The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 189

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

ESMOND, HENRY, the t.i.tle of one of Thackeray's novels, deemed by the most competent critics his best, and the name of its hero, a chivalrous cavalier of the time of Queen Anne. "Esmond" is p.r.o.nounced by Prof.

Saintsbury to be "among the very summits of English prose fiction, exquisitely written in a marvellous resurrection of eighteenth-century style, touched somehow with a strange modernity and life which make it no _pastiche_, containing the most brilliant pa.s.sages of mere incident, and, above all, enshrining such studies of character ... as not four other makers of English prose and verse can show."

ESNe, a town in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, and 25 m.

S. of Thebes; famous for the ruins of a temple.

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

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

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

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

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

ESPRIT DES LOIS (i. e. the Spirit of Laws), the t.i.tle of Montesquieu's great work, at once speculative and historical, published in 1748, characterised in "Sartor" as the work, like many others, of "a clever infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic book the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in Heaven."

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

ESQUIRE, originally meant a s.h.i.+eld-bearer, and was bestowed upon the two attendants of a knight, who were distinguished by silver spurs, and whose especial duty it was to look after their master's armour; now used widely as a courtesy t.i.tle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESSLING, a village near Vienna, where the French gained a b.l.o.o.d.y victory over the Austrians in 1809, and which gave the t.i.tle of prince to Ma.s.sena.

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

ESTAING, COMTE D', a French admiral, "one of the bravest of men,"

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

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

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

ESTERHAZY, the town of a n.o.ble Austrian family of ancient date, and that gave birth to a number of ill.u.s.trious men.

ESTERHAZY DE GALANTHA, the name of a powerful and famous Hungarian family holding the rank of Princes of the Empire since the 17th century.

Their estates include upwards of 4000 villages, 60 market-towns, many castles and lords.h.i.+ps, but they are heavily mortgaged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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