EQU 



EQU 



Since the death of the intolerant Arch- 

 bishop Laud, men of moderate princi- 

 ples have been raised to the see of 

 Canterbury, and this hath tended not a 

 little to the tranquillity of church and 

 state. The established Church of Ire- 

 land is the same as the Church of Eng- 

 land, and is governed by four archbi- 

 shops, and eighteen bishops. 



EPISODE, in poetry, a separate inci- 

 dent, story or action, which a poet invents 

 anH connects with his principal action, 

 that his work may abound with a greater 

 diversitv of events ; though, in a more 

 limited sense, all the particular incidents 

 whereof the action or narration is com- 

 po-.mc'ed are called episodes. 



EPITAPH, a monumental inscription 

 in honour or memory of a person defunct, 

 or an inscription engraven or cut on a 

 tomb, to mark the time of a person's de- 

 cease, his name, family, and, usually, 

 some eulogium of his virtues, or good 

 qualities. 



EPITHALAMIUM, in poetry, a nup- 

 tial song, or composition, in praise of the 

 bride and bridegroom, praying for their 

 prosperity, for a happy offspring, &c. 



EPITHET, in poetry and rhetoric, an 

 adjective expressing some quality of a 

 substantive to which it is joined ; or such 

 an adjective as is annexed to substantives 

 by way of ornament and illustration, not 

 to make up an essential part of the de- 

 scription. "Nothing," says Aristotle, 

 "tires the reader more than too great a 

 redundancy of epithets, or epithets plac- 

 ed improperly ; and yet nothing is so es- 

 sential in poetry as a proper use of them." 

 EPITOME, in literary history, an 

 abridgment or summary of any book, par- 

 ticularly of a history. 



EPOC HA, in chronology, a term or 

 fixed point of time, whence the succeed- 

 ing years are numbered or accounted. 

 See CHRONOLOGY. 



EPODE, in lyric poetry, the third or 

 last part of the ode, the ancient ode be- 

 ing divided into strophe, antistrophe, and 

 epode. 



EPOPOEIA, in poetry, the story, fable, 

 or subject, treated of in an epic poem. 

 The word is commonly used for the epic 

 poem itself. See EPIC. 



EPSOM salt, another name for sulphate 

 of magnesia. 



EQUABLE, an appellation given to 

 such motions as always continue the 

 same in degree of velocity, without be- 

 ing either accelerated or retarded. When 

 two or more bodies are uniformly acce- 

 lerated or retarded, with the same in- 



crease or diminution of velocity in each, 

 they are said to be equally accelerated, 

 or retarded. 



EQUAL, a term of relation between 

 two or more things of the same magni- 

 tude, quantity, or quality. Mathemati- 

 cians speak of equal lines, angles, figures, 

 circles, ratios, solids, &c. 



EQUALITY, that agreement between 

 two or more things whereby they are de- 

 nominated equal. The equality of two 

 quantities, in algebra, is denoted by two 

 parallel lines placed between them ; thus, 

 4+2 = 6, that is, 4 added to 2 is equal 

 to 6. 



EQUANIMITY, in ethics, denotes that 

 even and calm frame of mind and tem- 

 per, under good or bad fortune, whereby 

 a man appears to be neither puffed up 

 or overjoyed with prosperity, nor dispi- 

 rited, soured, or rendered uneasy, by ad- 

 versity. 



EQUATION, in algebra, the mutual 

 comparing two equal things ,of differ- 

 ent denominations, or the expression 

 denoting this equality ; which is done by 

 setting the one in opposition to the 

 other, with the sign of equality ( = ) 

 between them: thus, 3s. = 36 d. or 3 

 feet = 1 yard. Hence, if we put a for a 

 foot, and b for a yard, we shall have the 

 equation 3 a = b t in algebraical charac- 

 ters. See ALGEBRA. 



EQUATIONS, construction of, in alge- 

 bra, is the finding the roots or unknown 

 quantities of an equation, by geometrical 

 construction of right lines or curves, or 

 the reducing given equations into geo- 

 metrical figures. And this is effected 

 by lines or curves, according to the order 

 or rank of the equation. The roots of 

 any equation may be determined, that is, 

 the equation may be constructed, by the 

 intersections of a straight line with ano- 

 ther line or curve of the same dimensions 

 as the equation to be constructed : for 

 the roots of the equation are the ordinates 

 of the curve at the points of intersection 

 with the right line ; and it is well known 

 that a curve may be cut by a right line in 

 as many points as its dimensions amount 

 to. Thus, then, a simple equation will be 

 constructed by the intersection of one 

 right line with another; a quadratic 

 equation, or an affected equation of the 

 second rank, by the intersections of a 

 right line with a circle, or any of the co- 

 nic sections, which are all lines of the se- 

 cond order? and which may be cut by the 

 right line in two points, thereby giving 

 the two roots of the quadratic equation. 

 A cubic equation may be constructed by 



