450 
E L E 
In debt upon bond, the defendant before the trial con¬ 
veyed his lands to another, See. but he himfelf took the 
profits ; notwithftanding this conveyance, a moiety of his 
lands was extended on an elegit. Dyer, 294. It two per- 
fons have each of them a judgment againft one debtor, 
and he who hath the fird judgment brings an elegit, and 
hath the moiety of the lands delivered to him in execu¬ 
tion, and then the other judgment creditor files out an¬ 
other elegit, he (hall have only a moiety of that moiety 
which was not extended by the firft judgment. Cro. Eliz. 
483. When lands are once taken in execution on an ele¬ 
git, and the writ is returned and filed, the plaintiff (hall 
have no other execution. 1 Iw. 92. And if the defendant 
hath lands in more counties than one, and the plaintiff 
awards an elegit to one county, and extends the lands 
upon the elegit, and afterwards files the writ, he cannot, 
after that, fue out an elegit into the other counties ; but 
he may immediately after entry of the judgment upon the 
judgment-roll, award as many elegits into as many coun¬ 
ties as .he thinks fit, and execute all, or any of them, at 
his pleafure. 1 Lil. Air. 509. 
E'LEGY, J'. [elegus , I.at.] A mournful fong.—He 
hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies upon brambles, 
all forfooth deifying the name of Rofalind. Shakefpeare .— 
A funeral fong : 
So on Meander’s banks, when death is nigh, 
The mournful fwan (ings her own elegy. Dryden. 
A (hort poem without points or affected elegancies. 
ELE'I, a people of Elis in Peloponnefus. They were 
formerly called Epei. In their country was the temple of 
Jupiter, where alfo were celebrated the Olympic games, 
of which they had the fuperintendance. Their horfes 
were in great repute, hence Eleiequi, and Eleapalma. Lucan. 
ELEl'THI AS, anciently a magnificent city of the The- 
bais, or Upper Egypt, where are the ruins of a fpacious 
temple, fuppofed to have been dedicated to Ifis. In fe- 
veral compartments of the ruined walls are a great va¬ 
riety of curious paintings, which plainly indicate the 
hand of a mafter. Some oxen at plough are reprefented 
as harneffed by the horns, and driven by the man who 
holds the plough ; and in another compartment there is 
a plough drawn by four men, harneffed two and two. 
The paintings are at this day fo perfeft, that M. Coftsz, 
who publifhed an account of thefe antiquities in 1802, 
declares that the grain Mattering from the lower’s hand, 
is plainly feen to be barley, which was employed in 
making bread long before wheat, which this author fup- 
pofes was not in common ufe in Egypt till the reign of 
Ptolemy Soter. Among all the paintings there is no inflru- 
ment refembling a harrow ; but oxen are feen treading 
out the corn, exactly’as mentioned in Dent. xxv. 4. 
ELE'LEUS, a furname of Bacchus, from the word sys- 
\iv, which the Bacchanals loudly repeated during hisfef- 
tivals. Ovid, 
E'LEMENT, /. [ clementum , Lat.] The firfi or condi¬ 
ment principle of any thing.—Simple fubftances are either 
fpirits which have no manner of competition, or the firft 
p inciples of bodies, ufually called elements, of which 
other bodies . are compounded. Watts. —The four ele¬ 
ments, ufually fo confidered, until the late improvements 
in chemiftry, were earth, fire, air, water, of which our 
•world is compounded. When ufed alone in common 
fpeech, element commonly means the. air..—The king is 
but a man : the violet fmells to him as it doth to me ; 
and the element (hews to him as it doth to me. Shakefpeare. 
—The heavens and the earth will pafs away, and the de¬ 
ments melt with fervent heat. Peter. 
The king, 
Contending with the fretful elements, 
Bids the wind blow the earth into the fea, 
Or fwell the curled waters. Shakefpeare. 
The proper habitation or fphere of any thing j as water 
E L E 
of fifii.—They (hew that they are out of their element, 
and that logic is none of their talent. Baker. —An ingre¬ 
dient ; a condiment part: 
Who fet the body and the limbs 
Of this great fport together, as you guefs? 
-One fure that promifes no element 
In fuch a bnfinefs. Shakefpeare. 
The letters of any language. The lowed or fird rudi¬ 
ments of literature or fcience.—With religion it fareth 
as with other fciences ; the fird delivery of the elements 
thereof mud, for like confideration, be framed according 
to tire weak and (lender capacity of young beginners. 
Hooker. —We, when we were children, were in bondage 
under the elements of the world. Gal . iv. 3. 
Democritus dands at the head of the elementary plri- 
lofophers, in which he is followed by Epicurus, and 
many others after them of the Epicurean and corpufcu- 
lar philofophers. Among thofe who hold the elements 
corruptible, fome will have only one, and fome feveral. 
Of the former, the principal arc, Heraclitus who held 
fire, Anaximenes air, Thales Milefius water, and Hefiod 
earth, as the only element. Hefiod is followed by Bernar- 
din,Telefius; and Thales by many of the ancient chemifis. 
Among thofe who admit feveral corruptible elements, 
the principal are the Peripatetics ; who, after their leader 
Aridotle, contend for four elements, viz. fire, air, water, 
and earth. Aridotle took the notion from Hippocrates; 
Hippocrates from Pythagoras; and Pythagoras from O- 
cellus Lucanus, who, it feems, was the fird author of it. 
The Cartefians admit only three elements, fire, air., and 
earth, SeeC artesian Philosophy.—S ir IfaacNewtonob- 
ferves, that it feems probable that God, in the begining, 
formed matter in folid, mafiive, bard, impenetrable, move- 
able, particles, of fuch fizes and figures, as mod conduced 
to the end for which he formed them ; and that thefe 
primitive particles, being folids, are incomparably harder 
than any porous body compounded of them ; even fo hard 
as never to wear out; no ordinary power being able to 
divide what God made one in the fird creation. While 
the particles remain entire, they may compofe bodies of 
one and the fame nature and texture in all ages; but 
fhould they wear away, or break in pieces, the nature of 
things, depending on them, would be changed ; water 
and earth, ccmpofed of old worn particles, and fragments 
of particles, would not be of the fame nature and texture 
now, with water and earth compofed of entire particles 
in the beginning. And, therefore, that things may be 
lading, the changes of corporeal things are to be placed 
only in the various feparations, and ri?w affociations and 
motions, of thofe permanent particles; compound bodies 
being apt to break, not in the midd of folid particles, 
but where thofe particles 1 are laid together, and only 
touch in a few points. It feems to him, likewife, that 
thefe particles have not only a vis inertia, with the padive 
laws of motion thence refultirig, but are alfo moved by 
certain aTive principles; fuch as gravity, and the caufe 
of fermentation, and the cohefion of bodies. 
To E'LEMENT, v. a. To compound of elements.— 
Whether any one fuch body be met with, in thofe faid 
to be elemented bodies, I now quedion. Boyle. —To confti- 
tute ; to make as a fird principle : 
Dull fublunary lover's love, 
Whofe foul is fenfe, cannot admit 
Of abfenfe, ’caufe it doth remoye 
The thing which elemented it. Donne. 
ELEMEN'TAL, adj. Produced by fome of the ele¬ 
ments : 
Soft yielding minds to water glide away, 
And (ip with nymphs their elemental tea. Pope. 
Arifing from fird principles.—Leeches are by fome ac¬ 
counted poifon, not properly, that is-by temperamental 
contrariety, occult form, or fo much as elemental repug- 
3 nancy; 
