SeeAquamarine,Beryl.
SeeAquamarine,Beryl.
(F. W. R.*)
ÉMERIC-DAVID, TOUSSAINT-BERNARD(1755-1839), French archaeologist and writer on art, was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 20th of August 1755. He was destined for the legal profession, and having gone in 1775 to Paris to complete his legal education, he acquired there a taste for art which influenced his whole future career, and he went to Italy, where he continued his art studies. He soon returned, however, to his native village, and followed for some time the profession of an advocate; but in 1787 he succeeded his uncle Antoine David as printer to the parlement. He was elected mayor of Aix in 1791; and although he speedily resigned his office, he was in 1793 threatened with arrest, and had for some time to adopt a vagrant life. When danger was past he returned to Aix, sold his printing business, and engaged in general commercial pursuits; but he was not long in renouncing these also, in order to devote himself exclusively to literature and art. From 1809 to 1814, under the Empire, he represented his department in the Lower House (Corps législatif); in 1814 he voted for the downfall of Napoleon; in 1815 he retired into private life, and in 1816 he was elected a member of the Institute. He died in Paris on the 2nd of April 1839. Émeric-David was placed in 1825 on the commission appointed to continueL’Histoire littéraire de la France.His principal works areRecherches sur l’art statuaire, considéré chez les anciens et les modernes(Paris, 1805), a work which obtained the prize of the Institute;Suite d’études calquées et dessinées d’après cinq tableaux de Raphaël(Paris, 1818-1821), in 6 vols. fol.;Jupiter, ou recherches sur ce dieu, sur son culte, &c. (Paris, 1833), 2 vols. 8vo, illustrated; andVulcain(Paris, 1837).
EMERITUS(Lat. fromemereri, to serve out one’s time, to earn thoroughly), a term used of Roman soldiers and public officials who had earned their discharge from the service, a veteran, and hence applied, in modern times, to a university professor (professor emeritus) who has vacated his chair, on account of long service, age or infirmity, and, in the Presbyterian church, to a minister who has for like reason given up his charge.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO(1803-1882), American poet and essayist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 25th of May 1803. Seven of his ancestors were ministers of New England churches. Among them were some of those men of mark who made the backbone of the American character: the sturdy Puritan, Peter Bulkeley, sometime rector of Odell in Bedfordshire, and afterward pastor of the church in the wilderness at Concord, New Hampshire; the zealous evangelist, Father Samuel Moody of Agamenticus in Maine, who pursued graceless sinners eveninto the alehouse; Joseph Emerson of Malden, “a heroic scholar,” who prayed every night that no descendant of his might ever be rich; and William Emerson of Concord, Mass., the patriot preacher, who died while serving in the army of the Revolution. Sprung from such stock, Emerson inherited qualities of self-reliance, love of liberty, strenuous virtue, sincerity, sobriety and fearless loyalty to ideals. The form of his ideals was modified by the metamorphic glow of Transcendentalism which passed through the region of Boston in the second quarter of the 19th century. But the spirit in which Emerson conceived the laws of life, reverenced them and lived them out, was the Puritan spirit, elevated, enlarged and beautified by the poetic temperament.
His father was the Rev. William Emerson, minister of the First Church (Unitarian) in Boston. Ralph Waldo was the fourth child in a family of eight, of whom at least three gave evidence of extraordinary mental powers. He was brought up in an atmosphere of hard work, of moral discipline, and (after his father’s death in 1811) of that wholesome self-sacrifice which is a condition of life for those who are poor in money and rich in spirit. His aunt, Miss Mary Moody Emerson, a brilliant old maid, an eccentric saint, was a potent factor in his education. Loving him, believing in his powers, passionately desiring for him a successful career, but clinging with both hands to the old forms of faith from which he floated away, this solitary, intense woman did as much as any one to form, by action and reaction, the mind and character of the young Emerson. In 1817 he entered Harvard College, and graduated in 1821. In scholarship he ranked about the middle of his class. In literature and oratory he was more distinguished, receiving a Boylston prize for declamation, and two Bowdoin prizes for dissertations, the first essay being on “The Character of Socrates” and the second on “The Present State of Ethical Philosophy”—both rather dull, formal, didactic productions. He was fond of reading and of writing verse, and was chosen as the poet for class-day. His cheerful serenity of manner, his tranquil mirthfulness, and the steady charm of his personality made him a favourite with his fellows, in spite of a certain reserve. His literary taste was conventional, including the standard British writers, with a preference for Shakespeare among the poets, Berkeley among the philosophers, and Montaigne (in Cotton’s translation) among the essayists. His particular admiration among the college professors was the stately rhetorician, Edward Everett; and this predilection had much to do with his early ambition to be a professor of rhetoric and elocution.
Immediately after graduation he became an assistant in his brother William’s school for young ladies in Boston, and continued teaching, with much inward reluctance and discomfort, for three years. The routine was distasteful; he despised the superficial details which claimed so much of his time. The bonds of conventionalism were silently dissolving in the rising glow of his poetic nature. Independence, sincerity, reality, grew more and more necessary to him. His aunt urged him to seek retirement, self-reliance, friendship with nature; to be no longer “the nursling of surrounding circumstances,” but to prepare a celestial abode for the muse. The passion for spiritual leadership stirred within him. The ministry seemed to offer the fairest field for its satisfaction. In 1825 he entered the divinity school at Cambridge, to prepare himself for the Unitarian pulpit. His course was much interrupted by ill-health. His studies were irregular, and far more philosophical and literary than theological.
In October 1826 he was “approbated to preach” by the Middlesex Association of Ministers. The same year a threatened consumption compelled him to take a long journey in the south. Returning in 1827, he continued his studies, preached as a candidate in various churches, and improved in health. In 1829 he married a beautiful but delicate young woman, Miss Ellen Tucker of Concord, and was installed as associate minister of the Second Church (Unitarian) in Boston. The retirement of his senior colleague soon left him the sole pastor. Emerson’s early sermons were simple, direct, unconventional. He dealt freely with the things of the spirit. There was a homely elevation in his discourses, a natural freshness in his piety, a quiet enthusiasm in his manner, that charmed thoughtful hearers. Early in 1832 he lost his wife, a sorrow that deeply depressed him in health and spirits. Following his passion for independence and sincerity, he arrived at the conviction that the Lord’s Supper was not intended by Christ to be a permanent sacrament. To him, at least, it had become an outgrown form. He was willing to continue the service only if the use of the elements should be dropped and the rite made simply an act of spiritual remembrance. Setting forth these views, candidly and calmly, in a sermon, he found his congregation, not unnaturally, reluctant to agree with him, and therefore retired, not without some disappointment, from the pastoral office. He never again took charge of a parish; but he continued to preach, as opportunity offered, until 1847. In fact, he was always a preacher, though of a singular order. His supreme task was to befriend and guide the inner life of man.
The strongest influences in his development about this time were the liberating philosophy of Coleridge, the mystical visions of Swedenborg, the intimate poetry of Wordsworth, and the stimulating essays of Carlyle. On Christmas Day 1832 he took passage in a sailing vessel for the Mediterranean. He travelled through Italy, visited Paris, spent two months in Scotland and England, and saw the four men whom he most desired to see—Landor, Coleridge, Carlyle and Wordsworth. “The comfort of meeting such men of genius as these,” he wrote, “is that they talk sincerely.” But he adds that he found all four of them, in different degrees, deficient in insight into religious truth. His visit to Carlyle, in the lonely farm-house at Craigenputtock, was the memorable beginning of a lifelong friendship. Emerson published Carlyle’s first books in America. Carlyle introduced Emerson’s Essays into England. The two men were bound together by a mutual respect deeper than a sympathy of tastes, and a community of spirit stronger than a similarity of opinions. Emerson was a sweet-tempered Carlyle, living in the sunshine. Carlyle was a militant Emerson, moving amid thunderclouds. The things that each most admired in the other were self-reliance, directness, moral courage. A passage in Emerson’s Diary, written on his homeward voyage, strikes the keynote of his remaining life. “A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself.... All real good or evil that can befall him must be from himself.... There is a correspondence between the human soul and everything that exists in the world; more properly, everything that is known to man. Instead of studying things without, the principles of them all may be penetrated into within him.... The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint man with himself.... The highest revelation is that God is in every man.” Here is the essence of that intuitional philosophy, commonly called Transcendentalism. Emerson disclaimed allegiance to that philosophy. He called it “the saturnalia, or excess of faith.” His practical common sense recoiled from the amazing conclusions which were drawn from it by many of its more eccentric advocates. His independence revolted against being bound to any scheme or system of doctrine, however nebulous. He said: “I wish to say what I feel and think to-day, with the proviso that to-morrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.” But this very wish commits him to the doctrine of the inner light. All through his life he navigated the Transcendental sea, piloted by a clear moral sense, warned off the rocks by the saving grace of humour, and kept from capsizing by a good ballast of New England prudence.
After his return from England in 1833 he went to live with his mother at the old manse in Concord, Mass., and began his career as a lecturer in Boston. His first discourses were delivered before the Society of Natural History and the Mechanics’ Institute. They were chiefly on scientific subjects, approached in a poetic spirit. In the autumn of 1835 he married Miss Lydia Jackson of Plymouth, having previously purchased a spacious old house and garden at Concord. There he spent the remainder of his life, a devoted husband, a wise and tender father, a careful house-holder, a virtuous villager, a friendly neighbour, and, spite of all his disclaimers, the central and luminous figure among theTranscendentalists. The doctrine which in others seemed to produce all sorts of extravagances—communistic experiments at Brook Farm and Fruitlands, weird schemes of political reform, long hair on men and short hair on women—in his sane, well-balanced nature served only to lend an ideal charm to the familiar outline of a plain, orderly New England life. Some mild departures from established routine he tranquilly tested and as tranquilly abandoned. He tried vegetarianism for a while, but gave it up when he found that it did him no particular good. An attempt to illustrate household equality by having the servants sit at table with the rest of the family was frustrated by the dislike of his two sensible domestics for such an inconvenient arrangement. His theory that manual labour should form part of the scholar’s life was checked by the personal discovery that hard labour in the fields meant poor work in the study. “The writer shall not dig,” was his practical conclusion. Intellectual independence was what he chiefly desired; and this, he found, could be attained in a manner of living not outwardly different from that of the average college professor or country minister. And yet it was to this property-holding, debt-paying, law-abiding, well-dressed, courteous-mannered citizen of Concord that the ardent and enthusiastic turned as the prophet of the new idealism. The influence of other Transcendental teachers, Dr Hedge, Dr Ripley, Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brownson, Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, Henry Thoreau, Jones Very, was narrow and parochial compared with that of Emerson. Something in his imperturbable, kindly presence, his angelic look, his musical voice, his commanding style of thought and speech, announced him as the possessor of the great secret which many were seeking—the secret of a freer, deeper, more harmonious life. More and more, as his fame spread, those who “would live in the spirit” came to listen to the voice, and to sit at the feet, of the Sage of Concord.
It was on the lecture-platform that he found his power and won his fame. The courses of lectures that he delivered at the Masonic Temple in Boston, during the winters of 1835 and 1836, on “Great Men,” “English Literature,” and “The Philosophy of History,” were well attended and admired. They were followed by two discourses which commanded for him immediate recognition, part friendly and part hostile, as a new and potent personality. His Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard College in August 1837, on “The American Scholar,” was an eloquent appeal for independence, sincerity, realism, in the intellectual life of America. His address before the graduating class of the divinity school at Cambridge, in 1838, was an impassioned protest against what he called “the defects of historical Christianity” (its undue reliance upon the personal authority of Jesus, and its failure to explore the moral nature of man as the fountain of established teaching), and a daring plea for absolute self-reliance and a new inspiration of religion. “In the soul,” he said, “let redemption be sought. Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution. The old is for slaves. Go alone. Refuse the good models, even those which are sacred in the imagination of men. Cast conformity behind you, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity.” In this address Emerson laid his hand on the sensitive point of Unitarianism, which rejected the divinity of Jesus, but held fast to his supreme authority. A blaze of controversy sprang up at once. Conservatives attacked him; Radicals defended him. Emerson made no reply. But amid this somewhat fierce illumination he went forward steadily as a public lecturer. It was not his negations that made him popular; it was the eloquence with which he presented the positive side of his doctrine. Whatever the titles of his discourses, “Literary Ethics,” “Man the Reformer,” “The Present Age,” “The Method of Nature,” “Representative Men,” “The Conduct of Life,” their theme was always the same, namely, “the infinitude of the private man.” Those who thought him astray on the subject of religion listened to him with delight when he poetized the commonplaces of art, politics, literature or the household. His utterance was Delphic, inspirational. There was magic in his elocution. The simplicity and symmetry of his sentences, the modulations of his thrilling voice, the radiance of his fine face, even his slight hesitations and pauses over his manuscript, lent a strange charm to his speech. For more than a generation he went about the country lecturing in cities, towns and villages, before learned societies, rustic lyceums and colleges; and there was no man on the platform in America who excelled him in distinction, in authority, or in stimulating eloquence.
In 1847 Emerson visited Great Britain for the second time, was welcomed by Carlyle, lectured to appreciative audiences in Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh and London, made many new friends among the best English people, paid a brief visit to Paris, and returned home in July 1848. “I leave England,” he wrote, “with increased respect for the Englishman. His stuff or substance seems to be the best in the world. I forgive him all his pride. My respect is the more generous that I have no sympathy with him, only an admiration.” The impressions of this journey were embodied in a book calledEnglish Traits, published in 1856. It might be called “English Traits and American Confessions,” for nowhere does Emerson’s Americanism come out more strongly. But the America that he loved and admired was the ideal, the potential America. For the actual conditions of social and political life in his own time he had a fine scorn. He was an intellectual Brahmin. His principles were democratic, his tastes aristocratic. He did not like crowds, streets, hotels—“the people who fill them oppress me with their excessive civility.” Humanity was his hero. He loved man, but be was not fond of men. He had grave doubts about universal suffrage. He took a sincere interest in social and political reform, but towards specific “reforms” his attitude was somewhat remote and visionary. On the subject of temperance he held aloof from the intemperate methods of the violent prohibitionists. He was a believer in woman’s rights, but he was lukewarm towards conventions in favour of woman suffrage. Even in regard to slavery he had serious hesitations about the ways of the abolitionists, and for a long time refused to be identified with them. But as the irrepressible conflict drew to a head Emerson’s hesitation vanished. He said in 1856, “I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.” With the outbreak of the Civil War he became an ardent and powerful advocate of the cause of the Union. James Russell Lowell said, “To him more than to all other causes did the young martyrs of our Civil War owe the sustaining strength of thoughtful heroism that is so touching in every record of their lives.”
Emerson the essayist was a condensation of Emerson the lecturer. His prose works, with the exception of the slender volume entitledNature(1836), were collected and arranged from the manuscripts of his lectures. His method of writing was characteristic. He planted a subject in his mind, and waited for thoughts and illustrations to come to it, as birds or insects to a plant or flower. When an idea appeared, he followed it, “as a boy might hunt a butterfly”; when it was captured he pinned it in his “Thought-book”. The writings of other men he used more for stimulus than for guidance. He said that books were for the scholar’s idle times. “I value them,” he said, “to make my top spin.” His favourite reading was poetry and mystical philosophy: Shakespeare, Dante, George Herbert, Goethe, Berkeley, Coleridge, Swedenborg, Jakob Boehme, Plato, the new Platonists, and the religious books of the East (in translation). Next to these he valued books of biography and anecdote: Plutarch, Grimm, St Simon, Varnhagen von Ense. He had some odd dislikes, and could find nothing in Aristophanes, Cervantes, Shelley, Scott, Miss Austen, Dickens. Novels he seldom read. He was a follower of none, an original borrower from all. His illustrations were drawn from near and far. The zodiac of Denderah; the Savoyards who carved their pine-forests into toys; the naked Derar, horsed on an idea, charging a troop of Roman cavalry; the long, austere Pythagorean lustrum of silence; Napoleon on the deck of the “Bellerophon,” observing the drill of the English soldiers; the Egyptian doctrine that every man has two pairs of eyes; Empedocles and his shoe; the horizontal stratification of theearth; a soft mushroom pushing its way through the hard ground,—all these allusions and a thousand more are found in the same volume. On his pages, close beside the Parthenon, the Sphinx, St Paul’s, Etna and Vesuvius, you will find the White Mountains, Monadnock, Agiocochook, Katahdin, the pickerel-weed in bloom, the wild geese honking through the sky, the chick-a-dee braving the snow, Wall Street and State Street, cotton-mills, railroads and Quincy granite. For an abstract thinker he was strangely in love with the concrete facts of life. Idealism in him assumed the form of a vivid illumination of the real. From the pages of his teeming note-books he took the material for his lectures, arranging and rearranging it under such titles as Nature, School, Home, Genius, Beauty and Manners, Self-Possession, Duty, The Superlative, Truth, The Anglo-Saxon, The Young American. When the lectures had served their purpose he rearranged the material in essays and published them. Thus appeared in succession the following volumes:Essays(First Series) (1841);Essays(Second Series) (1844);Representative Men(1850);English Traits(1856);The Conduct of Life(1860);Society and Solitude(1870);Letters and Social Aims(1876). Besides these, many other lectures were printed in separate form and in various combinations.
Emerson’s style is brilliant, epigrammatic, gem-like; clear in sentences, obscure in paragraphs. He was a sporadic observer. He saw by flashes. He said, “I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought.” The coherence of his writing lies in his personality. His work is fused by a steady glow of optimism. Yet he states this optimism moderately. “The genius which preserves and guides the human race indicates itself by a small excess of good, a small balance in brute facts always favourable to the side of reason.”
His verse, though in form inferior to his prose, was perhaps a truer expression of his genius. He said, “I am born a poet”; and again, writing to Carlyle, he called himself “half a bard.” He had “the vision,” but not “the faculty divine” which translates the vision into music. In his two volumes of verse (Poems, 1846;May Day and other Pieces, 1867) there are many passages of beautiful insight and profound feeling, some lines of surprising splendour, and a few poems, like “The Rhodora,” “The Snowstorm,” “Ode to Beauty,” “Terminus,” “The Concord Ode,” and the marvellous “Threnody” on the death of his first-born boy, of beauty unmarred and penetrating truth. But the total value of his poetical work is discounted by the imperfection of metrical form, the presence of incongruous images, the predominance of the intellectual over the emotional element, and the lack of flow. It is the material of poetry not thoroughly worked out. But the genius from which it came—the swift faculty of perception, the lofty imagination, the idealizing spirit enamoured of reality—was the secret source of all Emerson’s greatness as a speaker and as a writer. Whatever verdict time may pass upon the bulk of his poetry, Emerson himself must be recognized as an original and true poet of a high order.
His latter years were passed in peaceful honour at Concord. In 1866 Harvard College conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., and in 1867 he was elected an overseer. In 1870 he delivered a course of lectures before the university on “The Natural History of the Intellect.” In 1872 his house was burned down, and was rebuilt by popular subscription. In the same year he went on his third foreign journey, going as far as Egypt. About this time began a failure in his powers, especially in his memory. But his character remained serene and unshaken in dignity. Steadily, tranquilly, cheerfully, he finished the voyage of life.
“I trim myself to the storm of time,I man the rudder, reef the sail,Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:‘Lowly faithful, banish fear,Right onward drive unharmed;The port, well worth the cruise, is near.And every wave is charmed.’”
“I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
‘Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near.
And every wave is charmed.’”
Emerson died on the 27th of April 1882, and his body was laid to rest in the peaceful cemetery of Sleepy Hollow, in a grove on the edge of the village of Concord.
Authorities.—Emerson’s Complete Works, Riverside edition, edited by J.E. Cabot (11 vols., Boston, 1883-1884); another edition (London, 5 vols., 1906), by G. Sampson, in Bohn’s “Libraries”;The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (Boston, 1883); George Willis Cooke,Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings and Philosophy(Boston, 1881); Alexander Ireland,Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Genius and Writings(London, 1882); A. Bronson Alcott,Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher and Seer(Boston, 1882); Moncure Daniel Conway,Emerson at Home and Abroad(Boston, 1882); Joel Benton,Emerson as a Poet(New York, 1883); F.B. Sanborn (editor),The Genius and Character of Emerson: Lectures at the Concord School of Philosophy(Boston, 1885); Oliver Wendell Holmes,Ralph Waldo Emerson(“American Men of Letters” series) (Boston, 1885); James Elliott Cabot,A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2 vols. (the authorized biography) (Boston, 1887); Edward Waldo Emerson,Emerson in Concord(Boston, 1889); Richard Garnett,Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson(London, 1888); G.E. Woodberry,Ralph Waldo Emerson(1907). Critical estimates are also to be found in Matthew Arnold’sDiscourses in America, John Morley’sCritical Miscellanies, Henry James’sPartial Portraits, Lowell’sMy Study Windows, Birrell’sObiter Dicta(2nd series), Stedman’sPoets of America, Whipple’sAmerican Literature, &c. There is aBibliography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by G.W. Cooke (Boston, 1908).
Authorities.—Emerson’s Complete Works, Riverside edition, edited by J.E. Cabot (11 vols., Boston, 1883-1884); another edition (London, 5 vols., 1906), by G. Sampson, in Bohn’s “Libraries”;The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (Boston, 1883); George Willis Cooke,Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings and Philosophy(Boston, 1881); Alexander Ireland,Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Genius and Writings(London, 1882); A. Bronson Alcott,Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher and Seer(Boston, 1882); Moncure Daniel Conway,Emerson at Home and Abroad(Boston, 1882); Joel Benton,Emerson as a Poet(New York, 1883); F.B. Sanborn (editor),The Genius and Character of Emerson: Lectures at the Concord School of Philosophy(Boston, 1885); Oliver Wendell Holmes,Ralph Waldo Emerson(“American Men of Letters” series) (Boston, 1885); James Elliott Cabot,A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2 vols. (the authorized biography) (Boston, 1887); Edward Waldo Emerson,Emerson in Concord(Boston, 1889); Richard Garnett,Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson(London, 1888); G.E. Woodberry,Ralph Waldo Emerson(1907). Critical estimates are also to be found in Matthew Arnold’sDiscourses in America, John Morley’sCritical Miscellanies, Henry James’sPartial Portraits, Lowell’sMy Study Windows, Birrell’sObiter Dicta(2nd series), Stedman’sPoets of America, Whipple’sAmerican Literature, &c. There is aBibliography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by G.W. Cooke (Boston, 1908).
(H. van D.)
EMERSON, WILLIAM(1701-1782), English mathematician, was born on the 14th of May 1701 at Hurworth, near Darlington, where his father, Dudley Emerson, also a mathematician, taught a school. Unsuccessful as a teacher he devoted himself entirely to studious retirement, and published many works which are singularly free from errata. In mechanics he never advanced a proposition which he had not previously tested in practice, nor published an invention without first proving its effects by a model. He was skilled in the science of music, the theory of sounds, and the ancient and modern scales; but he never attained any excellence as a performer. He died on the 20th of May 1782 at his native village. Emerson was eccentric and indeed clownish, but he possessed remarkable independence of character and intellectual energy. The boldness with which he expressed his opinions on religious subjects led to his being charged with scepticism, but for this there was no foundation.
Emerson’s works includeThe Doctrine of Fluxions(1748);The Projection of the Sphere, Orthographic, Stereographic and Gnomical(1749);The Elements of Trigonometry(1749);The Principles of Mechanics(1754);A Treatise of Navigation(1755);A Treatise of Algebra, in two books (1765);The Arithmetic of Infinites, and the Differential Method, illustrated by Examples(1767);Mechanics, or the Doctrine of Motion(1769);The Elements of Optics, in four books (1768);A System of Astronomy(1769);The Laws of Centripetal and Centrifugal Force(1769);The Mathematical Principles of Geography(1770);Tracts(1770);Cyclomathesis, or an Easy Introduction to the several branches of the Mathematics(1770), in ten vols.;A Short Comment on Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia; to which is added,A Defence of Sir Isaac against the objections that have been made to several parts of his works(1770);A Miscellaneous Treatise containing several Mathematical Subjects(1776).
Emerson’s works includeThe Doctrine of Fluxions(1748);The Projection of the Sphere, Orthographic, Stereographic and Gnomical(1749);The Elements of Trigonometry(1749);The Principles of Mechanics(1754);A Treatise of Navigation(1755);A Treatise of Algebra, in two books (1765);The Arithmetic of Infinites, and the Differential Method, illustrated by Examples(1767);Mechanics, or the Doctrine of Motion(1769);The Elements of Optics, in four books (1768);A System of Astronomy(1769);The Laws of Centripetal and Centrifugal Force(1769);The Mathematical Principles of Geography(1770);Tracts(1770);Cyclomathesis, or an Easy Introduction to the several branches of the Mathematics(1770), in ten vols.;A Short Comment on Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia; to which is added,A Defence of Sir Isaac against the objections that have been made to several parts of his works(1770);A Miscellaneous Treatise containing several Mathematical Subjects(1776).
EMERY(Ger.Smirgel), an impure variety of corundum, much used as an abrasive agent. It was known to the Greeks under the name ofσμύριςorσμίρις, which is defined by Dioscorides as a stone used in gem-engraving. The Hebrew wordshamir(related to the Egyptianasmir), where translated in our versions of the Old Testament “adamant” and “diamond,” probably signified the emery-stone or corundum.
Emery occurs as a granular or massive, dark-coloured, dense substance, having much the appearance of an iron-ore. Its specific gravity varies with its composition from 3.7 to 4.3. Under the microscope, it is seen to be a mechanical aggregate of corundum, usually in grains or minute crystals of a bluish colour, with magnetite, which also is granular and crystalline. Other iron oxides, like haematite and limonite, may be present as alteration-products of the magnetite. Some of the alumina and iron oxide may occasionally be chemically combined, so as to form an iron spinel, or hercynite. In addition to these minerals emery sometimes contains quartz, mica, tourmaline, cassiterite, &c. Indeed emery may be regarded as a rock rather than a definite mineral species.
The hardness of emery is about 8, whereas that of pure corundum is 9. The “abrasive power,” or “effective hardness,” of emery is by no means proportional to the amount of alumina which it contains, but seems rather to depend on its physicalcondition. Thus, taking the effective hardness of sapphire as 100, Dr J. Lawrence Smith found that the emery of Samos with 70.10% of alumina had a corresponding hardness of 56; that of Naxos, with 68.53 of Al2O3, a hardness of 46; and that of Gumach with 77.82 of Al2O3, a hardness of 47.
Emery has been worked from a very remote period in the Isle of Naxos, one of the Cyclades, whence the stone was callednaxiumby Pliny and other Roman writers. The mineral occurs as loose blocks and as lenticular masses or irregular beds in granular limestone, associated with crystalline schists. The Naxos emery has been described by Professor G. Tschermak. From a chemical analysis of a sample it has been calculated that the emery contained 52.4% of corundum, 32.1 of magnetite, 11.5 of tourmaline, 2 of muscovite and 2 of margarite.
Important deposits of corundum were discovered in Asia Minor by J. Lawrence Smith, when investigating Turkish mineral resources about 1847. The chief sources of emery there are Gumach Dagh, a mountain about 12 m. E. of Ephesus; Kula, near Ala-shehr; and the mines in the hills between Thyra and Cosbonnar, south of Smyrna. The occurrence is similar to that in Naxos. The emery is found as detached blocks in a reddish soil, and as rounded masses embedded in a crystalline limestone associated with mica-schist, gneiss and granite. The proportion of corundum in this emery is said to vary from 37 to 57%. Emery is worked at several localities in the United States, especially near Chester, in Hampden county, Mass., where it is associated with peridotites. The corundum and magnetite are regarded by Dr J.H. Pratt as basic segregations from an igneous magma. The deposits were discovered by H.S. Lucas in 1864.
The hardness and toughness of emery render it difficult to work, but it may be extracted from the rock by blasting in holes bored with diamond drills. In the East fire-setting is employed. The emery after being broken up is carefully picked by hand, and then ground or stamped, and separated into grades by wire sieves. The higher grades are prepared by washing and eleutriation, the finest being known as “flour of emery.” A very fine emery dust is collected in the stamping room, where it is deposited after floating in the air. The fine powder is used by lapidaries and plate-glass manufacturers. Emery-wheels are made by consolidating the powdered mineral with an agglutinating medium like shellac or silicate of soda or vulcanized india-rubber. Such wheels are not only used by dentists and lapidaries but are employed on a large scale in mechanical workshops for grinding, shaping and polishing steel. Emery-sticks, emery-cloth and emery-paper are made by coating the several materials with powdered emery mixed with glue, or other adhesive media. (SeeCorundum.)
(F. W. R.*)
EMETICS(from Gr.ἐμετικός, causing vomit), the term given to substances which are administered for the purpose of producing vomiting. It is customary to divide emetics into two classes, those which produce their effect by acting on the vomiting centre in the medulla, and those which act directly on the stomach itself. There is considerable confusion in the nomenclature of these two divisions, but all are agreed in calling the former class central emetics, and the latter gastric. The gastric emetics in common use are alum, ammonium carbonate, zinc sulphate, sodium chloride (common salt), mustard and warm water. Copper sulphate has been purposely omitted from this list, since unless it produces vomiting very shortly after administration, being itself a violent gastro-intestinal irritant, some other emetic must promptly be administered. The central emetics are apomorphine, tartar emetic, ipecacuanha, senega and squill. Of these tartar emetic and ipecacuanha come under both heads: when taken by the mouth they act as gastric emetics before absorption into the blood, and later produce a further and more vigorous effect by stimulation of the medullary centre. It must be remembered, however, that, valuable though these drugs are, their action is accompanied by so much depression, they should never be administered except under medical advice.
Emetics have two main uses: that of emptying the stomach, especially in cases of poisoning, and that of expelling the contents of the air passages, more especially in children before they have learnt or have the strength to expectorate. Where a physician is in attendance, the first of these uses is nearly always replaced by lavage of the stomach, whereby any subsequent depression is avoided. Emetics still have their place, however, in the treatment of bronchitis, laryngitis and diphtheria in children, as they aid in the expulsion of the morbid products. Occasionally also they are administered when a foreign body has got into the larynx. Their use is contra-indicated in the case of anyone suffering from aneurism, hernia or arterio-sclerosis, or where there is any tendency to haemorrhage.
EMEU, evidently from the Port.Ema,1a name which has in turn been applied to each of the earlier-known forms of Ratite birds, but has finally settled upon that which inhabits Australia, though, up to the close of the 18th century, it was given by most authors to the bird now commonly called cassowary—this last word being a corrupted form of the MalayanSuwari(see Crawfurd,Gramm. and Dict. Malay Language, ii. pp. 178 and 25), apparently first printed asCasoarisby Bontius in 1658 (Hist. nat. et med. Ind. Orient.p. 71).
The cassowaries (Casuariidae) and emeus (Dromaeidae)—as the latter name is now used—have much structural resemblance, and form the orderMegistanes,3which is peculiar to the Australian Region. Huxley showed (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1867, pp. 422, 423,) that they agree in differing from the otherRatitaein many important characters; one of the most obvious of them is thateach contour-feather appears to be double, itshyporachis, or aftershaft, being as long as the main shaft—a feature noticed in the case of either form so soon as examples were brought to Europe. The external distinctions of the two families are, however, equally plain. The cassowaries, when adult, bear a horny helmet on their head; they have some part of the neck bare, generally more or less ornamented with caruncles, and the claw of the inner toe is remarkably elongated. The emeus have no helmet, their head is feathered, their neck has no caruncles, and their inner toes bear a claw of no singular character.
The type of theCasuariidaeis the species named by LinnaeusStruthio casuariusand by John LathamCasuarius emeu. Vieillot subsequently called itC. galeatus, and his epithet has been very commonly adopted by writers, to the exclusion of the older specific appellation. It seems to be peculiar to the island of Ceram, and was made known to naturalists, as we learn from Clusius, in 1597, by the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies, when an example was brought from Banda, whither it had doubtless been conveyed from its native island. It was said to have been called by the inhabitants “Emeu,” or “Ema,” but this name they must have had from the earlier Portuguese navigators.4Since that time examples have been continually imported into Europe, so that it has become one of the best-known members of the subclassRatitae. For a long time its glossy, but coarse and hair-like, black plumage, its lofty helmet, the gaudily-coloured caruncles of its neck, and the four or five barbless quills which represent its wing-feathers, made it appear unique among birds. But in 1857 Dr George Bennett certified the existence of a second and perfectly distinct species of cassowary, an inhabitant of New Britain, where it was known to the natives as theMooruk, and in his honour it was named by John GouldC. bennetti. Several examples were soon after received in England, and these confirmed the view of it already taken. A considerable number of other species of the genus have since been described from various localities in the same subregion. Conspicuous among them from its large size and lofty helmet is theC. australis, from the northern parts of Australia. Its existence indeed had been ascertained, by T.S. Wall, in 1854, but the specimen obtained by that unfortunate explorer was lost, and it was not until 1867 that an example was submitted to competent naturalists.
Not much seems to be known of the habits of any of the cassowaries in a state of nature. Though the old species occurs rather plentifully over the whole of the interior of Ceram, A.R. Wallace was unable to obtain or even to see an example. They all appear to bear captivity well, and the hens in confinement frequently lay their dark-green and rough-shelled eggs, which, according to the custom of theRatitae, are incubated by the cocks. The nestling plumage is mottled (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1863, pl. xlii.), and when about half-grown they are clothed in dishevelled feathers of a deep tawny colour.
Of the emeus (as the word is now restricted) the best known is theCasuarius novae-hollandiaeof John Latham, made by Vieillot the type of his genusDromaeus,5whence the name of the family (Dromaeidae) is taken. This bird immediately after the colonization of New South Wales (in 1788) was found to inhabit the south-eastern portion of Australia, where, according to John Hunter (Hist. Journ., &c., pp. 409, 413), the natives call itMaracry,MarryangorMaroang; but it has now been so hunted down that not an example remains at large in the districts that have been fully settled. It is said to have existed also on the islands of Bass Straits and in Tasmania, but it has been exterminated in both, without, so far as is known, any ornithologist having had the opportunity of determining whether the race inhabiting those localities was specifically identical with that of the mainland or distinct. Next to the ostrich the largest of existing birds, the common emeu is an inhabitant of the more open country, feeding on fruits, roots and herbage, and generally keeping in small companies. The nest is a shallow pit scraped in the ground, and from nine to thirteen eggs, in colour varying from a bluish-green to a dark bottle-green, are laid therein. These are hatched by the cock-bird, the period of incubation lasting from 70 to 80 days. The young at birth are striped longitudinally with dark markings on a light ground. A remarkable structure inDromaeusis a singular opening in the front of the windpipe, communicating with a tracheal pouch. This has attracted the attention of several anatomists, and has been well described by Dr Murie (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1867, pp. 405-415). Various conjectures have been made as to its function, the most probable of which seems to be that it is an organ of sound in the breeding-season, at which time the hen-bird has long been known to utter a remarkably loud booming note. Due convenience being afforded to it, the emeu thrives well, and readily propagates its kind in Europe. Like other Ratite birds it will take to the water, and examples have been seen voluntarily swimming a wide river.
(A. N.)
1By Moraes (1796) and Sousa (1830) the word is said to be from the ArabicNa’āmaorNa’ēma, an ostrich (Struthio camelus); but no additional evidence in support of the assertion is given by Dozy in 1869 (Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l’arabe, 2nd ed., p. 260). According to Gesner in 1555 (lib. iii. p. 709), it was the Portuguese name of the crane (Grus communis), and had been transferred with the qualifying addition of “di Gei” (i.e.ground-crane) to the ostrich. This statement is confirmed by Aldrovandus (lib. ix. cap. 2). Subsequently, but in what order can scarcely now be determined, the name was naturally enough used for the ostrich-like birds inhabiting the lands discovered by the Portuguese, both in the Old and in the New World. The last of these are now known as rheas, and the preceding as cassowaries.2The figures are taken, by permission, from Messrs Mosenthal and Harting’sOstriches and Ostrich Farming(Trübner & Co., 1877).3Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.ser. 4, xx. p. 500.4It is known that the Portuguese preceded the Dutch in their voyages to the East, and it is almost certain that the latter were assisted by pilots of the former nation, whose names for places and various natural objects would be imparted to their employers (seeDodo).5The obvious misprint ofDromeicusin this author’s work (Analyse, &c., p. 54) was foolishly followed by many naturalists, forgetful that he corrected it a few pages farther on (p. 70) toDromaius—the properly latinized form of which isDromaeus.
1By Moraes (1796) and Sousa (1830) the word is said to be from the ArabicNa’āmaorNa’ēma, an ostrich (Struthio camelus); but no additional evidence in support of the assertion is given by Dozy in 1869 (Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l’arabe, 2nd ed., p. 260). According to Gesner in 1555 (lib. iii. p. 709), it was the Portuguese name of the crane (Grus communis), and had been transferred with the qualifying addition of “di Gei” (i.e.ground-crane) to the ostrich. This statement is confirmed by Aldrovandus (lib. ix. cap. 2). Subsequently, but in what order can scarcely now be determined, the name was naturally enough used for the ostrich-like birds inhabiting the lands discovered by the Portuguese, both in the Old and in the New World. The last of these are now known as rheas, and the preceding as cassowaries.
2The figures are taken, by permission, from Messrs Mosenthal and Harting’sOstriches and Ostrich Farming(Trübner & Co., 1877).
3Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.ser. 4, xx. p. 500.
4It is known that the Portuguese preceded the Dutch in their voyages to the East, and it is almost certain that the latter were assisted by pilots of the former nation, whose names for places and various natural objects would be imparted to their employers (seeDodo).
5The obvious misprint ofDromeicusin this author’s work (Analyse, &c., p. 54) was foolishly followed by many naturalists, forgetful that he corrected it a few pages farther on (p. 70) toDromaius—the properly latinized form of which isDromaeus.
EMIGRATION(from Lat.emigrare;e,ex, out of, andmigrare, to depart), the movement of population out of one country into another (seeMigration).
EMILIA, a territorial division (compartimento) of Italy, bounded by Venetia and Lombardy on the N., Liguria on the W., Tuscany on the S., the Marches on the S.E., and the Adriatic Sea on the E. It has an area of 7967 sq. m., and a population of 2,477,690 (1901), embracing eight provinces, as follows:—(1) Bologna (pop. 529,612; 61 communes); (2) Ferrara (270,558; 16 communes); (3) Forlì (283,996; 41 communes); (4) Modena (323,598; 45 communes); (5) Parma (303,694; 50 communes); (6) Piacenza (250,491; 47 communes); (7) Ravenna (234,656; 18 communes); (8) Reggio nell’ Emilia (281,085; 43 communes). In these provinces the chief towns, with communal populations, are as follows:—
(1) Bologna (147,898), Imola (33,144), Budrio (17,077), S. Giovanni in Persiceto (15,978), Castelfranco (13,484), CastelS. Pietro (13,426), Medicina (12,575), Molinella (12,081), Crevalcore (11,408).
(2) Ferrara (86,675), Copparo (39,222), Argenta (20,474), Portomaggiore (20,141), Cento (19,078), Bondeno (15,682), Comacchio (10,745).
(3) Forlì (43,321), Rimini (43,595). Cesena (42,509).
(4) Modena (63,012), Carpi (22,876), Mirandola (13,721), Finale nell’ Emilia (12,896), Pavullo nel Frignano (12,034).
(5) Parma (48,523), Borgo S. Donnino (12,019).
(6) Piacenza (35,647).·
(7) Ravenna (63,364), Faenza (39,757), Lugo (27,244), Bagnacavallo (15,176), Brisighella (13,815), Alfonsine (10,369).
(8) Reggio nell’ Emilia (58,993), Correggio (14,445), Guastalla (11,091).
The northern portion of Emilia is entirely formed by a great plain stretching from the Via Aemilia to the Po; its highest point is not more than 200 ft. above sea-level, while along the E. coast are the lagoons at the mouth of the Po and those called the Valli di Comacchio to the S. of them, and to the S. again the plain round Ravenna (10 ft.), which continues as far as Rimini, where the mountains come down to the coast.
Immediately to the S.E. of the Via Aemilia the mountains begin to rise, culminating in the central chain of the Ligurian and Tuscan Apennines. The boundary of Emilia follows the highest summits of the chain in the provinces of Parma, Reggio and Modena, passing over the Monte Bue (5915 ft.) and the Monte Cimone (7103 ft.), while in the provinces of Bologna and Forlì it keeps somewhat lower along the N.E. slopes of the chain. With the exception of the Po, the main rivers of Emilia descend from this portion of the Apennines, the majority of them being tributaries of the Po; the Trebbia (which rises in the province of Genoa), Taro, Secchia and Panaro are the most important. Even the Reno, Ronco and Montone, which now flow directly into the Adriatic, were, in Roman times, tributaries of the Po, and the Savio and Rubicone seem to be the only streams of any importance from these slopes of the Tuscan Apennines which ran directly into the sea in Roman times (seeApennines).
Railway communication in the plain of Emilia is unattended by engineering difficulties (except for the bridging of rivers) and is mainly afforded by the line from Piacenza to Rimini. This, as far as Bologna, forms part of the main route from Milan to Florence and Rome, while beyond Rimini it follows the S.E. coast of Italy past Ancona as far as Brindisi and Lecce. The description follows this main line in a S.E. direction. Piacenza, being immediately S. of a bridge over the Po, is an important centre; a line runs to the W. to Voghera, through which it communicates with the lines of W. Lombardy and Piedmont, and immediately N. of the Po a line goes off to Cremona. A new bridge over the Po carries a direct line from Cremona to Borgo S. Donnino. From Parma starts a main line, followed by expresses from Milan to Rome, which crosses the Apennines to Spezia (and Sarzana, for Pisa and Rome), tunnelling under the pass of La Cisa, while in a N. and N.E. direction lines run to Brescia and Suzzara. From Reggio branch lines run to Guastalla, Carpi and Sassuolo, there being also a line from Sassuolo to Modena. At Modena the main line to Verona through Suzzara and Mantua diverges to the N.; there is also a branch N.N.E. to Mirandola, and another S. to Vignola. Bologna is, however, the most important railway centre; besides the line S. to Pistoia and Florence over the Apennines and the line S.E. to Rimini, Ancona and Brindisi, there is the main line N.N.E. to Ferrara, Padua and Venice, and there are branches to Budrio and Portomaggiore to the N.E., and to S. Felice sul Panaro and Poggio Rusco to the N., which connect the main lines of the district.
At Castel Bolognese, 5 m. N.W. of Faenza, a branch goes off to Lugo, whence there are connexions with Budrio, Lavezzola (on the line between Ravenna and Ferrara) and Ravenna, and at Faenza a line, not traversed by express trains, goes across the Apennines to Florence. Rimini is connected by a direct line with Ravenna and Ferrara; and Ferrara, besides the main line S.S.W. to Bologna and N. by E. to Padua, has a branch to Poggio Rusco, which goes on to Suzzara, a station on the main line between Modena and Verona. There are also many steam tramways in the flatter part of the province, the fertility and agricultural activity of which are considerable. The main products of the plain are cereals, wine, and, in the marshy districts near the Po, rice; the system prevailing is that of the mezzadria—half the produce to the owner and half to the cultivator. The ancient Roman divisions of the fields are still preserved in some places. There are also considerable pastures, and cheese is produced, especially Parmesan. Flax, hemp and silkworms are also cultivated, and a considerable quantity of poultry kept. The hill districts produce cereals, vines, olives and fruit; while on the mountains are considerable chestnut and other forests, and extensive summer pastures, the flocks going in part to the Maremma in summer, and in part to the pastures of the plain of the Emilia.
The name Emilia comes from the Via Aemilia (q.v.), the Roman road from Ariminum to Placentia, which traversed the entire district from S.E. to N.W., its line being closely followed by the modern railway. The name was transferred to the district (which formed the eighth Augustan region of Italy) as early as the time of Martial, in popular usage (Epigr.vi. 85. 5), and in the 2nd and 3rd centuries it is frequently named as a district under imperial judges (iuridici), generally in combination with Flaminia or Liguria and Tuscia. The district of Ravenna was, as a rule, from the 3rd to the 5th century, not treated as part of Aemilia, the chief town of the latter being Placentia. In the 4th century Aemilia and Liguria were joined to form a consular province; after that Aemilia stood alone, Ravenna being sometimes temporarily added to it. The boundaries of the ancient district correspond approximately with those of the modern.
In the Byzantine period Ravenna became the seat of an exarch; and after the Lombards had for two centuries attempted to subdue the Pentapolis (Ravenna, Bologna, Forlì, Faenza, Rimini), Pippin took these cities from Aistulf and gave them, with the March of Ancona, to the papacy in 755, to which, under the name of Romagna, they continued to belong. At first, however, the archbishop of Ravenna was in reality supreme. The other chief cities of Emilia—Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza—were, on the other hand, independent, and in the period of the communal independence of the individual towns of Italy each of the chief cities of Emilia, whether belonging to Romagna or not, had a history of its own; and, notwithstanding the feuds of Guelphs and Ghibellines, prospered considerably. The study of Roman law, especially at Bologna, acquired great importance. The imperial influence kept the papal power in check. Nicholas III. obtained control of the Romagna in 1278, but the papal dominion almost fell during the Avignon period, and was only maintained by the efforts of Cardinal Albornoz, a Spaniard sent to Italy by Innocent VI. in 1353. Even so, however, the papal supremacy was little more than a name; and this state of things only ceased when Caesar Borgia, the natural son of Alexander VI., crushed most of the petty princes of Romagna, intending to found there a dynasty of his own; but on the death of Alexander VI. it was his successors in the papacy who carried on and profited by what Caesar Borgia had begun. The towns were thenceforth subject to the church and administered by cardinal legates. Ferrara and Comacchio remained under the house of Este until the death of Alphonso II. in 1597, when they were claimed by Pope Clement VIII. as vacant fiefs. Modena and Reggio, which had formed part of the Ferrara duchy, were thenceforth a separate duchy under a branch of the house of Este, which was descended from a natural son of Alphonso I. Carpi and Mirandola were small principalities, the former of which passed to the house of Este in 1525, in which year Charles V. expelled the Pio family, while the last of the Pico dynasty of Mirandola, Francesco Maria, having sided with the French in the war of Spanish Succession, was deprived of his duchy in 1709 by the emperor Joseph I., who sold it to the house of Este in 1710. Parma and Piacenza were at first under the Farnese, Pope Paul III. having placed his natural son Pier Luigi therein 1545, and then,after the extinction of the family in 1731, under a secondary branch of the Bourbons of Spain. In 1796-1814, Emilia was first incorporated in the Italian republic and then in the Napoleonic Italian kingdom; after 1815 there was a return to thestatus quo ante, Romagna returning to the papacy and its ecclesiastical government, the duchy of Parma being given to Marie Louise, wife of the deposed Napoleon, and Modena to the archduke Francis of Austria, the heir of the last Este. In Romagna and Modena the government was oppressive, arbitrary, corrupt and unprogressive, while in Parma things were better. In 1821 and 1831 there were unsuccessful attempts at revolt in Emilia, which were sternly and cruelly repressed; chronic discontent continued and the people joined again in the movement of 1848-1849, which was crushed by Austrian troops. In 1859 the struggle for independence was finally successful, Emilia passing to the Italian kingdom almost without resistance.
EMINENCE(Lat.eminentia), a title of honour now confined to the cardinals of the Church of Rome. It was originally given as a complimentary title to emperors, kings, and then to less conspicuous persons. The Roman empire of the 4th century adopted from the “vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness.” Gibbon includes in the “profusion of epithets” by which “the purity of the Latin language was debased,” and which were lavished on “the principal officers of the empire,” “your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency, your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious and magnificent Highness.” From thenotitia dignitatumit passed into the Latin of the middle ages as a flattering epithet, and was applied in the church and by the popes to the dignified clergy at large, and sometimes as a pure form of civility to churchmen of modest rank. On the 10th of June 1630, Urban VIII. confined the use of the titlesEminentiaeandEminentissimito the cardinals, to imperial electors, and to the master of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (order of the Knights of Malta). Since the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and the entire change, if not actual destruction, of the order of St John, the title “eminence” has become strictly confined to the cardinals. Before 1630 the members of the Sacred College were “Illustrissimi” and “Reverendissimi.” It is, therefore, not correct to speak of a cardinal who lived before that time as “his Eminence.”