ESPALIER. 



ESSENCE. 



ESPALIER, a trellis for training fruit trees or bushes upon, instead 

 of nailing them to walla. 



In certain situations this kind of training is not only extremely neat, 

 but possesses peculiar advantages : the trees are more fully exposed to 

 the influence of light, less liable to be broken by high winds, and in 

 small gardens in particular, where room is of great importance, and 

 where a collection of the finer sorts of fruit is always desirable, it is 

 found highly useful, both on account of the small space which the 

 trees occupy, and because they will bear fruit much sooner than when 

 allowed to grow in their natural form. 



In France and other parts of the continent this kind of training is 

 very much practised, and in the northern parts of England and in 

 Scotland, where the borders of the kitchen-garden are frequently planted 

 with flowers, in order to combine pleasure with utility, espaliers are 

 trained along the back of the flower borders to prevent the vegetables 

 being seen from the walks. 



WMn the espalier is fastened to a wall, as is very common on the 

 continent, peach and nectarine trees are frequently trained upon it ; 

 but where it is detached, as it is most commonly in Britain, apples and 

 pears, and sometimes gooseberries, are the only fruits which ore success- 

 fully cultivated in this way. Plums and cherries are occasionally so 

 managed, but not so advantageously as the others. 



When a common espalier is to be covered, the trees should be planted 

 from 20 to 24 feet apart, which will allow the branches to grow 10 or 

 12 feet on each side ; but as a considerable time would elapse before 

 they would fill this space, a duplicate tree may be planted between 

 each, and cut away as the others grow. Gooseberries, of course, 

 require a small space ; three or four feet from plant to plant is 

 sufficient. 



The training on espalier is very simple, and easily performed. When 

 the trees are young, one shoot must be trained perpendicularly, and 

 two others horizontally, one from each side ; the two last must not be 

 shortened, but the perpendicular shoot is to be shortened in the 

 following year to three good buds, two of which are to form new side 

 branches, and the other a leader as before ; and so on every year until 

 the trees have attained the desired size. The proper distance between 

 the horizontal branches must depend upon the peculiar growth of the 

 tree, but from six to nine inches is what is generally allowed. Trees 

 are sometimes trained upon a double espalier, which has the advantage 

 of giving two surfaces to train upon. It consists of two trellises instead 

 of one, about two feet apart at the bottom, and approaching at the 

 top. 



The only kind of espalier worth notice, which differs from those now 

 mentioned, is a table rail ; this, the management of which is called 

 table-training, consists of rails resembling tables, up the centre of which 

 the tree is trained, and regularly spread over the surface. It is rarely 

 employed, and has the essential fault of exposing the blossom so much 

 to the effect of nocturnal radiation, that in this country a crop is rarely 

 obtained from such espaliers. 



The stakes which form the espalier are made of different materials, 

 some of wood, others of wire and wood, and some of cast iron. The 

 first of these is by far the most simple, and is composed of stakes, five 

 or six feet in height, driven into the ground from one to two feet 

 apart ; along the top a bar, which is nailed to each, connects the whole 

 together. It is of no use to have the stakes either so strong or so high 

 when the trees are first planted, because they are not required, are un- 

 sightly, and will have to be renewed before the trees have attained 

 their intended height ; for this reason, stakes of a much weaker kind 

 will at first answer quite as well. The wire and wood rail is formed 

 by strong vertical wires, strained from two wooden horizontal rails, 

 which are connected and held fast by wooden posts let into the ground. 

 The iron rail is constructed upon the same plan as a common street 

 railing. 



The objection to all iron trellises is, that they cut and canker the 

 trees ; and when the cheapness of the wooden one is considered, besides 

 the more natural appearance which it presents, it must undoubtedly 

 liave the preference. 



The best wood for this purpose is young larch, the thinning of 

 plantations. 



ESPLANADE, the ground kept open between the fortifications of 

 a citadel and those of a town to which it belongs. It is recommended 

 by writers on fortification that this space should be about 300 fathoms 

 broad, reckoning from the covered way of the citadel, that in the event 

 of an attack on the latter the enemy may not construct batteries within 

 breaching distance under the cover afforded by the buildings of the 

 town. If however the ground should be built over, it would be advis- 

 able to clear it to that extent in case of a siege. 



ESQUIRE (from the French, Escuier, or shield bearer) is the next 

 title of dignity to that of knight. The esquire was the second in rank 

 of the aspirants to chivalry, or knighthood, and had his name from 

 carrying the shield of the knight, whose bachelor or apprentice in anus, 

 he was. The gradations of this service, or apprenticeship to arms, 

 were, page, esquire or bachelor, and knight, who, in his turn, after the 

 formation of degrees of knighthood, was called a knight bachelor, as 

 aspiring to the higher honours of chivalry. The esquire was a gentle- 

 man, and had the right of bearing arms on his escutcheon or shield ; 

 he had also the right of bearing a sword, which denoted nobility or 

 chivalry, though it was not girded by the knightly belt ; he hod also a 



particular species of defensive armour, which was distinguished from 

 the full panoply of the knight. So much for the esquire of chivalry, 

 which order is only preserved in the almost obsolete esquires for the 

 king's body, whom antiquaries have pronounced to be the king's 

 esquires in chivalry (that is, his esquires, as being a knight), and in tin- 

 esquires of knights of the Bath. 



There was also another class, who may be called feudal esquir> 

 consisted of those tenants by knight's service who had a right to claim 

 knighthood, but had never been dubbed. They were in Germany 

 called Kitten, or knights, but were distinguished from the actual 

 knights, who were called dubbed knights, or Ritter Qetchlagcn, and had 

 many of the privileges of knighthood. .This distinction still exists in 

 many of the countries which formed part of the German Empire. In 

 Hainault, Brabant, and other provinces of what was Austrian Flanders, 

 the ancient untitled nobility, or gentry as they are called in England, 

 to this day are styled collectively the OrdreSqiientre, or knightly order. 

 It also existed in England until James I. had prostituted the honour of 

 knighthood, for Camden frequently speaks of knightly families (fain llins 

 equaitret, or fumUiai ordini* eqitestrit), where the heads of them were 

 not, at the time, actual knights. Writers on precedence make mention 

 of esquires by creation, with investitrtre of a silver collar or chain of w, 

 and silver spurs : but these seem to have been only the insignia of t ! 

 esquires for the king's body, which being preserved in a family as heir 

 looms, descended with the title of esquire to the eldest sons in suc- 

 cession. The sons of younger sons of dukes and marquesses, the 

 younger sons of earls, viscounts, and barons, and their eldest sons, 

 with the eldest sons of baronets, and of knights of all the orders, are 

 all said to be esquires by birth, though their precedence, which differs 

 widely, is regulated by the rank of their respective ancestors. Officers 

 of the king's court and household, and of his navy and army, down 

 to the captain inclusive, doctors of law, barristers, physicians, and 

 Royal Academicians, are reputed esquires. A justice of the peace in 

 only au esquire during the time that he is in the commission of the 

 peace, but a sheriff of a county is au esquire for life. The general as- 

 sumption of this title by those who are not, in strictness, entitled to it, 

 has virtually destroyed it as a distinct title or dignity. The heads of 

 many old families are, however, still deemed esquires by prescription. 



ESSAYISTS, BRITISH. This title is customarily confined to a 

 certain class of periodical writers upon subjects of general interest, as 

 morals, criticism, manners, &c. The notion of a series of papers fit for 

 general circulation, and not including news or politics, was originated 

 by Steele and Addison in the ' Tatler.' [ADDISOX, in Bioo. Drv.] The 

 ' Freeholder,' ' Craftsman,' ' Freethinker,' &c., now almost forgotten, 

 were rather political pamphlets than essays in this sense of the word ; 

 and an interval of thirty-five years elapsed from the end of the 

 'Spectator' to the successful revival of this style of writing liy Dr. 

 Johnson, in the 'Rambler,' in 1750. Its great popularity led to the 

 establishment of a number of similar periodicals during the latter half 

 of the 18th century, since which time they have again gone out of 

 fashion. We give a list of those contained in Alexander Chalmers's 

 collective edition of British Essayists, which includes some that have 

 little claim to a place among the standard works of our language : 

 with the names of the principal and most celebrated contributors to 

 each: 



'Tatler' Steele, Addison. 



' Spectator ' Addison, Steele, Budgell, Pope, &c. 

 ' Guardian ' Steele, Addison, Berkeley, Pope, Tickell, Gay, &c. 

 ' Rambler ' Johnson, almost entirely. 



' Adventurer ' Hawkesworth, Johnson, Joseph Warton, &c. 

 ' World 'Moore, Lord Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, J. Warton, &c. 

 ' Connoisseur ' G. Colman and Bonnel Thornton chiefly ; Cowper 

 a few. 



' Idler ' Johnson ; a few by Warton and others. 

 * Mirror ' Henry Mackenzie and others. 

 ' Lounger ' The same. 



' Observer ' Richard Cumberland, almost entirely. 

 ' Olla Podrida ' Moore, &c. 

 ' Microcosm ' Canning, Frere, Smith, &c. 



ESSENCE is derived from the Latin esseiititi, a word which i 

 by Cicero and Quinctiliau, and formed, not as is stated in Mr. 

 Richardson's Dictionary, from exitentia, but from estent, the 

 gous but obsolete participle of the verb esse, to be. The English 

 word essence consequently signifies that which constitutes the being 

 of a thing, or, in the words of Locke, that which makes it to 1 >< 

 it is. This term was the subject of many very subtle disquisitions 

 and disputes among the scholastic logicians of the 14th, 15th, and 

 16th centuries ; and the metaphysical notions of essence entertained 

 by these logical doctors cannot be understood without reference to 

 their discussions respecting the nature of universal ideas, as real or 

 nominal, of abstraction, genus, species, differentia, substance, pro] 

 accidents, &c., of all which particulars may be found in Smiglecii 

 ' Logic. Disputat.' ; Burgersdicii ' Logica ;' Eustachii ' Logica ;' Le 

 Grand, ' Institut. Logic." ; Wallisii ' Logica' ; and in many other logical 

 and philosophical treatises cited in Johnson's ' Quicstiones Philoso- 

 phies),' p. 168, &c. Some amusing instances of metaphysical sagacity 

 concerning logical essence are exhibited in the scholastic work of 

 Louis de Lesclache, ' La Philosophic, divisfe in cinque Parties/ 1548. 



