356 



THK STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



forms of speech from the Egyptians. The philosophy 

 of the Druids was altogether enigmatical. In Nero's 

 time the Romans were often obliged to have recourse 

 to this method of concealing truth under obscure lan- 



Eolian Harp. Banich. There is a Rabbinic:-! 

 story of the aerial harmony of the harp of David, which. 

 when hung up at night, was played upon by the north 

 wind. 



Epigram. A short pointed <>r antithetical 

 short con appily or antii: 



aamraned. 



Epitaphs. Boilcau. They were used by the an- 

 cient Jews, by the he Koman>. urn, 

 the nations of antiquity: their date is referred in M up- 

 land to the earliest times. In the epitaphs of the an- 

 :;e epigram. 



Epitliala'mium Lea of poem which it was 



Komans to 



chorus near the bridal-chamber of a newly married 

 couple. imposed 



poems of this kind, !>ut ,.nly -canty fragments !, 



r'a " 1 pithalamium." written on the 

 uriage, is one of the finest specimens 

 of this kind of v< 



Eppie. St. Konan's Well, Scott. One of the ser- 

 ill. In the same novel is 



Eopie Anderson, one of tlie -ervants at the Mowbray 

 Arms. Old held by Meg Dods. 



Eppie. In George Eliot's "Silas Marner " the child 

 "Ught up and adopted by Silas Mar- 

 ner, whose love transformed him from a miser into a 

 tender, loving father. 



Ep'i-men'i-des. A philosopher and poet of Crete, 

 who probably lived in the Sixth or .Seventh Century, 

 B. C. He is said to have fallen asleep in a cave, when a 

 boy, and to have remained in that state for fifty-seven 

 years. On waking and going out into the broad day- 

 light, he was greatly perplexed and astonished to find 

 everything around him altered. But what was more 

 wonderful still, during his long period of slumber, his 

 soul, released from its fleshly prison, had been busily 

 engaged in the study of medicine and natural philosophy: 

 and when it again became incarnated, Epimenides found 

 himself a man of great knowledge and wisdom. Goethe 

 has written a poem on the subject, "Des Epimenides 

 Erwachen." (See Klaus, Peter, and Winkle, Rip Van.) 



Erl-king. King of the elves, who prepares mischief 

 for children, and even deceives men with his seductions. 

 He is said to haunt the Black Forest. Goethe has a 

 ballad called "The Erl King." 



Ermangarde of Baldringham, Lady. The Be- 

 trothed, Scott. Aunt of the Lady Eveline Berenger, 

 "the betrothed." 



Er'meline. The wife of Reynard, in the tale of 

 "Reynard the Fox." 



Erniina. The heroine of Tasso's "Jerusalem Deliv- 

 ered," who fell in love with Tancred. When the Chris- 

 tian army besieged Jerusalem, she dressed herself in 

 Clorinda's armor to go to Tancred, but, being discovered, 

 fled, and lived awhile w'ith some shepherds on the banks 

 of the Jordan. Meeting with Vafri'no, sent as a secret 

 spy by the crusaders, she revealed to him the design 

 against the life of Godfrey, and, returning with him to 

 the Christian camp, found Tancred wounded. She 

 cured his wounds, so that he was able to take part in 

 the last great day of the siege. 



Ernest, Duke. A poetical romance by Henry of 

 Veldig (Waldeck), contemporary with Frederick Bar- 

 barossa. It is a mixture of Greek and Oriental myths 

 and hero adventures of the Crusader. 



Error. Faery Out-en, Spenser. A monster who 

 lived in a den in "Wandering Wood," and with whom 

 the Red Cross Knight had his first adventure. She had 

 a brood of 1,000 young ones of sundry shapes, and these 

 cubs crept into their mother's mouth when alarmed, as 

 young kangaroos creep into their mother's pouch. The 

 knight was nearly killed by the stench which issued 

 from the foul fiend, but he succeeded in "rafting" her 

 head off, whereupon the brood lapped up the blood, and 

 burst with satiety. 



Es'ca-lus. An ancient and kindhearted lord, in 

 Shakespere's "Measure for Measure," whom Vincentio, 

 the Duke of Vienna, joins with Angelo as his deputy 

 during a pretended absence on a distant journey. 



Es'ca-nes. A lord of Tyre, in Shakespere's " Peri- 

 cles." 



Esmeralda. Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo. 

 A beautiful gipsy-girl, who, with tambourine and goat, 

 dances in the "place" before Notre Dame. 



Esmond, Henry. A cavalier and fine-spirited gen- 

 tleman in reign of Queen Anne. Hero of Thackeray's 

 novel by same name. 



Es-tel'la. The heroine of Dickens's novel of "Great 

 Expectation*." 



Ks-tot'i-land or Ks-tot'i-land'i-a. An imaginary 



region in America, near the Arctic Circle, referred to l>y 

 Milton as "cold Kstotiland," and variously fabled to 

 have been discovered by Frisian fisherman in the Four- 

 teenth Century, and by a Pole named John Scalvc, in 

 1477. 



Etzrl, i. e.. Attila. Kin--: of the Huns a monarch 

 ruling over three kingdoms and more than thirty princi- 

 palities: being a \vido\\er, he married Kriemhild, the 



f Siegfried. In the Nibelungen-Lied, where he 



is introduced, he is made very insignificant. 



En'phrasy. Paradise Lost, Milton. The herb 

 eye-bnght: so called because it was once supposed to 

 be efficacioufl in clearing the organs of sight. li 

 the archangel Michael purged the eyes of Adam with it, 



j to enable him to sec into the distant future. 



Ku'phu-os. The principal character in Lyly's two 

 famous works, entitled "Euphues, or the Anatomy of 

 Wit," and "Euphuea and His England." Thc.-c work.s 

 are remarkable for their pedantic and fantastical style, 

 and for the monstrous and overstrained conceits with 

 which they abound. Euphuea is represented as an 

 Athenian gentleman, distinguished for the elegance of 

 his person and the beauty of his wit, and for his amorous 

 temperament and roving disposition. He gained a 

 bosom friend, Philautus, and then robbed him of his 

 lover, Lucilla. The lady is false to both, the friends 

 are reconciled, and Euphuefl returns to Athens and 

 philosophy. The peculiarities of Lyly's style are a per- 

 petual striving after alliteration and antithesis, and a 

 most ingenious stringing together of similes. This book 

 immediately became the rage in the court circles, and 



j for many years was the court standard. From this book 



i we get our- words; euphuistia, euphuism, meaning an 



j affected, bombastic style of language. 



Eu'lalie, St. In the calendar of saints there is a 



: virgin martyr called Eulalie. She was martyred by 

 torture February 12, 308. Longfellow calls Evangeline 



! the "Sunshine of St. Eulalie." 



Eulen-spie'gel. The hero of a German tale, which 



! relates the pranks and drolleries of a wandering cottager 

 of Brunswick. 



Evan Dhu 3I'Combich. Waverley, Scott. The 



I foster-brother of M'lvor. 



Evan Dhu of Lochiel. Legend of Montrose, Scott. 

 A Highland chief in the army of Montrose. 



Evan'gelinc. The heroine of Longfellow's poem. 

 The subject of the tale is the expulsion of the inhabit- 

 ants of Aca'dia (Nova Scotia) from their homes by order 

 of George II., and the life-long wanderings of Evangeline 

 in search of her lover, Gabriel. It is a story of a woman's 

 love and devotion. 



Evan'gelist, in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," rep- 

 resents the effectual preacher of the Gospel, who opens 

 the gate of life to Christian. 



Every Man in His Humor. A comedy by Ben 

 Jons9n. Every person in the play is liable to be duped 

 by his special humor; Captain Bobadil's humor is brag- 



t'ng: Kitelly's is jealousy: Stephen's is stupidity: 

 nowell's is suspicion: Dame Kitelly's, like her hus- 

 band's, is jealousy. 



Evir-Allen. Fingal, Ossian. The white-armed 

 daughter of Branno, an Irishman. "A thousand heroes 

 sought the maid: she refused her love to a thousand. 

 The sons of the sword were despised, for graceful in her 

 eyes was Ossian." 



Evelina. The heroine in a novel by the same name, 

 by Miss Burney. 



Excal'ibur. Meaning of the words: " liberated from. 

 the stone." The name of Arthur's far-famed sword, 

 which he unfixed from a miraculous stone, though pre- 

 viously two hundred and one of the most puissant, 

 barons in the realm had singly been unable to extract 

 it. In consequence of this remarkable feat, Arthur was 

 chosen and proclaimed king by general acclamation. 

 When about to die, he sent an attendant to throw the 

 weapon into a lake hard by. Twice eluding the request, 

 the squire at last complied. A hand and arm arose from 

 the water, and caught the sword by the hilt, flourished 

 it thrice, and then sank into the lake, and was seen no 

 more. [Written also "Excalibor," " Escalibar," "Es- 

 calibor, and "Caliburn.") 



Ez'zelin, Sir. Lara, Byron (1814). The gentle- 

 man who recpgnizes Lara at the table of Lord Otho, 

 and charges him with being Conrad the Corsair. A duel 

 ensues, and Ezzelin is never heard of more. A serf 

 used to say that he saw a huntsman one evening cast a 

 dead body into the river which divided the lands of 

 Otho and Lara, and that there was a star of knighthood 

 on the breast of the corpse. 



