died in Dantzic in 1821. Elbing has manufactories of sugar, potash, tobacco, soap, chicory, vitriol, leather, and woollen fabrics. Its maritime trade is very active, its exports being its own manufactures, and its imports grain and wine. This place owes its origin to commercial establishments founded by colonists from Bremen and Lübeck in the 13th century, under the protection of a fortress constructed by knights of the Teutonic order. It was early admitted into the Hanseatic league, placed itself under the protection of Poland about the middle of the 15th century, and in 1772 was annexed to the Prussian dominions.

ELCESAITES, a sect of Asiatic Gnostics, founded in the reign of Trajan, a branch of the Jewish Essenes, kindred to and finally confounded with the Ebionites. A Jew by the name of Elxai or Elcesai is supposed to have been their founder. Their most distinctive tenet was that man is but a mass of matter in which the divine power is concealed. They were tenacious of their oaths, favored early marriages, and rejected the Pentateuch and the epistles of Paul.

ELCHE (anc. Ilici), a town of Spain, province of Valencia, 13 m. S. W. from Alicante, 8 m. W. from the Mediterranean; pop. 22,800. It is girdled on every side by forests of palm trees, and has been named the city of palms. The chief industry of the place is employed in the culture and exportation of dates, which are inferior to those of Barbary.

ELCHINGEN, a Benedictine abbey of medieval celebrity, founded in 1128 upon a steep mountain in Bavaria, 7 m. from Ulm. Amid the massive buildings which composed this abbey, the church, which was destroyed by lightning in 1773, was especially distinguished. In its place another has been constructed in an even more ancient style of architecture. The abbey of Elchingen gives its name to 2 villages situated 3 m. apart upon opposite sides of the mountain. The battle of Elchingen, Oct. 14, 1805, was one of the most brilliant episodes in the Austerlitz campaign of Napoleon, and gained for Marshal Ney the title of duke of Elchingen.

ELDER (sambucus Canadensis, Linn.), a showy shrub, well known from its numerous flat cymes of white flowers appearing in June, to be succeeded by heavy black-purple, crimsonjuiced berries in August, and overtopping the wild reeds and bushes on the borders of fields. On account of its long and spreading roots it is sometimes troublesome to the farmer. A wholesome sudorific decoction is prepared from its flowers, which are carefully gathered and dried for the purpose; the fruit is much esteemed by some in the manufacture of a sort of wine, while the pith of the stem furnishes excellent pith balls for electrical experiments. There is another species (S. pubens, Michaux), which has a scarlet fruit, fully ripe at the time the former is in blossom. The flowers of this are handsome, of a greenish or purplish white, borne in thyrse-like spikes. The plant is well worthy of cultivation where it is not found growing wild.

ELDER, an overseer, ruler, or leader. The reverence paid to the aged in early times was doubtless the origin of this title, it being used as a name of office both among Jews and Christians. Macknight thinks it was applied in the apostolic age to all, whether old or young, who exercised any sacred office in the Christian church. Elders or seniors, in the ancient Jewish polity, were persons noted for their age, experience, and wisdom; of this sort were the 70 whom Moses associated with himself in the government of Israel, and such also were those who afterward held the first rank in the synagogue as presidents. Elders, in church history, were originally those who held the first place in the assemblies of the primitive Christians. The word presbyter is sometimes used in the New Testament in this signification, and as interchangeable with ETLOKOTOS; and hence the first meetings of Christian ministers were called presbyteria, or assemblies of elders. Elder and elders, with the Baptists, are terms used to designate ministers of the gospel generally. With the Presbyterians they are the officers who, in conjunction with the ministers and deacons, compose the church sessions, representing the church itself, conducting its discipline, and aiding in the promotion of the interests of religion. They are chosen from among the people, usually for life; are generally set apart to their office with some public ceremony; and their number is different in different churches.-It has long been a matter of dispute whether there are any such officers as lay elders mentioned in Scripture. On the one side, it is said that these officers are nowhere mentioned as being alone or single, but always as being many in every congregation; that they are mentioned separately from the brethren; and that their office is described as being distinct from that of preaching, he that ruleth being expressly distinguished from him that exhorteth or teacheth. On the other side, it is contended that the distinction alluded to does not refer to different orders of officers, but only to the degree of diligence, faithfulness, and laboriousness with which they discharge their duties and fulfil their ministerial work; and that the emphasis in such passages as 1 Timothy, v. 17, is to be laid on the word "labor," not on the word "especially," as though the latter were intended to distinguish between two different classes of elders, one superior, in some respects, to the other.

ELDON, JOHN SCOTT, earl of, lord chancellor of England, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, June 4, 1751, died in London, Jan. 13, 1838. His father was a man of respectable fortune, engaged in the coal trade. John was taught in the grammar school of his native town, by the Rev. Hugh Moises, and in May, 1766, instead of being apprenticed to the coal business, as his father had designed him to be, he was sent to his brother William, afterward Lord Stowell, who was then a tutor at Oxford. He was entered a commoner of University college, was chosen to a fellowship in July, 1767, took his bachelor's

degree in Feb. 1770, gained the chancellor's prize of £20 for an English prose essay in 1771, intending all the while to take orders, but this plan was changed in 1772 by his running away with Miss Elizabeth Surtees, the daughter of a Newcastle banker. He was married at Blackshiels, in Scotland, Nov. 19. The bride's family for a while refused to see her; but about the beginning of the next year the sum of £2,000 was settled upon each of the young couple by their respective parents, and the newly married pair went up to Oxford, where John was to study for the law. He was admitted of the Middle Temple in 1773, intending, however, to enter the church if a college living should fall vacant during the year of grace for which he was allowed to retain his fellowship after marriage. The anniversary of his marriage destroyed his last hope of ecclesiastical preferment, and he thenceforth bent his whole mind to the profession which circumstances seemed to have forced upon him. In 1774-5 he was a tutor in University college, where, however, he probably did no more than superintend the law studies of some of the members, and at the same time he obtained the appointment of vice-principal of New Inn hall and vice law professor, his duties being to read the lectures written by his superior, Sir Robert Chambers. Beside the faithful study of Coke upon Littleton, he read and remembered all the reports, rising at 4 in the morning and reading until late at night. In 1775 he removed to London, where an eminent conveyancer, Mr. Duane, took him into his office without the customary fee; and in Feb. 1776, he was called to the bar. In after life he loved to speak of the difficulties of his early career; but in truth, after a shorter period of inaction than falls to the lot of most young lawyers, he seems to have risen steadily, and his fortune was made by his famous argument in the case of Ackroyd vs. Smithson, which Lord Thurlow decided in his favor on appeal in March, 1780. In the following year he still further advanced his prospects by his display of ability in the Clitheroe election case, which he undertook in the absence of other counsel, at a few hours' notice. A plan which he had entertained of settling in Newcastle was now abandoned. In June, 1783, on the formation of the coalition ministry of Fox and Lord North, he was one of several junior counsel who were called within the bar, and a few days after he was made a bencher of his inn of court. The influence of Lord Thurlow procured him a seat in the house of commons as representative of Lord Weymouth's borough of Weobly, and on Dec. 20, 1783, he delivered his maiden speech in opposition to Mr. Fox's East India bill, but with little success. Scott, in fact, was no orator, and though he afterward spoke with effect, especially on legal questions, and proved a powerful member of the tory party, he never acquired the fame of a good debater. On the accession of Mr. Pitt, in March, 1784, he came into parliament again as a member for Weobly, but in the following year he supported Mr. Fox in

the famous Westminster scrutiny case, and laid down the principle which has since passed into law, "that the election must be finally closed before the return of the writ, and that the writ must be returned on or before the day specified in it." His first official appointment was to the chancellorship of the county palatine and bishopric of Durham, in 1787; and in June, 1788, he was made solicitor-general, and received the honor of knighthood. Scarcely had he entered upon his new office, however, when the great political crisis arising out of the king's insanity threatened to turn him and his party adrift. Mr. Pitt proposed to confer limited powers as regent upon the prince of Wales by act of parliament, and this measure the solicitor warmly upheld, advocating the use of the great seal in the king's name, and broaching a doctrine which virtually placed supreme power in the hands of the person who held the seal for the time being. The bill was stopped in its passage by the king's recovery, but the line of action then laid down dictated the course of the ministry at a later period. In 1793 Sir John was made attorney-general, and as such conducted the famous state trials of 1794, in which he was opposed to Erskine. Scott failed to obtain a conviction, notwithstanding a speech of 9 hours' duration, and was, moreover, exposed to considerable bodily danger from the excited populace. In July, 1799, on the death of Sir James Eyre, he obtained the post of chief justice of the common pleas, and with it the rank of Baron Eldon of Eldon, his title being taken from an estate which he had purchased in the county of Durham. Shortly after the formation of Mr. Addington's ministry, in 1801, he became lord chancellor, receiving his appointment, it is said, directly from the king, who was pleased to intrust the great seal to one whose anti-Catholic zeal accorded so well with the royal sentiments. He contributed to the overthrow of Mr. Addington and the formation of Pitt's second administration, in which he retained his office, but he resigned it when the whigs came into power under Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville, in Feb. 1806. He was an active member of the opposition, and with the purpose of breaking down the whig cabinet by enlisting sympathy for the princess of Wales, he is supposed to have produced, in conjunction with Mr. Perceval, the famous "Book," whose origin was so long a mystery; but its publication was stopped when the tories came into power by the cry of "danger to the church," and on April 1, 1807, Lord Eldon took his seat again upon the woolsack. He was now at the height of favor and influence; his intimate relations with the king, no less than his official position, gave him a share in the administration such as no chancellor had enjoyed for many years; and though the assertion of Lord Brougham that he did three fourths of the governing of the country for a whole generation may be exaggerated, it is certain that at times when the king was notoriously incompetent he put the great seal to uses from which his more timid associates drew back, and in parliament the

severest strictures were passed upon his conduct. When the recovery of the king became no longer probable, Lord Eldon began to cultivate the favor of the regent, suddenly took side against the princess Caroline, and bought up as many as possible of the few copies of the "Book" which had got into circulation. In the ministerial intrigues following the assassination of Mr. Perceval he was the secret adviser of the prince, and the real author of Lord Liverpool's administration, which lasted with slight changes until the death of that minister in 1827, a period of 15 years. Lord Eldon's devotion to his "dear young master" was not without reward. On the death of George III. he was confirmed in his office, and by his subsequent part in the matter of the proposed divorce he earned the dignity of Viscount Encombe and earl of Eldon, which George IV. conferred upon him, July 7, 1821. But with the introduction of more liberal views than had hitherto ruled the nation, Lord Eldon's influence began to wane. Though still honored, he was less and less consulted. The ideas which he had brought with him from the previous generation, his uncompromising hostility to reform in law or parliament, his firm stand against Catholic emancipation, his coercion of the press, were no longer the principles of the government; and when Mr. Canning became minister, in 1827, he resigned the great seal, and was succeeded by Lord Lyndhurst. He never again took office, though he showed on several occasions a readiness to do so; and in 1835 he withdrew entirely from public life, taking with him a large fortune, the legitimate fruit of his position. As a lawyer, Lord Eldon ranks among the greatest who have ever adorned the bench or bar of England. Without a mind of the highest order, and little versed in the civil or in foreign codes, he was unsurpassed in knowledge of English law and in subtlety and acuteness of intellect; but his habitual hesitation in deciding, beside proving ruinous to suitors, encumbered the court of chancery with a vast arrear of causes which was often the subject of parliamentary animadversion. Hence, according to Mr. H. Twiss, his biographer, it was in the common law courts, where he was forced to decide without delay, rather than in the courts of equity, that he gained his greatest reputation. His opinions, from the study bestowed upon them, are of the first value, but they are often expressed in confused and obscure language. As a politician, he was distinguished by adroitness, tact, and a boldness strangely in contrast with his hesitation on the bench; but he was not a great statesman, and knew little of foreign politics. He had a horror of innovation, looked upon the reform bill of 1831 with mingled fright and amazement, and, with a morbid fondness for political prosecutions, boasted that he had caused more actions for libel in 2 years than had taken place in 20 years before. His demeanor on the bench was courteous and affable. His domestic life was eminently happy and virtuous; his good humor seldom forsook

him, and he had the reputation of being one of the most entertaining story tellers of his day. In his "Anecdote Book," a sort of autobiography compiled in his old age, he does little, however, to sustain his character as a humorist, and shows a lack of literary culture not surprising in one who from the age of 22 read nothing but law books and the newspapers.

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE, queen of France and afterward of England, born in 1122, died March 31, 1204. She was the eldest daughter and heiress of William IX., duke of Guienne or Aquitaine, and was married, Aug. 2, 1137, to Prince Louis, who in the same year succeeded to the throne of France as Louis VII. She was gay, frivolous, a lover of poetry and art, and could not sympathize with the ascetic spirit of her husband. She accompanied him on the second crusade to the Holy Land in 1147. At that time he complained of her preference for other men, and on their return from Asia they were divorced, March 18, 1152. A short time afterward she bestowed her hand upon Henry Plantagenet, the future Henry II. of England. This alliance, which made Henry master of Eleanor's vast possessions in France, produced pernicious and protracted wars between France and England. She bore him many children, but his infidelities and neglect changed her love into hatred. She incited her sons Geoffrey and Richard to rebel against their father, was arrested in 1174, and remained in confinement until after Henry's death in 1189, when she was released by his successor, Richard I., Coeur de Lion, who placed her at the head of the government on his departure for the Holy Land. She negotiated his marriage with the daughter of the king of Navarre, and went to Germany with his ransom from captivity. She afterward retired to the abbey of Fontevrault, and surviving Richard, lived to see him succeeded by one of her other sons, John Lackland, the signer of Magna Charta. She was a favorite personage with the troubadour poets of the day, and appears in a very different light in their works from that in which she is represented by the French and Norman chroniclers.

ELEATIC SCHOOL, a group of Greek philosophers, beginning with Xenophanes of Colophon, who settled in Elea or Velia, a Greek colony of southern Italy, in the 6th century B. C., and whose principal disciples were Parmenides and Zeno, both of Elea, and Melissus of Samos. Some of the ancients also ranked Leucippus and Empedocles among them, which has led several historians of philosophy to distinguish two Eleatic schools, one of metaphysics and the other of physics. But apart from the radical difference which separates the doctrines of Empedocles and Leucippus from the system of Xenophanes and Parmenides, there is no evidence that the latter philosophers were at all associated with the former. It can only be affirmed that they were all contemporary, and that the writings of Parmenides probably contributed to the modification of Ionian ideas

wrought by Leucippus, and to the changes in the system of Pythagoras made by Empedocles. The general spirit of the school may be defined as an attempt, perhaps the first ever made, to refer all science to the absolute and pure ideas of the reason. There are, according to the Eleatics, two kinds of knowledge, that which comes to us through the senses, and that which we owe to the reason alone. The science which is composed of the former is only an illusion, for it contains nothing true, fixed, and durable. The only certain science is that which owes nothing to the senses, and all to the reason. Children and the untaught may believe in the reality of sensible appearances, but the philosopher who seeks the foundation of things should appeal only to the reason. There are two principles in nature, on the one side fire or light, and on the other night or thick and heavy matter. These principles are distinct but not separate; they act in concert, playing together a perpetual and universal part in the world. The world is bounded by a circle of light as by a girdle, and is divided into 3 parts, in the central one of which necessity reigns sovereign. The stars are but condensed fire, and the earth is the darkest and heaviest of all bodies. It is round, and placed by its own weight in the centre of the world. Men are born of the earth, warmed by the solar rays, and thought is a product of organization. From this commingling of fire and earth have begun all the things which our senses show us, and which will some time perish. But in all these physical phenomena there is no true science. Reason is the exclusive source of certainty, and reason conceives and recognizes as true nothing but absolute being, being in itself considered, that is, as disengaged from every particular, fleeting, and perishable circumstance, modification, or accident. Thus every thing which has ever begun to be, every thing which is susceptible of change or modification, of birth or destruction, has no veritable existence; it is not being, but only appearance. Beside being, in this sense of the word, there is, according to the Eleatics, only nothingness, and as this is but the negation of all things, one can neither affirm it nor deny it. Being is eternal, unchangeable, self-existent; it has neither past nor future, neither parts nor limits, neither division nor succession; it is then an absolute unity, and every thing else is but an illusion. Thus, the Eleatic system denies the data furnished by the senses, denies the generalizations and abstractions which the reason founds upon such data, and affirms only those necessary ideas which reason owes solely to itself, and which it employs in its operations. The result is a pantheism, in Xenophanes resembling the blended material and spiritual pantheism of Spinoza, and in Parmenides approaching the spiritual idealistic pantheism of Fichte. ELEAZAR (Heb., God is help), the name of several ancient Hebrews. The most noted of them was the 3d son of Aaron, who held in his father's lifetime the oversight of the Levitical

order, and on Aaron's death was raised to the dignity of high priest. His pontificate was contemporary with the military government of Joshua, and the book of Joshua closes with an account of his death and burial.-ELEAZAR, son of Dodo, was one of David's 3 mighty men, who smote the Philistines till his hand was weary, and who with 2 others broke through the Philistine host to bring to David a draught of water from his native Bethlehem.

ELECAMPANE, the root of the plant inula helenium, a handsome shrub, which, introduced into America from Europe, is now common in our gardens, and grows wild in meadows and by the roadsides in the northern states. The root should be dug in autumn and of the second year's growth. It has an agreeable aromatic odor when dried, somewhat like that of camphor, and its taste when chewed is warm and bitter; water and alcohol extract its peculiar properties, the latter most readily. Its extracts afford the vegetable principles alantine or inuline, resembling starch, and helenine, which forms long white crystals. The powdered root or the decoction in water is used in medicine as a tonic and stimulant. It is prescribed in chronic diseases of the lungs.

ELECTOR, or PRINCE ELECTOR (Kurfürst), in the old German empire, the title of those princes who enjoyed the privilege of electing (küren) the emperor, or rather the king, for the rulers of the German empire were originally as such only kings. Under the Carlovingians the government was hereditary. After their extinction the most powerful princes, such as the dukes of the Bavarians, Saxons, Swabians, Franconians, and Lotharingians, were accustomed to come to an understanding as to the one to be selected from among their number to rule over all the German tribes. This was done without any specific law, the electors being simply powerful enough to contest any election made against their will. But in the course of time the electoral privilege became a right inherent in certain territorial possessions, viz.: the archbishoprics of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, and the principalities of the Palatinate, Saxony, Brandenburg, and Bohemia. The incumbents of these principalities acted as electors for the first time in 1256, when they chose Richard of Cornwall. A century later their exclusive privilege was guaranteed to them by the "Golden Bull." In 1648 an 8th electorate was established for the Palatinate, whose rights had been transferred to Bavaria during the 30 years' war; it became extinct in 1777. In 1692 the duchy of BrunswickLüneburg was raised to the rank of an electorate. When the German empire was tottering to its ruin in consequence of the wars with revolutionary France, the electoral college was entirely remodelled. The ecclesiastical electors having lost their possessions on the left bank of the Rhine, 3 secular princes were raised to the rank of electors, viz. the margrave of Baden, the duke of Würtemberg, and the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel; beside these, the grand duke of

Tuscany, having been made archbishop of Saltzburg and afterward of Würtzburg, was recognized as an elector. But when, in 1806, the emperor Francis abdicated the German crown, the electoral system came to an end. Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg became kingdoms (the electors of Brandenburg had been kings of Prussia since 1700); Baden was a grand duchy; and the elector of Hesse-Cassel was deprived of his dominions, which were afterward incorporated in the new kingdom of Westphalia. Thus, for 6 years, the title of elector had no legal existence, until it was revived after the downfall of the king of Westphalia by the elector of Hesse-Cassel, now the only prince bearing that title. The prince electors enjoyed not only the privilege of choosing the German kings, but also that of subjecting them to certain stipulations and conditions, which, in many cases, were so exacting as to leave the monarch scarcely a shadow of power. By the "Golden Bull" the electors are called "the seven columns and pillars of light of the holy empire," also "the members of the imperial body." It was one of their privileges to offer their advice to the emperor whether he asked for it or not. They were also entitled to all royal honors, except the title of majesty. The electors had each a special function in the administration of the empire or the imperial household. Thus, the elector of Mentz was arch-chancellor of the empire, chairman of the electoral college and of the diet; the elector of Treves was lieutenant arch-chancellor for Germany; that of Cologne the same for Italy; the elector of Bohemia arch-cupbearer; the elector of the Palatinate arch-dapifer and lieutenant of the emperor in the Rhenish provinces; the elector of Brandenburg arch-chamberlain; the elector of Saxony arch-marshal and vicepresident of the diet; that of Brunswick-Lüneburg arch-treasurer. The electorates created shortly before the dissolution of the empire had not yet been endowed with special functions.In the political system of the United States, electors are chosen by the people of each state to elect the president and vice-president. Each state chooses as many electors as it has members in the two houses of congress; and these electors meet at the capitals of their respective states, on the 1st day of January next after the election, and cast their votes for president and vice-president. These votes are then sealed up and carried by special messengers to Washington, where they are opened and counted in the presence of both houses of congress, and the result proclaimed by the president of the

senate.

ELECTRA (in Gr., the bright or brilliant one), daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister of Orestes, Iphigenia, and Chrysothemis, was, when her father departed to the Trojan war, confided with her mother and brother to the care of Ægisthus. Clytemnestra yielded to the addresses of her guardian, and when after 10 years her husband returned to Greece he was murdered in his own house.

The vengeance of the guilty mother and her accomplice threatened death also to Orestes, but Electra discovered his danger, and sent him away to King Strophius of Phocis, who had him educated with his own son Pylades. Orestes had hardly attained the strength of manhood when Electra sent secret messengers to him urging him to undertake the duty of vengeance. With his friend Pylades he came in disguise to Argos, made himself known to his sister, and slew both Ægisthus and Clytemnestra in the palace. The guilt of matricide awoke the Furies against him, who stung him to madness, and pursued him over the earth. On the shore of the Tauric Chersonesus he was about to be sacrificed by the priestess of Diana, his own sister Iphigenia, who was ignorant of the relationship. According to some, the report even reached Greece that he had perished. Electra in despair rushed to the oracle of Delphi to learn the particulars. At the same time Orestes, Pylades, and Iphigenia arrived there. A casual word having at the last moment revealed Orestes to his sister, Electra was about to hurl a firebrand into the face of Iphigenia, when her arm was stayed by Orestes. Electra became the wife of Pylades, and the mother of Medon and Strophius. Her story has been treated from various points of view by almost all the great tragedians, by Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides among the ancients, and by Racine, Alfieri, and Goethe among the moderns.

ELECTRIC FISHES. The extraordinary modification of the peripheral extremities of nerves by which electricity is generated and discharged, is found in 4 genera of fishes, and in no other class of the vertebrata. The best known of these fishes will be described under TORPEDO; a second, the gymnotus or electrical eel, has been already mentioned under EEL; the other two will be briefly alluded to here, as there is no common name under which they would properly come. The 3d electrical fish belongs to the family of siluride, and the genus malapterurus (Lacép.). The M. electricus (Lacép.) differs from the common siluroids in having no anterior dorsal fin nor pectoral spine; the skin is naked and scaleless; there is an adipose dorsal fin near the caudal; the ventrals are just behind the middle, and the anal occupies about half the distance between them and the rounded caudal; the body is stout, the tail thick, and the head short and conical; the lips are fleshy, with 6 barbels; 5 villiform teeth in each jaw, none on the vomer. The fish attains a length of 18 or 20 inches, and is found in the Nile, Senegal, and other rivers of northern and central Africa; the color is cinereous or olive above, spotted and irregularly marked with black, whitish below; anterior nostrils tubular. The existence of a fish with benumbing powers in the Nile has been known for more than 300 years, but Geoffroy and Rudolphi were the first to give detailed descriptions of the electric organs. Valenciennes describes these as forming on each side of the body, between the skin and the muscles, 2 thin