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William Roscoe Thayer - "George Washington"

Marie Leopold - "Een Jolig Troepje"

Various - "The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction"

Charles Dudley Warner - "Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1"

Gray Gets New Ingram Role; Lovett Heading Ingram Digital
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PW Morning Report, January 6, 2009">The PW Morning Report, January 6, 2009
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Richard Seaver Dies
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The Nuttall Encyclopaedia by Edited by Rev. James Wood

E >> Edited by Rev. James Wood >> The Nuttall Encyclopaedia





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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


ENCHIRIDION OF EPICTETUS. See EPICTETUS.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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