ERGOT ERICTHONIUS. 



85 



unfavourable to the politics of England. Peace, 

 therefore, is, at the same time, the common cause of 

 the nations of the continent and of Great Britain. 

 We unite in requesting your majesty to lend an ear 

 to the voice of humanity, to suppress that of the pas- 

 sions, to reconcile contending interests, and secure 

 the welfare of Europe, and of the generation over 

 which Providence has placed us." This letter was 

 answered by Canning,with an open note to Napoleon's 

 minister of foreign affairs. In the answer which 

 Napoleon sent to tiie letter of the emperor Francis of 

 Austria, which contained the liveliest assurances of his 

 good disposition, the French emperor entreats him, in 

 the most decisive language, to adopt a frank, open, 

 and sincere policy. 



ERGOT is an elongated, cylindrical excrescence, 

 a little curved, and somewhat resembling a horn, 

 which sometimes takes the place of the grain in 

 several cultivated grasses, particularly in rye, which, 

 when in this state, is commonly called spurred rye. 

 It has been considered by some authors as a disease, 

 by others as a fungus, and has been referred by the 

 latter to the genus sclerotium. A grain, when at- 

 tacked, becomes at first soft and pulpy, afterwards 

 hardens, and elongates gradually ; when young, it is 

 red or violaceous, afterwards lead coloured, and 

 finally black, with a white interior ; generally two 

 or three grains in a spike only are affected : wet 

 weather is favourable to its development. When 

 bread containing this substance has been eaten, it has 

 produced very formidable consequences sometimes 

 gangrene of the extremities and death. Ergot is an 

 important article in materia medico, ; has been found 

 capable of exerting a very powerful and specific 

 action upon the uterus, and is administered in small 

 doses in certain extreme cases. This remedy has 

 been principally used in America. Of late, it has 

 been successfully employed in France. 



ERHARD, CHRISTIAN DANIEL, professor of crim- 

 inal law at Leipsic, was born 1759, at Dresden, and 

 studied law from 1778 to 1781, at Leipsic, where he 

 devoted himself to history, philosophy, and the arts. 

 In 1801, the emperor Alexander I. appointed him 

 correspondent of the legislative commission at Peters- 

 burg, with a pension : many academies, likewise, 

 appointed him an honorary member. He obtained 

 important places as an instructer in his science, and 

 also as a practical jurist. His writings are on the 

 important subjects of philosophical and positive law, 

 and contain many original views. His fame was 

 widely extended by his work on the legislation of 

 Leopold II. in Tuscany. In his remarks on the 

 works of Algernon Sidney, on forms of government, 

 in several treatises published by him in his Amalthea, 

 a periodical of 1788 and 1789, in the preface to his 

 translation of the commercial code, and the civil 

 code of France, and in his essays De Arbitrio Judicis, 

 and De Notione Furti, he has discussed some of the 

 most important subjects of legislation. His transla- 

 tion of the Code Napoleon (2d edition, 1811), is uni- 

 versally acknowledged to be the best. His last, and 

 perhaps, his greatest labour, was the sketch of a 

 criminal code for Saxony. As far as it was finished, 

 it has been published by one of his scholars doctor 

 Friderici. He died in 1813. He united variety of 

 learning, acuteness, wit, and agreeable manners, to 

 the most excellent -feelings. 



ERHARD, JOHN BENJAMIN, doctor of medicine at 

 Berlin, was born 1766, at Nuremburg. His father, 

 a poor wire-drawer, who had a good deal of musical 

 and literary taste, endeavoured to cultivate the same 

 tastes in his only child. The boy left school at the 

 age of eleven years, and was desirous of learning his 

 father's trade, and becoming acquainted with engrav- 

 ing. He received instruction* in drawing, and after- 



wards in engraving, in French and Italian, and also 

 took lessons on the harpsichord. Being destitute of 

 books, he endeavoured to procure philosophical 

 works from the dealers in old books ; but he could 

 obtain nothing but a few Latin manuals of the school 

 of Wolf. A love for Latin and Greek was awakened 

 in him ; philosophy led him to mathematics ; and 

 here, too, the writings of Wolf were his guides. 

 Thus Erhard was engaged till his thirteenth year, 

 when an epileptic attack obliged him to renounce, for 

 a time, all mental exertion. After his recovery, he 

 resumed his studies in philosophy and the mathe- 

 matics in his 16th year. At twenty, he formed an 

 acquaintance with a celebrated surgeon, Siebold, who 

 was astonished at such proficiency in a young 

 mechanic, and endeavoured to engage him in the study 

 of medicine at Wurzburg. Erhard, however, in 

 consequence of his republican principles, continued 

 still to live as a mechanic. He had chosen his guides 

 in morals when a boy of fourteen, and, in the main, 

 was always faithful to them. He says in a manu- 

 script essay, " One of these guides was a slave and 

 the other an emperor,' Epictetus and Marcus Aure- 

 lius, and by their advice, I determined to desire 

 nothing but what fate forced upon me ; while they 

 both taught me to seek for happiness not in external 

 circumstances, but in my own heart." After the 

 death of his mother, in 1787, Erhard resolved to go 

 to Wurzburg to study medicine. He remained there 

 two years, and, in 1792, obtained a doctor's degree 

 at Altorf. He had no inclination to the practice of 

 physic, on account of the situation of affairs at that 

 time. The French revolution filled him with fears 

 for the fate of Germany. He was in doubt what 

 part to act, hating the aristocratic party for what 

 they intended to do, and the democratic party for 

 what they had actually done ; he determined, there- 

 fore, to visit North America. But having lost all his 

 property hi 1793, by the treachery of an agent, he 

 became much embarrassed, and, in 1797, accepted a 

 place in Anspach under the minister Von Hardenberg. 

 Two years after, he went to Berlin, where he 

 received permission to practise physic, to which he 

 afterwards entirely devoted himself. He died in 

 1827. Among his works, are his treatise on the 

 medical science, and his Theory of Laws, which 

 relate to the health of citizens, and the use of medical 

 science in legislation, which was published at 

 Tubingen, in 1800. His treatise On the Right ot 

 the People to a Revolution f Jena, 1795) expresses 

 the views to which he was led by reflection on the 

 great events of that period. 



ERIC. Fourteen kings of this name have reigned 

 in Sweden, the last of whom ascended the throne in 

 1560. He exhibited much energy of character, but 

 drove his brothers to rebellion by his violence and 

 severity. His tyranny, and a disgraceful marriage, 

 alienated the minds of his subjects; and his brothers, 

 John and Charles, formed a party against him, which 

 deprived him of the crown, in 1568, with the consent 

 of the states. He died (1577) in prison by poison. 

 He was active and industrious. A patron of the arts, 

 he esteemed and patronised artists and mechanics, 

 received the Huguenots with open arms, abolished 

 many superstitious usages in religion, and rendered 

 commerce and navigation flourishing. His judicial 

 institutions, too, are particularly worthy of praise. 

 He created a high nobility in Sweden, by conferring 

 the dignity of count and baron. See Celsius's His- 

 tory of Eric XI P., in Swedish, Greifswalde, 1776. 



ERICTHONIUS, or ERECTHEUS, in fabulous 

 history, the son of Dardanus and Batea, and grand- 

 son of Jupiter, was king of Troas. He was the 

 richest man in his kingdom, having in his meadows 

 tliree thousand mares with foals. Boreas fell in love 



