Part 180 (1/2)
EGERTON, FRANCIS. See BRIDGEWATER, EARL OF.
EGGER, eMILE, a French h.e.l.lenist and philologist (1813-1885).
EGHAM (10), a small town in Surrey, on the Thames, 20 m. W. of London; has in its vicinity Runnymede, where King John signed _Magna Charta_ in 1215.
EGINHARD, or EINHARD, a Frankish historian, born in Mainyan, in East Franconia; a collection of his letters and his Annals of the Franks, as well as his famous ”Life of Charlemagne,” are extant; was a favourite of the latter, who appointed him superintendent of public buildings, and took him with him on all his expeditions; after the death of Charlemagne he continued at the Court as tutor to the Emperor Louis's son; died in retirement (770-840).
EGLANTINE, MADAME, the prioress in the ”Canterbury Tales” of Chaucer.
EGLINTON AND WINTON, EARL OF, Archibald William Montgomerie, born at Palermo; became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Rector of Glasgow University; was a noted sportsman and patron of the turf; is chiefly remembered in connection with a brilliant tournament given by him at Eglinton Castle in 1839, in which all the splendour and detail of a mediaeval tourney were spectacularly reproduced (1812-1861).
EGMONT, LAMORAL, COUNT OF, born in Hainault; became attached to the Court of Charles V., by whom, for distinguished military and diplomatic services, he was appointed governor of Flanders; fell into disfavour for espousing the cause of the Protestants of the Netherlands, and was beheaded in Brussels by the Duke of Alva; his career and fate form the theme of Goethe's tragedy ”Egmont,” a play nothing as a drama, but charming as a picture of the two chief characters in the piece, Egmont and Clarchen.
EGMONT, MOUNT, the loftiest peak in the North Island, New Zealand, is 8270 ft. in height, and of volcanic origin.
EGO and NON-EGO (i. e. I and Not-I, or Self and Not-Self), are terms used in philosophy to denote respectively the subjective and the objective in cognition, what is from self and what is from the external to self, what is merely individual and what is universal.
EGOISM, the philosophy of those who, uncertain of everything but the existence of the Ego or I, resolve all existence as known into forms or modifications of its self-consciousness.
EGOIST, a novel by George Meredith, much admired by R. L. Stevenson, who read and re-read it at least five times over.
EGYPT (8,000), a country occupying the NE. corner of Africa, lies along the W. sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea, has a northern coast-line on the Mediterranean, and stretches S. as far as Wady Halfa; the area is nearly 400,000 sq. m.; its chief natural features are uninhabitable desert on the E. and W., and the populous and fertile valley of the Nile. Cereals, sugar, cotton, and tobacco are important products. Mohammedan Arabs const.i.tute the bulk of the people, but there is also a remnant of the ancient Coptic race. The country is nominally a dependency of Turkey under a native government, but is in reality controlled by the British, who exercise a veto on its financial policy, and who, since 1882, have occupied the country with soldiers. The n.o.ble monuments and relics of her ancient civilisation, chief amongst which are the Pyramids, as well as the philosophies and religions she inherited, together with the arts she practised, and her close connection with Jewish history, give her a peculiar claim on the interested regard of mankind. Nothing, perhaps, has excited more wonder in connection with Egypt than the advanced state of her civilisation when she first comes to play a part in the history of the world. There is evidence that 4000 years before the Christian era the arts of building, pottery, sculpture, literature, even music and painting, were highly developed, her social inst.i.tutions well organised, and that considerable advance had been made in astronomy, chemistry, medicine, and anatomy. Already the Egyptians had divided the year into 365 days and 12 months, and had invented an elaborate system of weights and measures, based on the decimal notation.
EGYPTIAN NIGHT, such as in Egypt when, by judgment of G.o.d, a thick darkness of three days settled down on the land. See Exodus x. 22.
EGYPTIANS, THE, of antiquity were partly of Asiatic and partly of African origin, with a probable infusion of Semitic blood, and formed both positively and negatively a no inconsiderable link in the chain of world-history, positively by their sense of the divinity of nature-life as seen in their nature-wors.h.i.+p, and negatively by the absence of all sense of the divinity of a higher life as it has come to light in the self-consciousness or moral sense and destiny of man.
EGYPTOLOGY, the science, in the interest of ancient history, of Egyptian antiquities, such as the monuments and their inscriptions, and one in which of late years great interest has been taken, and much progress made.
EGYPTUS, the brother of Danaus, whose 50 sons, all but one, were murdered by the daughters of the latter. See DANAuS.
EHKILI, a dialect of S. Arabia, interesting to philologists as one of the oldest of Semitic tongues.
EHRENBERG, a German naturalist, born in Delitsch; intended for the Church; devoted himself to medical studies, and graduated in medicine in 1818; acquired great skill in the use of the microscope, and by means of it made important discoveries, particularly in the department of infusory animals; contributed largely to the literature of science (1795-1878).