f93 



EADMER. 



EASTLAKE, SIR CHARLES, P.R.A. 



694 



subjects essentially unpoetical, whatever might be the ingenuity of the 

 writers, they could do no more than make a tolerable poem of a bad 

 kind ; for they did not confine themselves to a mere outline of the 

 subject, which they might fill up with what colouring they pleased, 

 but essayed to giro, in a poetical form, the intricacies and minutiso of 

 various branches of manufacture. The selection of Virgil's ' Georgics ' 

 for a model was in itself a fallacy, as we question whether this work, 

 with all its beauties, would be much read at the present time were it 

 not for the opportunity which it affords of studying one of the most 

 elegant writers of the Augustan age, and for the light it throws on 

 the agriculture of the ancients. But Dyer's 'Fleece' contains many 

 very pleasing passages of description, and there is about it, as in all of 

 his poems, a simple, unassuming, unaffected strain of genuine, though 

 it may be somewhat humble, poetic feeling. The 'Ruins of Rome,' 



though less elaborate, is of a higher order. It displays considerable 

 imagination and a fine and well cultivated feeling for the beauty and 

 harmony of nature ; and the descriptions are imbued and vivified with 

 a pure tone of moral sentiment. Perhaps his most popular, though 

 his least thoughtful and least finished poem, is his earliest one 

 ' Grongar Hill.' There is perhaps no new idea in this work, but it 

 is a vivid and brilliant combination of pleasing images. The poet 

 invokes the muse to " draw the landskip bright and strong," and the 

 muse seems to grant his request. We may conceive the poem to be 

 the work of a man walking up-hill, and struck with the succession of 

 scenery which opens all around, he says the first thing that comes into 

 his head ; and as he is affected by none but beautiful prospects, what 

 he says is sure to be pleasing. 



E 



or EDMER, the friend and historian of Archbishop 

 Anselm, lived in the 12th century, but we have no information 

 respecting his parents, or the particular time and place of his nativity. 

 He received a learned education, was a monk of Canterbury, and 

 became the bosom friend and inseparable companion of two arch- 

 bishops of that see, St. Anselm and hia successor Ralph. To the former 

 of these he was appointed spiritual director by the pope. In 1120, by 

 the desire of Alexander I. of Scotland, he was elected Bishop of St. 

 Andrews ; but on the day of his election a dispute arose between the 

 king and Eadmer respecting his consecration. Eadmer wished to be 

 consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, he contended, was 

 the primate of all Britain ; while Alexander contended that the see of 

 Canterbury had no pre-eminence over that of St. Andrews. Eadmer 

 finally abandoned his bishopric and returned to England, where he 

 was kindly received by the archbishop and clergy of Canterbury, who 

 yet thought him too precipitate in leaving his bishopric. Eadmer at 

 last wrote a long and submissive letter to the king of Scotland, but 

 without producing the desired effect. Wharton fixes his death in 

 1124, the very year in which the bishopric of St. Andrews was filled 

 up. Eadmer it now best known for his history of the affairs of England 

 in his own time, from 1060 to 1122, in which he has inserted many 

 original papers, and preserved many facts which are nowhere else to 

 be found. His style is regular and good, and his work more free from 

 legendary tales than is usual with the works of his time. The best 

 edition is that by Selden, entitled ' Eadmeri Monachi Cantuariensis 

 Historia; Novorum, sive aui Sreculi, Libri Sex,' folio, London, 1023. 

 His life of St. Anselm was first printed in 12mo, at Antwerp, in 1551, 

 under the title of ' Fratris Edmeri Angli de Vita D. Aaselmi Archie- 

 piscopi Cantuariensis, Libri duo.' Several others of his works, with 

 the ' Historia Novorum,' were edited by the congregation of St. Maur 

 at the end of Father Gerberon's editions of the works of St. Anselm, 

 fol., Par., 1675 and 1721. His lives of St Wilfrid, St. Oswald, St. 

 Dunstan, &c., with that of St. Anselm, were inserted by Wharton in 

 his 'Anglia Sacra.' 



EARLE, JOHN, was born at York about 1601. Being sent to 

 Oxford, and entered as a commoner at Chri^tchurch College, he waa 

 afterwards, in 1620, admitted as a probationary fellow on the founda- 

 tion of Merton College. He took the degree of Master of Arts in 1624, 

 and that of Doctor in Divinity in 1642. About 1631, when he was 

 proctor, he was appointed chaplain to Philip, earl of Pembroke, who 

 was then chancellor of the university, and lord chamberlain of the 

 king's household. The earl presented him to the rectory of Bishop- 

 stone in Wiltshire, and to the same influence probably he owed also 

 his appointment to be chaplain and tutor to Prince Charles, and 

 chancellor of tbe cathedral of Salisbury. Of all these preferments he 

 was soon deprived by the civil wars. After the battle of Worcester 

 he fled from England, and, meeting Charles II. at Rouen, was made 

 his chaplain and clerk of the closet. Earlc remained abroad during 

 the whole exile of his master. Immediately after the Restoration he 

 was made Dean of Westminster. In 1662 he was consecrated Bishop 

 of Worcester, whence he was translated in the next year to the see of 

 Salisbury. He continued to attend much at court, and on tho breaking 

 out of the plague in 1665, he accompanied the king and queen to 

 Oxford, where, in University College, he died on the 17th of November 

 in that year. His tomb stands near the high altar of Merton College 

 Chapel. Bishop Earle was a zealous cavalier and staunch high- 

 churchman, but is represented on all hands, by Baxter as well as 

 others, as having been a man of moderate and kindly dispositions. 

 He is now remembered on account of his work called ' Microcosmo- 

 graphy, or a Piece of the World discovered, in Essays and Characters,' 

 8vo, 1628. This volume was several times reprinted with additions 

 in the author's own lifetime, the eighth edition appearing in 1650. 

 Tho edition by Dr. Bliss, 1811, 12mo, is the eleventh, and contains 

 notices of the author's life and of his other works, with several small 

 English poems of his, and specimens of his Latinity. Except these 

 little pieces, and tbe ' Microcogmography,' he published nothing but a 

 Latiu translation of the Icon Basilike ; ' Elmtiv BairiAix^, vel Imago 

 Regis Caroli, in Illis suia jErumnis et Solitudine,' Hague, 1649, 12mo, 



Wood mentions an unpriutod Latin translation of Hooker's ' Eccle- 

 siastical Polity' by him, which- however has not been seen by any ono 

 in modern times. Earle's ' Microcosmography ' is one of the best, as 

 it was one of the most popular, among the brief sketches of character 

 and manners which were so abundant in our literature for a century 

 after the middle of Elizabeth's reign, and which, receiving the 

 addition of narrative matter, were transformed, in the beginning of 

 the 18th century, into the little novels of the 'Spectator 1 anil 

 other periodical works. The bishop's portraits, especially the ethical 

 ones, abound both in shrewdness and in humour, and are very often 

 expressed with great terseness and epigrammatic point. 



EARLOM, RICHARD, one of the most distinguished English 

 engravers of the 18th century, was born in the early half of that 

 century, and, according to Bryan, was still living in 1816. A few 

 foreign works speak more definitely of the when and whereabouts of 

 Earlom's birth, but they are at the same time vague and contradictory ; 

 some state that he was a native of Somersetshire, others that he was 

 born iu London about 1728. The dates of his works, which are very 

 numerous, range between 1760 and 1790. As a mezzotinto engraver 

 Earlom has scarcely been equalled; his historical and other figure 

 pieces in this line are excellent, but some fruit and flower pieces, after 

 Van Os and Van Huysum, are of unrivalled beauty and effect. 

 Earlom also executed many etchings and imitations of chalk drawings, 

 the principal of which is the celebrated ' Liber Veritatis,' published 

 by Boydell, consisting of a series of fac-similes from the original 

 sketches of Claude Lorraine, in the possession of the Duke of Devon- 

 shire. He engraved from a great variety of masters, English and 

 foreign, as Correggio, Ana. Caracci, Domenichino, Guido, Guercino, 

 Carlo Dolci, Luca Giordano, S. Cantarini, Quintiu Matsys, Hemskerk, 

 Teniers, Snyders, Rubens, Vandyck, Rembrandt, Vanderwerf, Velas- 

 quez, Mengs, Zoffany, Reynolds, Loutherbourg, Weat, Wilson, Gains- 

 borough, Jos. Wright, Northcote, Romney, &c. &c. Among his 

 masterpieces are the ' Royal Academy," after Zoffany ; ' Lord Heath- 

 field,' after Reynolds ; and tho 'Iron Forge,' after Wright. There is 

 a list of his principal works in Bryan's ' Dictionary of Painters and 

 Engravers.' 



* EASTLAKE, SIR CHARLES LOCK, P.R.A., was born in 1793 

 at Plymouth, Devonshire. Having, after the usual couree of educa- 

 tion at the grammar schools of Plymouth and Plympton, and for a 

 brief space at the Charterhouse, decided on adopting painting as a 



! profession, he entered as a student at the Royal Academy, London, 

 where under Fuseli he considerably distinguished himself. At this 

 time too he availed himself of the advice and experience of his fellow 



' townsman, Haydon. Soon after completing his preparatory studies, 

 Mr. Eastlake visited Paris in order to study and copy some of the 



i many great works which Napoleon had collected in the Louvre. His 



' labours were however interrupted by the Emperor's return from Elba, 

 and he came back to England and established himself at Plymouth as a 

 portrait-painter. When the Bellerophou lay off Plymouth with Bona- 

 parte on board of it, Mr. Eastlake made sketches of him as he walked 

 the deck from a boat, and from these painted a full-length portrait of 

 the fallen emperor the last painted from him in Europe. Mr. 

 Eastlake in 1817-18 visited Italy, Greece, and Sicily; and then 

 settled for some time in Rome. In 1823 he sent to the exhibition of 

 the Royal Academy some views of Rome and its neighbourhood. 

 These were followed by various pictures of the peasantry of Italy and 

 Greece, chiefly what have been called costume pieces, but some of 

 them as the 'Brigand's Wife Defending her Wounded Husband,' 

 ' Byron's Dream;' &c. of a somewhat more ambitious character. In 

 1827 he sent to the exhibition a painting of the 'Spartan Isidas, 1 

 and he was the same year elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. 

 The following year he contributed his 'Peasants on a Pilgrimage to 

 Rome first coming in sight of the Holy City ;' a work which showed 

 a far greater amount of power than any he had previously painted, and 

 in fact formed one of the leading features of the year's exhibition. 

 This admirable picture has been two or three times eugraved, and 

 Mr. Eastlake has painted a duplicate of it with some variations. In 

 1830 Mr. Eastlake was elected 11. A. For several seasons his contri- 



