name of the "Father of Comedy"; lived eventually at the court of Hiero of Syracuse (540-430 B.C.).
Epictetus, a celebrated Stoic philosopher of the 1st century, originally a slave; lived and taught at Rome, but after the expulsion of the philosophers retired to Nicopolis, in Epirus; was lame, and lived in poverty; his conversations were collected by Arrian, and his philosophy in a short manual under the Greek name of "Enchiridion of Epictetus," written, as is alleged, in utter obliviousness of the fact that "the end of man is an action, not a thought."
Epicureans, a sect of philosophers who derived their name from Epicurus, and who divided the empire of philosophy with the Stoics (q. v.), at the birth of Christ; they held that the chief end of man was happiness, that the business of philosophy was to guide him in the pursuit of it, and that it was only by experience that one could learn what would lead to it and what would not; they scouted the idea of reason as regulative of thought, and conscience as regulative of conduct, and maintained that our senses were our only guides in both; in a word, they denied that God had implanted in man an absolute rational and moral principle, and maintained that he had no other clue to the goal of his being but his experience in life, while the distinction of right and wrong was only a distinction of what was found conducive to happiness and what was not; they had no faith in or fear of a divine Being above man any more than of a divine principle within man, and they scorned the idea of another world with its awards, and concerned themselves only with this, which, however, in their hands was no longer a cosmos but a chaos, out of which the quickening and ordinative spirit had fled.
Epicurus, a Greek philosopher, born at Samos, of Athenian origin; settled at Athens in his thirty-sixth year, and founded a philosophical school there, where he taught a philosophy in opposition to that of the Stoics; philosophy he defined as "an activity which realises a happy life through ideas and arguments," summing itself up "in ethics, which are to teach us how to attain a life of felicity"; his system comprised "the three branches included in philosophy, viz., logic, physics, and ethics," but he arranges them in reverse order, logic and physics being regarded only as the handmaids of ethics; for he "limited logic to the investigation of the criterion of truth," and physics he valued as disillusioning the mind of "the superstitious fear that went to disturb happiness"; he was a man of a temperate and blameless life, and it is a foul calumny on him to charge him with summing up happiness as mere self-indulgence, though it is true he regarded "virtue as having no value in itself, but only in so far as it offered us something—an agreeable life."
Epicycle, an expression used in the Ptolemaic (q. v.) system of astronomy; the old belief that the celestial bodies moved in perfect circles round the earth was found to be inadequate to explain the varying position of the planets, a difficulty which led Ptolemy to invent his theory of epicycles, which was to the effect that each planet revolved round a centre of its own, greater or less, but that all these centres themselves moved in procession round the earth, a theory which fell to pieces before the investigations of Kepler and Newton.
Epidaurus, a town of ancient Greece, in Argolis, on the eastern shore of the Peloponnesus; was at one time an independent State and an active centre of trade, but was chiefly noted for its famous temple of Æsculapius, to which people flocked to be cured of their diseases, and which bore the inscription "Open only to pure souls"; ruins of a magnificent theatre are still extant here.
Epidemic, a name given to contagious diseases which, arising suddenly in a community, rapidly spread through its members, often travelling from district to district, until often a whole country is affected; the theory of the transmission of disease by microbes has largely explained the spread of such scourges, but the part which atmospheric and other physical, and perhaps psychic, causes play in these disorders is still matter of debate, especially as regards epidemic mental diseases. See Endemic.
Epigoni (the Descendants), the name given to the sons of the Seven who perished before Thebes; they avenged the death of their fathers by razing Thebes to the ground; the war first and last has been made the subject of epic and tragic poems.
Epigram, in modern usage, is a neat, witty, and pointed utterance briefly couched in verse form, usually satiric, and reserving its sting to the last line; sometimes made the vehicle of a quaintly-turned compliment, as, for example, in Pope's couplet to Chesterfield, when asked to write something with that nobleman's pencil;—
The Latin epigrammatists, especially Martial and Catullus, were the first to give a satirical turn to the epigram, their predecessors the Greeks having employed it merely for purposes of epitaph and monumental inscriptions of a laudatory nature.
Epilepsy, a violent nervous affection, manifesting itself usually in sudden convulsive seizures and unconsciousness, followed by temporary stoppage of the breath and rigidity of the body, popularly known as "falling sickness"; origin as yet undecided; attributed by the ancients to demoniacal possession.
Epimenides, a philosopher of Crete of the 7th century B.C., of whom it is fabled that he fell asleep in a cave when a boy, and that he did not awake for 57 years, but it was to find himself endowed with all knowledge and wisdom. He was invited to Athens during a plague to purify the city, on which occasion he performed certain mysterious rites with the effect that the plague ceased. The story afforded Goethe a subject for a drama entitled "Das Epimenides Erwachen," "in which he symbolises his own aloofness from the great cause of the Fatherland, the result of want of faith in the miraculous power that resides in an enthusiastic outbreak of patriotic feeling."
Epimetheus (i. e. Afterthought), the brother of Prometheus (Forethought), who in spite of the warnings of the latter opened Pandora's box, and let loose a flood of evils on the earth, which oppress it to this day.
Epinal (21), the capital of the dep. of Vosges, in France, charmingly situated at the foot of the Vosges Mountains, on the Moselle; is elegantly built, and has ruins of an old castle, surrounded by fine gardens, a 10th-century church, and a fine library, &c.; a suspension bridge spans the Moselle; there is industry in cotton, paper, &c.
Epinay, Madame d', a French writer, unhappily married in her youth; became notorious for her illicit intimacy with Rousseau and Grimm; her "Mémoires et Correspondence" give a lively picture of her times (1725-1783).
Epiphanius, St., one of the Fathers of the Greek Church; of Jewish descent; flourished in the 4th century; led a monastic life, and founded a monastery in Eleutheropolis; was bishop of Constantia in 367; bigoted and tyrannical, he became notorious for his ecclesiastical zeal, and for his indictments of Origen and St. Chrysostom; left writings that show great but indiscriminate learning (330-402).
Epiphany, as observed in the Christian Church, is a festival held on the 12th day after Christmas, in commemoration of the manifestation of Christ to the Magi of the East; but up to the close of the 4th century the festival also commemorated the incarnation of Christ as well as the divine manifestation at His baptism.
Epi`rus, was the NW. portion of ancient Hellas, Dodona its capital, and Acheron one of its rivers; in 1466 became part of the Ottoman empire, but in 1881 a portion was ceded to Greece.
Episcopacy, the name given to the form of Church government in which there are superior and inferior orders among the clergy, as between that of bishop and that of a presbyter; called also Prelacy.
Episcopius, Simon, a Dutch theologian, born at Amsterdam; the head of the Arminian party after the death of Arminius; was unjustly misrepresented, and tyrannically, even cruelly, treated by the opposite party; he was a man of great ability, enlightened views, and admirable temper, and set more store by integrity and purity of character than orthodoxy of belief (1583-1643).
Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum (i. e. letters of obscure men), a celebrated collection of Latin letters which appeared in the 16th century in Germany, attacking with merciless severity the doctrines and modes of living of the scholastics and monks, credited with hastening the Reformation.
Epitaph, an inscription placed on a tombstone in commemoration of the dead interred below. The natural feeling which prompts such inscriptions has manifested itself among all civilised peoples, and not a little of a nation's character may be read in them. The Greeks reserved epitaphs for their heroes, but amongst the Romans grew up the modern custom of marking the tombs of relatives with some simple inscription, many of their sepulchres being placed on the side of the public roads, a circumstance which explains the phrase, Siste, viator—Stay, traveller—found in old graveyards.
Epithalamium, a nuptial song, sung before the bridal chamber in honour of the newly-wedded couple, particularly among the Greeks and Romans, of whom Theocritus and Catullus have left notable examples; but the epithalamium of Edmund Spenser is probably the finest specimen extant of this poetic form.
Epping Forest, as it now exists in the SE. of Essex, is a remnant—5600 acres—of the famous Epping or Waltham Forest, which once extended over all Essex, and which then served as a royal hunting-ground, is now a favourite pleasure-ground and valuable field for explorations of botanical and entomological collectors.
Epsom, a market-town in Surrey, skirting Banstead Downs, 15 m. SW. of London; formerly noted for its mineral springs, now associated with the famous Derby races.
Equinoctial Points are the two points at which the celestial equator intersects the Ecliptic (q. v.), so called because the days and nights are of equal duration when the sun is at these points.
Equinoxes, the two annually recurring times at which the sun arrives at the Equinoctial Points (q. v.), viz., 21st March and 22nd September, called respectively the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes in the northern hemisphere, but vice versa in the southern; at these times the sun is directly over the equator, and day and night is then of equal length over the whole globe.
Equites, The, a celebrated equestrian order in ancient Rome, supposed to have been instituted by Romulus; at first purely military, it was at length invested with the judicial functions of the Senate, and the power of farming out the public revenues; gradually lost these privileges and became defunct.
Erasmus, Desiderius, a famous scholar and man of letters, born at Rotterdam; illegitimate son of one Gerhard; conceived a disgust for monkish life during six years' residence in a monastery at Steyn; wandered through Europe and amassed stores of learning at various universities; visited Oxford in 1489, and formed a lifelong friendship with Sir Thomas More; was for some years professor of Divinity and Greek at Cambridge; edited the first Greek Testament; settled finally at Basel, whence he exercised a remarkable influence over European thought by the wit and tone of his writings, notably the "Praise of Folly," the "Colloquia" and "Adagia"; he has been regarded as the precursor of the Reformation; is said to have laid the egg which Luther hatched; aided the Reformation by his scholarship, though he kept aloof as a scholar from the popular movement of Luther (1467-1536).
Erastianism, the right of the State to override and overrule the decisions of the Church that happen to involve civil penalties. See Erastus.