Page images
PDF
EPUB

with what might be expected; butterflies are so numerous in some parts as even to surprise the veteran collector; and in certain favoured regions, mosquitoes, sand-flies, and the equally troublesome piums seem nearly as prolific as their ancient congeners in Egypt. The silkworm has been succossfully introduced, but bee-keeping is as yet practically unknown. The ichthyology of Ecuador, and more particularly that of the rivers of the Amazon system, is very partially ascertained; but the species of the two versants seem to be quite distinct. According to Wagner's investigations the distribution is mainly vertical, and to the N. of Chimborazo alpine forms go as high as 13,400 Paris feet; the forms of the lower region (or under 1000 feet), are closely connected with those of Brazil and Guiana; more peculiar genera appear in the middle region, (from 1000 to 7000 feet), and the upper region is exclusively occupied by characteristic and frequently very strangely-shaped genera; the number of species is comparatively small, and that of individuals great only in the lower parts of the rivers. Produce and Industries.-The principal article of foreign export is cocoa, of which two kinds especially are distinguished in the market-the fine "up-river" quality and the so-called Machala quality. Spain is the greatest purchaser, then England, Germany, and Peru and Chili. In 1874 the total quantity that left the country was 250,216 quintals, valued at 2,752,381 pesos, or, taking the peso as equal to 4s. 2d., £573,412. The collection of india-rubber is becoming an important trade; and pupils trained at the Government expense have been sent into the various provinces to superintend the introduction of indigo cultivation. Cotton, not proving a profitable investment, is being somewhat neglected: the export in 1874 was only 440,091, valued at 35,208 pesos. The other articles, arranged in the order of importance, were-coffee, 10,652 Ibs, at 245,014 pesos; Cinchona bark, 981,132, at 196,226 pesos; vegetable ivory, 7,148,192 b, at 142,963 pesos; straw hats, 7600 dozen, at 91,200 pesos; sole-leather, 19,744 pieces, at 88,848 pesos; dried skins to the amount of 43,115 pesos; bamboos to the amount of 23,002; and small quantities of sarsaparilla, algarroba, tamarinds, tobacco, pita, orchilla, rice, mats, and saibo-wool. A bank of issue and deposit, called the Bank of Ecuador, with a capital of a million dollars, was established in 1868.

Delais of Political and Social Condition.-The main basis of the Ecuadorian constitution dates from 1843, but several important modifications have been introduced at various periods. The execu tive power is vested in a responsible president elected by a majority of votes among a body of 900 electors appointed by popular suffrage. He has no right of veto, and cannot interfere in any way with the sitting of the congress. Besides a vice-president, who is elected in the same way as the president, and, according to the decree of 1869, discharges the functions of home secretary, the cabinet comprises a minister of war and marine, a minister of finance, the president of the supreme court, and a prominent member of the clerical body. The legislative assembly or congress is divided into two houses, the upper consisting of sixteen senators, the lower of thirty deputies elected by popular suffrage. The judicial system comprises a supreme court at Quito, three upper courts, provincial courts, municipal courts presided over by the alcaldes, and parochial courts. Jury trial is employed in criminal cases, but many districts are very evidently too ignorant for the satisfactory working of the method. A governor-general is appointed for Guayaquil and Quito respectively. Slavery was abolished in 1854: all races and classes are equal in the eyes of the law; and there are no hereditary distinctions of rank or title. The military force numbers only about 1200 men, and the marine consists of three small steamers. The finances have long been in a rotten condition, and trustworthy information is of difficult attainment. The public revenue in 1873 was stated at 3,650,510 dollars or piastres (about £730,102); and the expenditure at 3,985,560 dollars (about £787,112). In 1872 the receipts were thus divided:-Customs, 1,707,403 piastres; duty on tobacco, 19,084; duty on alcohol, 111, 420; salt monopoly, 812,785; gunpowder monopoly, 30, 477; stamped paper, 114,395; income-tax, 67,451; duty on sale of land, 216,110; tithes, 871,811; mont-de-piété, 1159; post-office, 96, 280; national property, 52 866; miscellaneous, 512,297-total, 3,613,536.

In

in 1855.

1857 the national debt amounted to 16,370,000 piastres (or £3,274,000), of which £1,824,000 was the English loan contracted Artificial means of communication are still for the most part in a very primitive condition, though few countries have so little reason to be content with their natural highway's by land or water. Many of the roads, even between important centres of population, are mere mule-tracks, altogether impassable in bad weather it may be for weeks or months at a time; while the violent torrents which have so frequently to be crossed often present nothing better than more or less elaborate bridges of rope, similar to the jhuler or zampur of the Kashmirians. The simplest of these travelling rope by which the passenger or his luggage may be is the taravita, consisting of a single tight rope, with or without a hauled across; the most complex is the chimba-chaca, a rude prototype of the regular suspension bridge, constructed of four or five The best are hazardous to all except a practised foot, and they ropes of agave-root fibre, supporting transverse layers of bamboos. go out of repair in a few years. Since the middle of the century something has been done to improve this state of affairs; and a very great deal more has always been about to be done. According to Moreno's address to congress in 1873, Ecuador had at that time 30 miles of railway, nearly 200 miles of cart-road with substantial bridges, and about 250 miles of roads fit for the ordinary mule-traffic of the country. Wheeled conveyances are almost unknown, especially in the inland districts, the transport of goods of every description being effected by porters or mules. The first carriage was introduced into Quito in 1859, and the owner had to pay a tax for his innovation. With the partial exception of such rude forms of belief as still linger among the semi-civilized Indians, the only religion professed by the Ecuadorian populations is the Roman Catholic. Nowhere in modern times have Jesuits and priests had it more their own way. Even in 1876 Dr Borrero, the "liberal" president, thought it expedient to declare that he would protect the religion of his fathers, which he believed "had not an enemy in all Ecuador." Two years before, in spite of the extremely depressed state of the finances, ten per cent. of the part of the church revenue belonging to the state was assigned to the Pope as an annual offering. The oath of a Protestant has no value in a court of justice; and it was regarded as an extraordinary stretch of liberality to allow the forma tion of a Protestant burial-ground at Quito in 1867. Monkish orders that lost their influence in Europe centuries ago still flourish in Quito Trinitarians, Dominicans, Augustinians, Brown Franciscans, Black Franciscans, Lazarists, &c. According to Villavicencio, the number of the regular clergy at the time he wrote was 415, of the secular clergy 524, and of nuns 391. Quito is the seat of an archbishop; and there are bishoprics for Cuenca, Loja, Ibarra, Riobamba, Guayaquil, and Manabi.

Education has hitherto been left in the hands of the clergy, and primary education is consequently in a very defective condition. There has long been a university at Quito with about a dozen professors and nearly 300 students; and in 1875 the Ecuador academy was instituted in the city in accordance with the decree of the Spanish academy of Madrid. There are colleges in several of the larger towns, and nearly 600 schools exist throughout the country. The normal school at Guayaquil is open to Indian children.

For administrative purposes the country is divided into eleven provinces-Azuay, with 149,103 of a population in 1871; Chimborazo, 110,860; Pichincha, 102,281; Guayas, 87,427; Imbabura, 77,379; Leon, 76,140; Tunguragua, 73,143; Los Rios, 61,922; Loja, 60,784; Manabi, 59,098; Esmeraldas, 8000. Besides the capital, whose inhabitants are variously estimated from 35,000 to 80,000, the largest cities are Guayaquil, from 20,000 to 25,000: Tacunga, from 16,000 to 20,000; Cuenca, about 25,000; Riobamba and Ibarra, both perhaps about 16,000; Ambato, about 10,000; Otavalo, about 8000; Guaranda, 8000; and Cotacachi, 4000.

Antiquities.-Throughout Ecuador there are still considerable remains of the architectural and artistic skill of the ante-European period. At Cañar, to the north-east of Cuenca, stands the Incapirca, a circular rampart of finely hewn stone, inclosing an open area with a roofless but well-preserved building in the centre; not far off is the Inca-chungana, a very much smaller inclosure, probably the remains of a pavilion; and in the same neighbourhood the image of the sun and a small cabinet are carved on the face of a rock called Inti-huaicu. On one of the hills running from Pichincha to the Esmeraldas there are remains at Paltatamba of a temple and a conical tower, the buttresses of a bridge composed of stone and bitumen, portions of a great causeway, and numerous tombs from which mummies and plates of silver have been obtained. At Hantuntaqui similar sepulchral mounds, called tolas, may be seen, as well as traces of military structures. On the plain of Callo, near Cotopaxi, at a height of 8658 feet, the ruins of an Incarial palace, Pachusala, are utilized by the hacienda; and a conical hill at its side is supposed to be of artificial construction. The remains of another fortress and palace are preserved et Pomallacta, and in the

neighbouring pueblo of Achupallas an ancient temple of the sun How serves as parish church. History. The territory of the present republic of Ecuador, when first it becomes dimly visible in the grey dawn of American history, appears to be inhabited by upwards of fifty independent tribes, among which the Quitus seem to hold the most important position. About 280 A.D. a foreign tribe is said to have forced their way inland np the valley of the Esmeraldas; and the kingdom which they founded at Quito lasted for about 1200 years, and was gradually extended, both by war and alliance, over many of the neighbouring dominions. In 1460, during the reign of the fourteenth Caran Shyre, or king of the Cara nation, Hualcopo Duchisela, the conquest of Quito was undertaken by Tupac Yupanqui, the Inca of Peru; and his ambitious schemes were, not long after his death, successfully carried out by his son Huaina-Capac, who inflicted a decisive defeat on the Quitonians in the battle of Hatuntaqui, and secured his position by marrying Pacha, the daughter of the late Shyri. By his will the conqueror left the kingdom of Quito to Atahuallpa, his son by this alliance; while the Peruvian throne was assigned to Huascar, an elder son by his Peruvian consort. War soon broke out between the two kingdoms, owing to Huascar's pretensions to supremacy over his brother; but it ended in the defeat and imprisonment of the usurper, and the establishment or Atahuallpa as master both of Quito and Cuzco. The fortunate monarch, however, had not long to enjoy his success; for Pizarro and his Spaniards were already at the door, and by 1533 the fate of the country was sealed. As soon as the confusions and rivalries of the first occupation were suppressed, the recent kingdom of Quito was made a presidency of the Spanish vice-royalty of Peru, and no change of importance took place till 1710. In that year it was attached to the viceroyalty of Santa Fé; but it was restored to Peru in 1722. When, towards the close of the century, the desire for independence began to manifest itself throughout the Spanish colonies of South America, Quito did not remain altogether indifferent. The Quitonian doctor Eugenio Espejo, and his fellowcitizen Don Juan Pio Montufar, entered into hearty co-operation with Nariño and Zea, the leaders of the revolutionary movement at Santa Fé ; and it was at Espejo's suggestion that the political association called the Escuela de Concordia was instituted at Quito. It was not till 1809, however, that the Quitonians made a real attempt to throw off the Spanish yoke; and both on that occasion and in 1812 the royal general succeeded in crushing the insurrection. In 1820 the people of Guayaquil took up the cry of liberty; and in spite of several defeats they continued the contest, till at length, under Antonio José de Sucre, who had been sent to their assistance by Bolivar, and reinforced by a Peruvian contingent under Andres de Santa Cruz, they gained a complete victory on May 22, 1822, in a battle fought on the side of Mount Pichincha, at a height of 10,200 feet above the sea. Two days after, the Spanish president of Quito, Don Melchor de Aymeric, capitulated, and the independence of the country was secured. A political anion was at once effected with New Granada and Venezuela on the basis of the republican constitution instituted at Cucuta in July 1821, the triple confederation taking the name of Colombia.

A disagreement with Peru in 1828 resulted in the invasion of Ecuador and the temporary occupation of Cuenca and Guayaquil by Peruvian forces; but peace was restored in the following year after the Ecuadorian victory at Tarqui. In the early part of 1830 a separation was effected from the Colombian federation, and the country was proclaimed an independent republic. General Juan José Flores was the first president, and in spite of many difficulties, both domestic and foreign, he managed to maintain a powerful position in the state for about 15 years. Succeeded in 1835 by Vicente Rocafuerte, he regained the presidency in 1839, and was elected for the third time in 1843; but shortly afterwards he accepted the title of generalissimo and a sum of 20,000 pesos, and left the country to his rivals. One of the most important measures of his second presidency was the establishment of peace and friendship with Spain. Roca, who next attained to power, effected a temporary settlement with Colombia, concluded a convention with England against the slave trade, and made a commercial treaty with Belgium. Diego Noboa, elected in 1850 after a period of great confusion, recalled the Jesuits, produced a rupture with New Granada by receiving conservative refugees, and thus brought about his own deposition and exile. The democratic Urbina now became practically dictator, and as the attempt of Flores to reinstate Nobos proved a total failure, he was quickly succeeded in 1856 by General Francisco Robles, who, among other progressive measures, secured the adoption of the French system of coinage, weights, and measures. He alxdicated in 1859 and left the country, after refusing to ratify the treaty with Peru, by which the defender of Guayaquil had obtained the raising of the siege. Dr Gabriel Garcia Moreno, professor of chemistry, the recognized leader of the oonservative party at Quito, was ultimately elected by the national convention of 1861. Distrust in his policy, however, was excited by the publication of some of his private correspondence, in which he spoke favourably of a Freuch protectorate, and the army which

he sent under Flores to resist the encroachments of hosquera, the president of New Granada, was completely routed. His first resig nation in 1864 was refused; but the despotic acts by which he sought to establish a dictatorship only embittered his opponents, and in Sept. 1865 he retired from office. While he had endeavoured to develop the material resources of the country, he had at the same time intro. duced retrograde measures in regard to religion and education. The principal event in the short presidency of his successor, Geronimo Carrion (May 1863-Nov. 1867), was the alliance with Chili and Peru against Spain, and the banishment of all Spanish subjects. Several important changes were made by congress in the period between his resignation and the election of Xavier Espinosa, Jan. 1868: the power of the president to imprison persons regarded as dangerous to public order was annulled; and the immediate naturalization of Bolivians, Chilians, Peruvians, and Colombians was authorized. Espinosa had hardly entered on his office when, in August 1868, the country was visited by an earthquake, in which 30,000 people are said to have perished throughout South America. The public buildings of Quito were laid in ruins; and Ibarra, Otavalo, Cotacachi, and several other towns were completely destroyed. Next year a revolution at Quito, under Moreno, brought Espinosa's presidency to a close; and though the national convention appointed Carvajal to the vacant office, Moreno succeeded in securing his own election in 1870 for a term of six years. His policy had undergone no alteration since 1865: the same persistent endeavour was made to establish a religious despotism, in which the supremacy of the president should be subordinate only to the higher su premacy of the clergy. The tyranny, however, came to a sudden end in August 14th 1875, when the president was assassinated in Quito, by three of his private enemies. The consequent election resulted in the appointment of Dr Borrero, who, in his address to congress, December 1876, promised "to maintain, during the tenure of the responsible office to which he had never aspired, full political liberty and the freedom of the press." An insurrection headed by Veintemilla, the military commandant of Guayaquil, had already. broken out; and on the 14th December the Government forces under Aparicio were completely routed at Galte.

See Ulloa, Relacion hist. del Viaje, Mad ld, 1748; Caldas, Seminario de la Nuera Granada, Paris, 1749; Velasco, Hist. del reino de Quito, Quito, 1789 (French, by Ternaux-Compans, Paris, 1840); Humboldt and Bonpland, Voyages aux régions équinox, du nouveau continent, 1799, &c.; Villavicencio, Geografia de la Rep. del Ecuador, New York, 1858; Richard Spruce, "Visit to the Cinchona forests on the western slopes of the Quitonian Andes," in Journ. of the Proc. of the Linnean Soc. 1860 Pritchett, "Explor. in Ecuador in the years 1856 and 1857," in Journ, of Roy. Geog. Soc. 1860; Spruce, "On the Mountains of Llanganati," and Prof. Jameson, "Journey from Quito to Cayambe in 1859, in Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1861; Viscount Onfroy de Thoron, Amérique équatoriale, 1865; Haussarek, Four Years among Spanish Americans, London, 1868; Juan Leon Mera, Ojeada historico-critica sobre la poesia Ecuadoriana, Quito, 1868; Wagner, Naturwissensch Reisen im trop. Amerika, Stuttgart, 1870; Orton, The Andes and the Amazon, 1870; Flemming in the Globus, 1871 and 1872; Reiss and Stübel, "Höhenmessungen in Süd Amerika," in Zeitsch, der Gesells. für Erdkunde su Berlin, 1874; "Die Zustände in der Rep. Ecuador," in Das Ausland, 1875; Dr W. Reiss, "Bericht über eine Reise nach dem Quilotoa und dem Cerro Hermoso," in Zeitsch, der Deutsch. Geol. Gesells, 1875; Vadet, "L'Équateur," in L'Explorateur géographique et commerciale, 1875; Simson, "Notes of Journeys in the Interior of South America," in Proc. of Roy. Geog. Soc., 1877. (II. A. W.)

EDAM, a town of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and arrondissement of Hoorn, about 11 miles north-east of Amsterdam, and hardly a mile from the present limits of the Zuider Zee, at the junction of two branch canals. It has a fine town-house, an exchange, and a fish-market, and one of its two Reformed churches is adorned with stained glass, and ranks among the most beautiful buildings of the kind in the province. Shipbuilding, rope-spinning, and salt-boiling are carried on, and the place gives its name to a well-known description of "sweet-milk" cheese-Zoetemelks Kaas. It was at Edam that nearly the whole of Admiral De Ruyter's fleet was coustructed. Population of the commune in 1869, 5152, and of the town 3356.

EDDA, the original signification of which is "greatgrandmother," is the title given to two very remarkable collections of old Icelandic literature. Of these only one bears that title from antiquity; the other is named Edda by a comparatively modern misnomer. The only work known by this name to the ancients was the miscellaneous group of writings attributed to Snorri Sturluson (11781241), a scholar of Jon Löftssön, and the greatest name in old Scandinavian literature. It is believed that the Edda, as he left it, was completed about 1222. Whether he gave this name to the work is doubtful; the title first occurs in the Upsala. Codex, transcribed about fifty years after his death. The collection of Snorri is now known as the Prose VIL 824

[blocks in formation]

the 8th or 9th centuries, and are many of them only fragments of longer heroic chants now otherwise entirely lost. They treat of mythical and religious legends of an early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic forms of Icelandic verse. The author of no one of them is mentioned. It is evident that they were collected from oral tradition; and the fact that the same story is occasionally repeated, in varied form, and that some of the poems themselves bear internal evidence of being more ancient than others, proves that the present collection is only a gathering made early in the Middle Ages, long after the composition of the pieces, and in no critical spirit. Sophus Bugge, indeed, one of the greatest living authorities, absolutely rejects the name of Sæmund, and is of opinion that the poetic Edda, as we at present hold it, dates from about 1240. There is no doubt that it was collected in Iceland, and by an Icelander.

1. The Prose Edda, properly known as Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, was arranged and modified by Snorri, but actually composed, as has been conjectured, between the years 1140 and 1160. It is divided into five parts, the Preface or Formáli, Gylfaginning, Bragaræður, Skáldskaparmál, and Háttatal. The preface bears a very modern character, and simply gives a history of the world from Adam and Eve, in accordance with the Christian tradition. Gylfaginning, or the Delusion of Gylfi, on the other hand, is the most precious compendium which we possess of the mythological system of the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia. Commencing with the adventures of a mythical king Gylfi and the giantess Gefion, and the miraculous formation of the island of Zealand, it tells us that the The most remarkable and the most ancient of the poems Æsir, led by Odin, invaded Svithjod or Sweden, the land in this priceless collection is that with which it commences, of Gylfi, and settled there. It is from the Ynglingasaga the Völuspá, or Prophecy of the Völva or Sibyl. In this and from the Gylfaginning that we gain all the information chant we listen to an inspired prophetess, "seated on her we possess about the conquering deities or heroes who set high seat, and addressing Odin, while the gods listen to her their stamp upon the religion of the North. Advancing words." She sings of the world before the gods were made, from the Black Sea northwards through Russia, and west of the coming and the meeting of the Esir, of the origin ward through Esthonia, the Æsir seem to have overrun the of the giants, dwarfs, and men, of the happy beginning of south lands of Scandinavia, not as a horde but as an all things, and the sad ending that shall be in the chaos of immigrant aristocracy. The Eddaic version, however, of Ragnarök. The latter part of the poem is understood to the history of the gods is not so circumstantial as that in be a kind of necromancy, according to Vigfusson, “the the Ynglingasaga; it is, on the other hand, distinguished raising of a dead völva;" but the mystical language of the by an exquisite simplicity and archaic force of style, which whole, its abrupt transitions and terse condensations, and give an entirely classical character to its mythical legends above all the extinct and mysterious cosmology, an of Odin and of Loki. The Gylfaginning is written in prose, acquaintance with which it presupposes, make the exact with brief poetic insertions. The Bragaræður, or sayings of interpretation of the Völuspá extremely difficult. The Bragi, are further legends of the deities, attributed to Bragi, charm and solemn beauty of the style, however, are irresistthe god of poetry, or to a poet of the same name. The ible, and we are constrained to listen and revere as if we Skáldskaparmál, or Art of Poetry, commonly called Skálda, were the auditors of some fugual music devised in honour contains the instructions given by Bragi to Ægir, and con- of a primal and long-buried deity. The melodies of this sists of the rules and theories of ancient verse, exemplified earliest Icelandic verse, elaborate in their extreme and severe in copious extracts from Eyvindr Skáldaspillir and other simplicity, are wholly rhythmical and alliterative, and return eminent Icelandic poets. The word Skáldskapr refers to upon themselves like a solemn incantation. Hávamál, the the form rather than the substance of verse, and this Sayings of the High One, or Odin, follows next; this treatise is almost solely technical in character. It is by far contains proverbs and wise saws, and a series of stories, the largest of the sections of the Edda of Snorri, and com- some of them comical, told by Odin against himself. The prises not only extracts but some long poems, notably the Vafthrúðnismál, or sayings of Vafthrúðnir, is written in the Thorsdrapa of Eilifr Guðrúnarson and the Haustlaung of same mystical vein as Völuspá; in it the giant who gives Thjóðólfr. The fifth section of the Edda, the Iáttatal, or his name to the poem is visited by Odin in disguise, and is Number of Metres, is a running technical commentary on questioned by him about the cosmogony and chronology of the text of Snorri's three poems written in honour of Hakon, the Norse religion." Grimnismál, or the Sayings of Grimnir, king of Norway. Affixed to some MS. of the Younger which is partly in prose, is a story of Odin's imprisonment Edda are a list of poets, and a number of philologi-and torture by king Geirröd. För Skirnis, or the Journey cal treatises and gramraatical studies. These belong, however, to a later period than the life of Snorri Sturlu

son.

of Skirnir, Harbarðslióð, or the Lay of Harbarð, Hymiskvida, or the Song of Hymir, and Egisdrekka, or the Brewing of Egir, are poems, frequently composed as dialogue, The three oldest MSS. of the prose Edda all belong to the be- containing legends of the gods, some of which are so ginning of the 14th century. The Wurm MS. was sent to Ole ludicrous that it has been suggested that they were Wurm in 1628; the Codex Regius was discovered by the inde- intentionally burlesque. Thrymskvida, or the Song of fatigable bishop Brynjulf Sveinsson in 1640. The most impor-Thrym, possesses far more poetic interest; it recounts in tant, however, of these MSS. is the Upsala Codex, an octavo volume written probably about the year 1300. There have been several good editions of the Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, of which perhaps the best is that published by the Arne-Magnæan Society in Copenhagen in 1848, in two vols., edited by a group of scholars under the direction of Jón Sigurdsson.

2. The Elder Edda, Poetic Edda, or Sæmundar Edda hins froda was entirely unknown until about 1643, when it came into the hands of Brynjulf Sveinsson, who, puzzled to classify it, gave it the title of Edda Sæmundi multiscii. Sæmund Sigfusson, who was thus credited with the collection of these poems, was a scion of the royal house of Norway, and lived from about 1055 to 1132 in Iceland. The poems themselves date in all probability from

language of singular force and directness how Thor lost his hammer, stolen by-Thrym the giant, how the latter refused to give it up unless the goddess Freyia was given him in marriage, and how Thor, dressed in women's raiment, personated Freyia, and, slaying Thrym, recovered his hammer. Alvissmál, or the Sayings of Alvis, is actually a philological exercise under the semblance of a dialogue between Thor and Alvis the dwarf. In Vegtamskviða, or the Song of Vegtam, Odin questions a völva with regard to the meaning of the sinister dreams of Balder. Rigsmál, or more properly Rigsthula, records how the god Heimdall, disguised as a man called Rig, wandered by the sea-shore, where he met the original dwarf pair, Ai and Edda, to

whom he gave the power of child-bearing, and thence sprung the whole race of thralls; then he went on and met with Afi and Amma, and made them the parents of the race of churls; then he proceeded until he came to Faðir | and Moðir, to whom he gave Jarl, the first of free men, whom he himself brought up, teaching him to shoot and snare, and to use the sword and runes. It is much to be lamented that of this most characteristic and picturesque poem we possess only a fragment. In Hyndluljóð, the Lay of Hyndla, the goddess Freyia rides to question the völva Hyndla with regard to the ancestry of her young paramour Ottar; a very fine quarrel ensues between the prophetess and her visitor. With this poem, the first or wholly mythological portion of the collection closes. What follows is heroic and pseudo-historic. The Völundarkviða, or Song of Völundr, is engaged with the sufferings and adventures of Völundr, the smith-king, during his stay with Nidud, king of Sweden. Völundr, identical with the Anglo-Saxon Wêland and the German Welant, is sometimes confounded with Odin, the master-smith. This poem contains the beautiful figure of Svanhvít, the swan-maiden, who stays seven winters with Völundr, and then, yearning for her fatherland, flies away home through the dark forest. Helgakviða Hiörvard's Sonar, the Song of Helgi, the Son of Hiörvard, which is largely in prose, celebrates the wooing by Helgi of Svava, who, like 'Atalanta, ends by loving the man with whom she has fought in battle. Two Songs of Helgi the Hunding's Bane, Helgakvida Hundingsbana, open the long and very important series of lays relating to the two heroic families of the Völsungs and the Niblungs. Including the poems just mentioned, there are about twenty distinct pieces in the poetic Edda which deal more or less directly with this chain of stories. It is hardly necessary to give the titles of these poems here in detail, especially as they are, in their present form, manifestly only fragments of a great poetic saga, possibly the earliest coherent form of the story so universal among the Teutonic peoples. We happily possess a somewhat later prose version of this lost poem in the Völsungasaga, where the story is completely worked out. In many places the prose of the Völsungasaga follows the verse of the Eddaic fragments with the greatest precision, often making use of the very same expressions. At the same time there are poems in the Edda which the author of the saga does not seem to have seen. But if we compare the central portions of the myth, namely Sigurd's conversation with Fafnir, the death of Regin, the speech of the birds and the meeting with the Valkyrje, we are struck with the extreme fidelity of the prose romancer to his poetic precursors in the Sigurdarkviða Fafnisbana; in passing on to the death of Sigurd, we perceive that the version in the Völsungasaga must be based upon a poem now entirely lost. Of the further extension of the myth and its corruption into the romantic epic of Der Nibelunge Nôt, this is not the place for discussion. Suffice to say that in no modernized or Germanized form does the legend attain such an exquisite colouring of heroic poetry as in these earliest fragments of Icelandic song. A very curious poem, in some MSS. attributed directly to Sæmund, is the Lay of the Sun, Sólarliód, which forms a kind of appendix to the poetic Edda. In this the spirit of a dead father addresses his living son, and exhorts him, with maxims that resemble those of Hávamál, to righteousness of life. The tone of the poem is strangely confused between Christianity and Paganism, and it has been assumed to be the composition of a writer in the act of transition between the old creed and the new. It may, however, not impossibly, be altogether spurious as a poem of great antiquity, and may merely be the production of some Icelandic monk, anxious to imitate the Eddaic form and spirit. Finally Forspjalls

[ocr errors]

jód, or the Preamble, formerly known as the Song of Odin's Raven, is an extremely obscure fragment, of which little is understood, although infinite scholarship has been expended on it. With this the poetic Edda closes.

The principal MS. of this Edda is the Codex Regius in the Royal Library at Copenhagen, written continuously, without regard to prose or verse, on 45 leaves. This is that found by Bishop Brynjulf. Another valuable fragment exists in the Arne-Magnæan collection in the University of Copenhagen, consisting of six leaves. These are the only MSS. older than the 17th century which contain a collection of the ancient mythico-heroic lays, but fragments The poetic Edda was translated into English verse by Amos Cottle occur in various other works, and especially in the Edda of Snorri. in 1797; the poet Gray produced a version of the Vegtamskvida : but the first good translation of the whole was that published by Benjamin Thorpe in 1866. An excellent edition of the Icelandic original orthography will be found in the admirable edition of text has been prepared by Th. Möbius, but the standard of the Sophus Bugge, Norræn Fornkvæði, published at Christiania in (E. W. G.)

1867.

EDELINCK, GERARD (1649-1707), one of the greatest copper-plate engravers, was born at Antwerp in 1649. The rudiments of the art, which he was to carry to a higher pitch of excellence than it had previously reached, he acquired in his native town under the engraver Cornelisz Galle. But he was not long in reaching the limits of his master's attainments; and then he went to Paris to improve himself under the teaching of De Poilly. This master likewise had soon done all he could to help him onwards, and Edelinck ultimately took the first rank among line engravers. His excellence was generally acknowledged; and having become known to Louis XIV. he was appointed, on the recommendation of Le Brun, teacher at the academy established at the Gobelins for the training of workers in tapestry. He was also entrusted with the execution of several important works. In 1677 he was admitted member of the Paris Academy of Painting and Sculpture. The work of this great engraver constitutes an epoch in the art. His prints number more than four hundred, and it is asserted that amongst them there is no work of poor or middling quality, although many of his subjects were poor and unworthy of the high art which he lavished upon them. Edelinck stands above and apart from his predecessors and contemporaries especially in this that he excelled, not in some one respect, but in all respects,-that while one engraver attained excellence in correct form, and another in rendering light and shade, and others in giving colour to their prints, and the texture of surfaces, he, as supreme master of the burin, possessed and displayed all these separate qualities, and that in so complete a harmony that the eye is not attracted by any one of them in particular, but rests in the satisfying whole. Edelinck was the first to break through the custom of making prints square, and to execute them in the lozenge shape. Among his most famous works are a Holy Family, after Raphael; a Penitent Magdalene, after Charles le Brun; Alexander at the Tent of Darius, after Le Brun; a Combat of Four Knights, after Leonardo da Vinci; Christ surrounded with Angels; St Louis praying; and St Charles Borromeo before a crucifix,the last three after Le Brun. Edelinck was especially good as an engraver of portraits, and executed prints of many of the most eminent persons of his time. Among these are those of Le Brun, Rigaud, Philippe de Champagne (which the engraver thought his best), Santeuil, La Fontaine, Colbert, John Dryden, Descartes, &c. He died at Paris in 1707. His younger brother John, and his son Nicholas, were also engravers, but did not attain to his excellence.

EDEN, Hebrew (17, denoting pleasure or delight), was the first residence of Adam and Eve according to the Old Testament Scriptures. The passage in which its geographical position seems to be indicated (Gen. ii. 8-14) has been from the earliest times the subject of a discussion as ingenious and elaborate as it has been fruitless.

Its

EDEN, THE HONOURABLE EMILY (1795-1851), novelist and miscellaneous writer, was the seventh daughter of the first Lord Auckland, and was born in 1795. Happily gifted by nature, her literary faculties and tastes were fostered by a liberal education. In 1835 she accompanied her brother, Lord Auckland, to India, on his appointment as governor-general, and remained with him during his term of office, which covered the period of the Afghan war. Returning to England in 1841, she made herself favourably known as a writer by the publication, three years later, of her Portraits of the Princes and People of India. She was also author of two novels entitled the The Semi-detached House and The Semi-attached Couple, which first appeared anonymously under the editorship of Lady Theresa Lewis. In these works she gives clever and amusing delineations of Anglo-Indian life and manners as she saw them. In 1866 was published a series of her letters to her sister written from India, and entitled Up the Country. Her private journal, at present unpublished, is said to be still more attractive and full of sparkling anecdote and graphic sketches. Another volume entitled Letters from India, edited by her niece, the Hon. Elcanor Eden, was published in 1872. For many years Miss Eden lived at Kensington, and her house was one of the most frequented centres of London intellectual and fashionable life. afterwards removed to Richmond, and there died, August 5, 1869. Her eldest sister Eleanor attracted the warm affection of William Pitt, who, however, did not feel justified in making her an offer of marriage. This was, it is supposed, the only love-passage in Pitt's history. She afterwards married Lord Hobart, and died in 1851. EDENTATA, an order of placental mammals charac terized by the total absence of median incisor teeth. Such teeth as are found in edentate species are composed entirely of dentine and cement, without enamel; they likewise grow for an indefinite period, and are consequently without root; and so far as yet discovered there is no displacement of the first teeth by any second set except in a few of the armadilloes. This order contains the sloths, armadilloes, and ant-eaters.

general position is given as "eastward," ie., to the east of the place where the narrative was written. Of the four rivers mentioned the Euphrates is undoubtedly the same which is still known by that name, and the Hiddekel has been almost universally identified with the Tigris. The object of commentators who have sought to put a literal construction on the passage has, therefore, been to identify the Pison and the Gihon, by finding two rivers which together with the Euphrates and the Tigris fulfil the condition stated in Gen. ii. 10, “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became into four heads." As there is no river which forms a common source for the Euphrates, the Tigris, and two others, recourse has been had to a strained construction of one kind or other. Josephus, for example, supposes the river which is the common source to have been the ocean stream which surrounds the earth, and identifies the Pison with the Ganges and the Gihon with the Nile; and in this he is followed by many of the fathers. Calmet, Rosenmüller, and others, again, suppose the river which is the common source to have been a region of springs, and, by making the Pison and the Gihon mountain streams, place the site of Eden in the highlands of Armenia. Calvin, Huet, and Bochart place Eden in lower Babylonia, on the supposition that the Pison and the Gihon are the two channels by which the united rivers Euphrates and Tigris enter the Persian Gulf. Luther and others, such as Clericus and more recently Baumgarten, have hazarded the supposition that the flood altered the course of the streams, and thus rendered it impossible to identify the locality of Eden from the description given in Genesis. These may suffice as specimens of the almost innumerable solutions that have been offered of what is now generally admitted to be an insoluble problem. On the theory that the narrative in Genesis is veritable history to be literally interpreted, it is impossible to fix the geographical position of Eden with any approach to certainty. This impossibility fully accounts for the immense variety of the conjectures that have been put forward. It deserves mention as a curiosity of criticism that the site of Eden has been assigned by different writers to each of the four quarters of the globe, and that the particular localities specified have ranged from Scandinavia to the South Sea Islands. The allegorical interpretations, which have been offered in great variety from the time of Philo downwards, are, of course, not hampered with any geographical difficulties. Philo supposes Eden to be a symbol of the soul that delights in virtue, the river which is the source to be generic virtue or goodness, and the four rivers to be the specific virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Origen finds in the subject an excellent opportunity for applying his favourite allegorical method, and supposes Eden to be heaven, and the rivers wisdom. Similar interpretations, with individual variations, are given by several of the fathers who are prone to allegorize. In modern times Coleridge is perhaps the most celebrated of those who have interpreted the story of Eden as an allegory. It is to be observed, however, that this mode of explaining the narrative has found even less favour with recent interpreters than that which accepts it as literal history, meeting the obvious difficulties as best it can. The undoubted tendency of later criticism has been to discard alike the theory of literal history and the theory of allegory in favour of another, according to which the story of Eden is a mythical tradition of a kind similar to that which is to be found in the early sacred literature of most nations. According to this view the true explanation is to be sought for in a careful comparison of these various traditions as preserved in sacred scriptures, early histories, inscriptions, and otherwise. See ADAM, vol. i. p. 135-6, and PENTATEUCH.

She

EDESSA, the ancient capital of Macedonia, previously known as Ega, was situated 46 miles W. of Thessalonica on the banks of a beautiful stream in the very centre of the kingdom, and at the head of a defile commanding the approaches from the sea-coast to the interior of the country. It was the original residence of the Macedonian kings; and even after the seat of government was removed to the more accessible Pella, it continued to be the burial-place of the royal family. At the celebration of his daughter's marriage in the town, Philip II. was murdered by Pausanias in 336 B.C. His greater son Alexander was buried at Memphis through the contrivance of Ptolemy; but the bodies of his granddaughter Eurydice and her husband Arrhidaus were removed by Cassander to the ancestral sepulchre. On the occupation of the town by Pyrrhus the royal tombs were plundered by the Gallic mercenaries. The modern city of Vodena is built on the site of Edessa, and preserves a few unimportant remains of ancient buildings. The names Ege and Edessa were both probably given in allusion to the full-flowing streams that form one of the principal features of the situation; and Vodena is certainly derived from the Slavonic voda, water. Full details in regard to the position of the city may be found in Tozer, The Highlands of Turkey, vol. i.

EDESSA, or, as it is now called, Urfa or Orfa, a city of Northern Mesopotamia, ou the Daisun, a left-hand tributary of the Euphrates, 75 miles W. of Diarbekir and 59 E. of Biredjik, in 37° 21′ N. lat. and 39° 6′ E. long. It is surrounded with walls and towers, well preserved on the northern side, has narrow but comfortable and cleanly

« EelmineJätka »