781 



ENNIUS, QUINTUS. 



EOTVO-3, JOZSEF. 



782 



It was one of the worst instances on record of a judicial murder, and 

 has stamped an ineffaceable stain on the fame of Napoleon, who at 

 the time openly avowed to the Council of State his firm purpose oi 

 making an example of the duke in order to deter the other Bourbon 

 princes and their partisans from plotting against him in future. 

 And Rgain, at St. Helena, almost at his dying hour, he took upon 

 himself alone the whole responsibility of that deed. (' Testament de 

 NapoliSon.') After the Restoration, Hullin, president of the court, 

 Savary, Caulincourt, and others who had a share in the arrest, trial, 

 and execution of the duke, wrote each in justification or extenuation 

 of their respective conduct. The fate of the Duke of Knghien 

 excited interest and commiseration throughout Europe ; ha was 

 young, brave, amiable, and one of the most promising of the Bourbon 

 princes. 



E'NNIUS, QUINTUS, the old epic poet of Rome, was born at 

 Rudue, now Ruge, in Calabria, in the year B.C. 239, two years after 

 the termiuatiou of the first Punic war. He was a Greek by birth, 

 and is one among many instances how much Roman literature was 

 indebted even directly to foreign talent. History does not inform us 

 what iiia original Greek name was, for that of Ennius is evidently of 

 Lutit- form, and was probably adopted by him when he was admitted 

 to the privileges of a Roman citizen. Of his early life little is posi- 

 tively known. He entered the military service of the Romans, and in 

 the year 204 was serving as a centurion in the island of Sardinia, 

 where his abilities attracted the notice of Cato, who was then acting 

 as quaestor under the first Seipio Africanus. When Cato left the 

 island, the poet accompanied him to Rome, and fixed his residence on 

 the Aventine Hill. The introduction of Cato, his military character, 

 and his poetical abilities, won for him the friendship and intimacy of 

 the first men of Rome, and he was largely instrumental in introducing 

 letters iimong a nobility who had hitherto gloried as much in their 

 ignorance as their courage. Cato himself learned Greek from him. 

 Seipio Africanus found in him a companion in peace and the herald of 

 his glories in war. Seipio Nasica, the son of Africanus, delighted in 

 his society; and M. Fulvius Nobilior, the consul, ao. 189, himself 

 possessing a high literary character, prevailed on the soldier-poet to 

 accompany him in the war against the yEtolians. It was to the son 

 of this Fulvius that he was indebted for his admission to the citizen- 

 ship of Borne. His great social qualities unfortunately led him into 

 intemperance, for which he paid the penalty in severe sufferings from 

 gout. Still a hardy constitution enabled him to complete his seventieth 

 year, and to the very last to devote himself to his favourite muses. 

 He died in the year B.C. 169, and was buried in the Cornelian 

 sepulchre, one mile ont of Rome, on the Appian road, where his 

 statue still appeared with those of Publins and Lucius Seipio, oven 

 iu the age of Livy, a lasting monument of his intimacy witli those 

 great men. He lived, as we have already said, in the splendid dawn 

 of Roman literature. Njevius, the first poet of Rome, and Livius 

 Aniirouiuus, were his predecessors by not many years. The tragic 

 poet Paeuvius was his sister's son. Plautus was his contemporary, 

 and the comic writer Csecilius his companion in arms. The writings 

 of Ennios were numerous and various. His great work called, some- 

 what unpoetically, by the name of ' Annals,' was an historical epic in 

 eighteen books, written in hexameter verse, a form of metre which he 

 is said to have been the first to introduce into Roman literature. 

 Tliis work traced the history of Rome from the mythical age of 

 .(Eneas down to his own time. Hii labours in tragedy were extensive. 

 He gave the Romans a transition, but evidently a very free one, of 

 the ' Eumenides of ^Eschylus,' the ' Medea,' ' Iphigenia in Aulis,' and 

 ' Hecuba of Euripides,' the ' Ajax Flagellifer of Sophocles,' besides as 

 rnauy as nineteen from other Greek poets. He also wrote comedies. 

 His other works were ' Phagetica,' a poem on gastronomy, especially 

 on the meriti of fishes; an epic, or panegyric, entitled 'Seipio;' a 

 metrical translation from a philosophic work of Epicharmus, partly 

 in dactylic hexameters, partly in trochaic tetrameters; poems entitled 

 'Asotns,' 'Sotadicus,' ' Protreptica,' and 'Prsecepta;' also satires, 

 epigrams, and acrostics ; and a prose translation of the sacred history 

 of Kumerus. Of all these works there is only an unconnected mass 

 of fragments collected from quotations in Cicero aud other writers. 

 The work entitled ' Annals' was for a long time the national epic of 

 Roman literature, and Virgil has not scrupled to borrow frei'ly from 

 it. The beat edition of Kniiius it that by Hesjelius, 4to, Amsterdam, 

 1707. 



EON DE BEAUMONT, CHARLES - GENEVIEVE- LOUIS - 

 AUQUSTE-ANDRE-TIMOTfi D', generally known as the Chevalier 

 i/Eon, owes Ms celebrity chiefly to the doubts long entertained of his 

 sex. He was born of a respectable family at Tonnerre in Burgundy, 

 October 17, 1727, received a good education, was called to the bar of 

 the parliament in Paris as an advocate, and obtained some reputation 

 by his literary productions. In 1755 he was introduced to Louis XV., 

 and employed in diplomatic missions to Russia and to Austria ; and 

 in 1759 he served in the French army in Germany as a captain of 

 dragoons and aid-de-camp to Marshal Bro 'lio. In 1701 he caine to 

 England as secretary of embassy. Dissatisfied at being superseded 

 in the post of minister plenipotentiary, which he had held for a short 

 int'Tval, ho published ' Lettres, M<5moires, et Negociations particulieres 

 de Chevalier D'Eon,' exposing the secrets of his own court, and libel- 

 ling both foes and friends. For one of these ou the Count de Guerchy 



he was prosecuted in the Court of Kiug's Bench in 1764, and found 

 guilty. In the meantime he pretended to be iu dread of being kid- 

 napped by agents of the French government, and applied to Lord 

 Mansfield for information as to whether he might not resist, and repel 

 force by force ; and in 1764 presented a bill of indictment against De 

 Guerchy for a conspiracy against his life. He however disappeared 

 just before beinz called up to receive judgment for the libel, aud 

 on the 13th of June 1765 he was outlawed. He probably retired 

 to France. 



Notwithstanding his intemperate and discreditable conduct in pub- 

 lishing the private papers of the embassy, he received the continued 

 confidence of Louis XV., who, in 1766, settled a pemiou on him fur 

 his services in Russia. In 1769 he returned to England. In 1777 an 

 action was brought in the King's Bench before Lord Mansfield, to 

 recover a wager laid as to the sex of Chevalier D'Eun, when the plain- 

 tiff produced witnesses, one of whom, a surgeon, swore to his being 

 a female; and the plaintiff gob a verdict for 7002. It was understood 

 that many other sums, to a large amount, depended on this suit, but 

 they were not paid, au act of parliament having been parsed to restrain 

 such gambling speculations. The chevalier now returned to France, 

 wearing the dress of a woman ; and coming back to England gave 

 lessons iu fencing in his female garb. Matohe'd against professors such 

 as St. George and M. Angelo, he showed himself a master of his art. 

 This occupation he pursued for some years ; but in 1791 he advertised 

 a sals of his effects, the catalogue of which enumerated books, prints, 

 medals, fire-arms, sabres, military uniforms, petticoats, gowns, silks, 

 jewels articles alike suited for a cavalry officer or a fashionable lady. 

 He was resolved, he says, " to take nothing away but his honour." 

 Again in France, the National Assembly being sitting, he petitioned on 

 May 11, 1792, as Madame D'Eon, to serve in the army. She stated 

 that, though she had worn the dress of a womau for fifteen years, she 

 was desirous of exchanging her cap aud petticoats for her old helmet 

 and her sabre. The petition was received with bursts of applause, aud 

 was ordered to be honourably mentioned iu the minutes; but a< no 

 other result followed, the chevalier once more returned to England, 

 where, in poverty and ill-health, he lingered for a few years, and died 

 on May 21, 1811. After his death his body was examined, aud dis- 

 sected by Mr. J. Copeland, an eminent surgeon, and no doubt was left 

 as to the petticoat imposture. 



* EOT VOS, JOZSEF, one of the most conspicuous names of modern 

 Hungary, both in the literary and the political world. His grand- 

 father was a government officer of high rank iu Hungary ; his father, 

 who also held high posts in the government, married a German lady, 

 tha Baroness Lilien. Ebtvbs was born at Buda, on tha 3rd of Sep- 

 tember 1813. His education wai entrusted to the care of a private 

 tutor of the name of Pruszinsky, who was of republican sentiments, 

 aud had been concerned in the conspiracy of Martinovics, which had 

 been punished with great severity by the government of Vienna 

 towards the close of the last century. The boy was sent to a public 

 school just at the period when his grandfather had rendered himself 

 obnoxious by taking part iu the proceedings commenced by the 

 Austrian court in 1823 to raise taxes and recruits iu Huugary without 

 the consent of the Hungarian Diet, and he was at once told by his 

 schoolfellows that his grandfather was a traitor, and that he too was a 

 traitor, for he was almost thirteen and could hardly speak Hungarian. 

 Stung by these reproaches, and full of the republican sentiments of 

 his tutor, the boy made a speech to his schoolfellows to the effect that 

 lie would atone for the crimes of his father, and be "liberty's servant 

 and his country's slave." From that day dates hLs mastery of the 

 Hungarian language, of which he is perhaps the first living writer. 

 In the year 1828 the Austrian government, met by the steady consti- 

 tutional opposition of the Hungarian counties, was obliged to give 

 way, an-1 a quieter period succeede>l, which was speedily marked by 

 the rapid progress of Hungary in the path of material aud mental 

 l mprovement, in which Count Szeehe'nyi led the van. Ebtvbs, who 

 in 1830 hid already commenced his literary career by a translation of 

 Gbthe's 'Goetz von Berlicuingeu,' followed it up before 1833 by two 

 original comedies, 'The Critics' and ' The Weddings,' and a tragedy, 

 ' Boszu,' or ' Revenge,' which were considered of high promise, aud 

 showed a singular beauty of style. In 1836 he travelled iu Germany, 

 Switzerland, France, and England, wheu he probably furuied the high 

 opinion of our country which he has expressed iu his funeral oration 

 on Csoina de Kbrbs. [CsOMA.] Soon after his return to Huugary, 

 :he calamitous inundations at i'esth led, among other projects, to the 

 publication of a work made up of contributions from the pens of the 

 irst Hungarian authors, the profits of which were to be giveu to the 

 relief of the sufferers. Of this work, the 'Budapest! Arvizkbnyv," 

 which extended to 5 vols., and was published between 1838 aud 1811, 

 Kbtvbs was the e'ditor, and he also contributed the longest article, a 

 novel, entitled ' The Carthusian,' which at once revealed a writer of 

 remarkable powers. The views of life contained iu it, which are of 

 ;he Byronic school, led to severe censure on the part of some of the 

 Hungarian critics, who could not however contest thit the stylo 

 alaced its author on a level with Kblcsey, who had hitherto been 

 without a rival in the literature of the day. Tue young novelist soon 

 made himself conspicuous in a new career as a parliamentary orator. 

 His views of political matters differed not only from those of the cou- 

 eervutive party, but from thoso of the rival leaders, SzeoWnyl and 



