717 



E. 



EARL. 



ns 



E 



E occupies the fifth place in the Hebrew alphabet and those derived 

 from it. The vowels, when arranged according to their physical 

 affinity, would lie in the series i, e, a, o, u [ALPHABET], and accordingly 

 the vowel e is frequently interchanged with its neighbours i and . 

 It is also under special circumstance occasionally convertible with 

 o and u. 



1, E is interchanged with '. Thus in Latin the old datives lieri, 

 maid, ruri, mutai, afterwards took the forms here, mane, rure, musae ; 

 and the words magit, rideris, triitis, when they appeared without an s, 

 were written mage, ridere, triite. The same interchange appears in the 

 declension of the adjective is, ea, id, and the conjugation of the verbs 

 eo and queo. 



_'./.' in Latin often corresponds to oi in French. Thus many 

 Latin infinitives in ere reappear in French with the termination oir, as 

 habere, debere ; avoir, devoir. The Latin past imperfect has the suffix 

 eba, which passed through the forms eva and ea to oie and oi. Thus 

 from habelxim were deduced aveva, avea, avoie, and lastly avow or 

 avals. This final s, so far as regards the first person, does not appear 

 in the oldest forms of the French language. Other instances of the 

 change of o into oi maybe seen in the Latin adjectives and other words 

 in emit or esis, which in French have the suffix ois, Viennensi, Vien- 

 noif ; mensit, mois. 



3. E Latin into ie French, as mel, lene, ped- ; miel, bien,pied. 



4. into a. This is well marked in the dialects of the Greek ao<pnj, 

 Ionic ; aotyut, Doric, &c. Hence the Latins have often an a where the 

 common dialect of the Greek had e, as ju7ix"'l, fAiryi ; Lat. machina, 

 plaga. Both forma often coexist in Latin, as tristitia- and tristitie-. 

 The a is often changed into e in Latin, if a prefix is added, particularly 

 if two consonants follow the vowel, as factue, confectia; pan, expert; 

 cattiu, incettus ; art, inert. 



5. E into o. Especially in Greek, when a strong 'vowel follows, as 

 \ffu, \oyos ; vt.uM, nftos. The Latin language prefers an o, as Ipta, 

 vomo ; ffimt, coquo ; vtot, norus ; ttti, ob. This change is particularly 

 common in words beginning with a ic, or with what was pronounced as 

 a w, the Latin v. Thus vetter, verto, veto, were once written roster, 

 vorto, voto. Even in our own language worm (vermis, Lat.), and work 

 (ipyov, Gr.), are now pronounced as if written with an . The Greek 

 even interchanges a long o with a long e as TOTTJP, airaroip, finrvrup ; 

 and so too in Latin we have Anio Anirnis. 



6. A short e often gives place in Latin to a short u when followed 

 by one of the liquids /, n, m, as in Sicultu, (Gk. 2uc<Aof) percuUut 

 (percetto), tabula (Germ, tafel), decumus (decem), contumax (temno), 

 funda (<rQtvS6rri),faciundu (faciendut) euntem. 



EAGLE, CONSTELLATION. [AQUILA.] 



EAGLE, Roman Standard. The eagle, as a symbol of empire, is 

 often seen on ancient coins and medals, and on none more frequently 

 than on those of the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucidse of Syria. 

 As an ensign or standard, borne upon a spear, it was used by the 

 Persians in the time of the younger Cyrus. (Xenoph., ' Anab.' i. 10.) 



Pliny (' Hist. Nat.' li. x., c. 4, edit. Hardouin, torn, i., p. 549) says 

 that, till the time of C. Marius, the Romans used five different animals 

 for standards, the wolf, the minotaur, the horse, the boar, and the 

 eagle, but that in Marius's second consulate they adopted the eagle as 

 the sole ensign for their legions. 



The eagle used by the Romans as a standard was of gold or silver : 

 the latter metal, we are told by Pliny, was most frequently used, as the 

 more glittering, and of course more readily seen. It was borne, like 

 the Persian eagle, on the summit of a spear, and was of the size of a 

 pigeon, with its wings displayed. It sometimes rested upon a cross-bar 

 on the top of the spear, and sometimes upon shields piled up. On the 

 reverses of some of the coins of Augustus and Galba, in second brass, 

 the legionary eagle is represented holding the thunderbolt in its 

 talons. The small size of the eagle often contributed to its conceal- 

 ment, when the legion to which it belonged was defeated. The name 

 of the legion was usually engraved upon it. Tacitus, in his ' Annals,' 

 1. i. 60, relates the finding of the eagle of the nineteenth legion by 

 Germanicus, which had been lost in the massacre of Varus. 



Cicero {' Catilin.' i., c. 24) says that Catiline had a silver eagle in his 

 house as his titular divinity, which was also his standard in war. 



A Roman eagle in Bteel, found at Silchester, presumed to have been 

 a legionary eagle, vfas exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1788 

 by tin' then bishop of Carlisle. 



The reader will see a great deal of learning displayed upon this and 

 the standard of the cohorts in M. Le Beau's ' Quatorzieme Me'moire sur 

 la Legion Romaine ; Des Enseignes.' Mem. de 1'Acade'mie des Inscript. 

 torn, xxxv., 4to, Par. 1770, pp. 277-308. 



The eagle has also been adopted as the standard in the modern 

 French army. It is borne perched at rest on 'a small base at the 

 top of the banner-staff. Austria bears a double-headed eagle on her 

 banners ; and Prussia and Russia have taken the eagle as their national 



symbol. The United States of America use also the eagle as the 

 national emblem, as well as for the designation of a gold coin of the 

 value of 43. Sd., or 10 dollars. 



EAGRE. [BORE.] 



EAR-RING ; a ring hung from a hole, perforated for that purpose 

 through the ear, sometimes set with pendant jewels, pearls, or other 

 precious stones. The word is Anglo-Saxon, ear-hrinrj. Ornaments of 

 this sort, large or small, have been worn in almost all countries by 

 women, from the earliest ages ; but more rarely by the men. In 

 ancient Egyptian paintings females are represented with large circular 

 ear-rings; but no male figures, except of captives, wear them. In 

 Assyrian sculpture, on the other hand, in which few native female 

 figures occur, all the males of rank from the great king downwards 

 wear large ear-pendants. Botta (plate 161) has figured several of them. 

 Among Oriental nations generally the ear-ring appears always to have 

 been a customary ornament with both sexes. Among the Greeks and 

 Romans it was confined exclusively to the men. Homer makes Hera, 

 when adorning herself so as to appeannost fascinating in the eyes of 

 Zeus, place in her ear-tips three-gemmed ear-rings. (' Iliad,' xiv. 182.) 

 Several of the most beautiful Greek female statues have the ears 

 pierced for the reception of ear-rings, which were no doubt of gold or 

 gems. In the Latin of the middle age ear-rings are termed pendentes, 

 from the more common form of the ornaments usually attached to the 

 ring itself. Ear-pendants have been occasionally found in British and 

 Saxon barrows in various parts of England. 



EAR -TRUMPET, a curved tube employed to aid defective 

 hearing. The rays of sound, proceeding from any source, enter the 

 tube nearly parallel, and its inner surface is so curved that, after one 

 or more reflections, they converge upon the membrane of the tympa- 

 num, and thus act with increased force. 



In early notices of acoustic instruments there is some difficulty in 

 distinguishing such as were intended to be applied to the ear, to assist 

 in collecting sound, from such as were employed in aid of the voice, to 

 enable a speaker to produce articulate sounds in such a manner as to 

 insure their transmission to a considerable distance. [SPEAKING TRUM- 

 PET.] To a certain extent, indeed, such instruments may be employed 

 for either purpose, some speaking-trumpets being so formed that, if 

 applied to the ear, they would act as hearing- or ear-trumpets. 



The common ear-trumpet is a conical tube of metal, the larger end 

 of which expands like the mouth of a trumpet, while the smaller is so 

 shaped as to enter the ear, and conduct the vibrations of sound col- 

 lected at the wide end direct to the membrane of the tympanum. The 

 smaller end is frequently curved, in order that it may be applied pro- 

 perly to the ear while the mouth is directed forwards to receive sounds 

 from a speaker in front of the person using it. For the sake of 

 portability, ear-trumpets are frequently made in two, three, or more 

 portions, sliding within one another, somewhat in the same manner as 

 the tubes of an opera-glass. 



Various other instruments, of doubtful value, are more or less 

 employed in aid of defective hearing : among these may be mentioned, 

 the auricle, a small shell-like instrument, formed of gold, and worn in 

 the ear, so that nothing but the expanded mouth is visible; ear-cornets, 

 which are small instruments, made of various shapes and sizes, some- 

 what resembling a French horn or a musical trumpet in appearance, 

 applied to the ears and held in their place by slender springs ; speaking 

 or conversation tubes, which are flexible elastic tubes of India-rubber and 

 silk, kept open by spiral wire springs, and terminating at one end in an 

 ear-piece, and at the other in an open bell-shaped vessel, which is held 

 before the mouth of the speaker ; and table smiifers, which consist of a 

 revolving trumpet-shaped cowl mounted on a pedestal, which may be 

 placed upon a table, so as to be turned towards any part of the room 

 where conversation may be going on, and of communicating the sound 

 through a flexible tube to the ear of the deaf person. When flexible 

 tubes are employed for such a purpose, their effect is increased by 

 making them of a tapered or conical shape. An ingenious instrument 

 of the ear-trumpet kind is made in the form of a walking-stick. 

 Another, which is held so as to reflect sound into the ear, is styled the 

 ear-conch, and may be termed an auxiliary ear : it is formed of plated 

 metal. The commoner kinds of acoustic instruments are made of tin- 

 plate, japanned ; but the better sorts are sometimes formed of silver, 

 or of gong-metal, which is supposed by some to be the best metal for 

 the purpose. 



Hebert (' Engineer's and Mechanic's Encyclopaedia,' vol. i., p. 463) 

 quotes an opinion from Dr. Morrison, of Aberdeen, that that end of an 

 ear-trumpet which is applied to the ear should not be made so small as 

 to enter the ear, but should be large enough to include the whole of 

 the external ear ; for that gentleman, having been deaf for many years, 

 experienced no relief from ordinary ear-trumpets, but found one which 

 he had made of block-tin, on the proposed plan, to succeed. 



EARL. The title of count or earl, in Latin comci, is the most 



