The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 185

ENERGY, CONSERVATION OF, the doctrine that, however it may change in form and character, or be dissipated, no smallest quant.i.ty 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 Middles.e.x, 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 a.s.sa.s.sinate 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 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 a.s.sistants, the latter being of three grades; in 1888 engineer studentships were created.

ENGINEERS, THE CORPS OF ROYAL, in the British army, inst.i.tuted 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 ca.n.a.ls; 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 quant.i.ties; 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 sh.o.r.es, 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 G.o.dly man, who lived in antediluvian times among a race gone G.o.dless, 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 unG.o.dly.

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 cla.s.sic 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 a.s.signed 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.

EOLUS. See aeOLUS.

EON. See aeON.

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 amba.s.sador 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 dest.i.tution, when the popular doubt as to his real s.e.x was set at rest (1728-1810).

EOS, the G.o.ddess of the dawn, the daughter of Hyperion, and the sister of Helios and Selene. See AURORA.

EoTVoS, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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.

EPeE, CHARLES MICHEL, ABBe 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 inst.i.tute, 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 a.s.sisted by Athena in the building of it.

ePERNAY (18), a French town on the Marne, 20 m. NW. of Chalons; 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 G.o.d 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.