The Electric Eel (Gymnotus electricus) belongs to a different family of apodal fishes (Gymnotida). In it both caudal and dorsal fins are entirely awanting, and the anal fin is very long, forming a fringe from the throat to the extremity of the tail. It attains a length of 5 or 6 feet, and frequents the marshes of Brazil and the Guianas, where it is regarded with terror, owing to the formidable electrical apparatus with which it is provided, and which extends along each side of the lower portion of the tail. When this natural battery is discharged in a favourable position, it is sufficiently powerful to kill the largest animal; and, according to Humboldt, it has been found necessary to change the line of certain roads, owing to the number of horses that were annually killed in passing through the pools frequented by the gymnoti. These eels are eaten by the Indians, who, before attempting to capture them, seek to exhaust their electrical power by driving horses into the ponds. By repeated discharges upon these, they gradually expend this marvellous force; after which, being defenceless, they become timid, and approach the edge for shelter, when they fall an easy prey to the harpoon of the Indian. It is only after long rest and abundance of food, that this fish is able to resume the use of its subtle weapon. (J. GI.) EFFIGIES, MONUMENTAL-In the course of the twelfth century the idea appears, for the first time, to have been carried into effect that the figure of a deceased personage should be represented by effigy upon his monumental memorial. These earliest attempts at commemorative portraiture were executed in low relief upon coffin-lids of stone or purbeck marble, some portions of the designs for the most part being executed by means of incised lines, cut upon the raised figure. Gradually, with the increased size and the greater architectural dignity of monumental structures, effigies attained to a high rank as works of art, so that before the close of the 13th century, very noble examples of figures of this order are found to have been executed in full relief; and, about the same period, similar figures also began to be engraved, either upon monumental slabs of stone or marble, or upon plates of metal, which were affixed to the surfaces of slabs that were laid in the pavements of churches. Engraven plates of this class, known as "Brasses," continued in favour until the era of the Reformation, and in our own times their use has been revived. It seems probable that the introduction and the prevalence of flat engraven memorials, in place of commemorative effigies in relief, were due, in the first instance, to the inconvenience and obstruction resulting from increasing numbers of raised stones on the pavement of churches; while the comparatively small cost of engraven plates, their high artistic capabilities, and their durability combined to secure for them the popularity they unquestionably enjoyed. It will be kept in remembrance that, if considerably less numerous than contemporary incised slabs and engraven brasses, effigies sculptured in relief, and with some exceptions in full relief, continued for centuries to constitute the most important features in more than a few mediæval monuments. In the 13th century, it must be added, their crigin being apparently derived from the endeavour to combine a monumental effigy with a monumentai cross upon the same sepulchral stone, parts only of the human figure sometimes were represented, whether in sculpture or by incised lines, as the head or bust, and occasionally also the feet; in some of the early examples of this curious class the cross symbol is not introduced, and after a while half-length figures became common.

Except in very rare instances, that most important element which may be distinguished as genuine face-portraiture is not to be looked for, in even the finest sculptured effigies, earlier than about the middle of the 15th century. In works of the highest order of art, indeed, the memorials

of personages of the most exalted rank, from an early period in their existence effigies may be considered occasionally to have been portraits properly so called; and yet even in such works as these an approximately correct general resemblance but too frequently appears to have been all that was contemplated or desired. At the same time, from the first, in these monumental effigies we possess coutemporary examples of vestments, costume, armour, weapons, royal and knightly insignia, and other personal appointments and accessories, in all of which accurate fidelity has been certainly observed with scrupulous care and minute exactness. Thus, since the monument. I effigies of England are second to none in artistic merit, while they have been preserved in far greater numbers, and generally in better condition than in other countries, we may claim to possess in unbroken continuity an unrivalled series of original personal representations of the successive generations of our predecessors, very many of them being, in the most significant acceptation of that term, veritable contemporaneous portraits.

Till recently esteemed to be simply objects of antiquarian curiosity, and at no distant period either altogether disregarded or too often subjected to injurious indignity, the monumental effigies of England still await the formation of a just estimate of their true character and their consequent worth in their capacity as authorities for face-portraiture. In the original contract for the construction of the monument at Warwick to Richard Beauchamp, the fifth earl, who died in the year 1439, it is provided that an effigy of the deceased noble should be executed in gilt bronze, with all possible care, by the most skilful and experienced artists of the time; and the details of the armour and the ornaments of the figure are specified with minute particularity and precision. It is remarkable, however, that the effigy itself is described only in the general and decidedly indefinite terms "an image of a man armed." There is no provision that the effigy should even be "an image" of the earl; and much less is there a single word said as to its being such a "counterfeit presentment" of the features and person of the living man, as the contemporaries of Shakespeare had learned to expect in what they would accept as true portraiture. The effigy, almost as perfect as when it left the sculptor's hands, still bears witness, as well to the conscientious care with which the conditions of the contract were fulfilled, as to the eminent ability of the artists employed. So complete is the representation of the armour, that this effigy might be considered actually to have been equipped in the earl's own favourite suit of the finest Milan stcel. The cast of the figure also evidently was studied from what the earl had been when in life, and the countenance is sufficiently marked and endowed with the unmistakable attributes of personal character. Possibly such a resemblance may have been the highest aim in the image-making of the period, somewhat before the middle of the 15th century. Threequarters of a century later, a decided step further in advance towards the requirement of fidelity in true portraiture is shewn to have been taken, when, in his will (1510 A.D.), Henry VII spoke of the effigies of himself and of his late queen, Elizabeth of York, to be executed for their monument, as "an image of our figure and another of hers." The existing effigies in the Beauchamp chapel and in Henry VII.'s chapel, with the passages just quoted

1 It is well-known that the costume of effigies, almost as a rule, represented what was actually worn by the remains of the person commemorated, when prepared for interment and when lying in state; and, in like manner, the aspect of the lifeless countenance, even if not designedly reproduced by medieval "image" makers, may long have exercised a powerful influence upon their ideas of consistent monumental vortraiture,

from the will of the Tudor king and from the contract made by the executors of the Lancastrian earl, with remarkable significance illustrate the gradual development of the idea of true personal portraiture in monumental effigies, during the course of the 15th and at the commencement of the 16th century in England. A glance upwards naturally first rests on the royal effigies still preserved in this country, which commence in Worcester Cathedral with King John. This earliest example of a series of effigies of which the historical value has never yet been duly appreciated is rude as a work of art, and yet there is on it the impress of such individuality as demonstrates that the sculptor did his best to represent the king. Singularly fine as achievements of the art of the sculptor are the effigies of Henry III., Queen Alianore of Castile, and her ill-fated son Edward II., the two former in Westminster Abbey, the last in Gloucester Cathedral; and of their fidelity also as portraits no doubt can be entertained. In like manner, the effigies of Edward III. and his queen Philippa, and those of their grandson Richard II. and his first consort, Anne of Bohemia (all at Westminster), and of their other grandson, the Lancastrian Henry, whose greater might made his better right to Richard's throne, with his second consort, Joan of Navarre, at Canterbury these all speak for themselves that they are true portraits. Next follow the effigies of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York,-to be succeeded, and the royal series to be completed, by the effigies of Queen Elizabeth and the hapless Mary Stuart, all of them in Westminster Abbey. Very instructive would be a close comparison between the two lastnamed works and the painted portraits of the rival queens, especially in the case of Mary, whose pictures diffor so remarkably from one another.

As the 15th century advanced, the rank of the personage represented and the character of the art that distinguishes any effigy will go far to determine its portrait qualities. Still later, when more exact face-portraiture had become a recognized element, sculptors must be supposed to have aimed at the production of such similitude as their art would enable them to give to their works; and accordingly, when we compare effigies with painted portraits of the same personages, we find that they corroborate one another. The prevalence of portraiture in the effigies of the 16th and 17th centuries, when their art generally underwent a palpable decline, by no means raises all works of this class or indeed the majority of them, to the dignity of true portraits; on the contrary, in these effigies, as in those of earlier periods, it is the character of the art in each particular example that will go far to determine its merit, value, and authority as a portrait. In judging of these latter effigies, however, they must be estimated by the standard of art of their own era; and, as a general rule, the effigies that are the best as works of art in their own class are the best also and the most faithful in their portraiture. The earlier effigies, evidently produced in the great majority of instances without any express aim at exact portraiture, as we now employ that expression, have nevertheless strong claims upon our veneration. Often their sculpture is very noble; and even when they are rudest as works of art, there rarely fails to be a rough grandeur about them, as exhibited in the fine bold figure of Fair Rosamond's son, Earl William of the Long Sword, which reposes in such dignified serenity in his own cathedral at Salisbury. These effigies may not bring us closely face to face with the more remote generations of our ancestors, but they do place before us true images of what the men and women of those generations were.

Observant students of monumental effigies assuredly will not fail to appreciate the singular felicity with which the mediaval sculptors adjusted their compositions to the

recumbent position in which their images" necessarily had to be placed. Equally worthy of regard is the manner in which not a few monumental effigies, and particularly those of comparatively early date, are found to have assumed an aspect neither living nor lifeless, and yet impressively life-like. The sound judgment also, and the good taste of those early sculptors, were signally exemplified in their excluding, almost without an exception, the more extravagant fashions in the costume of their era from their monumental sculpture, and introducing only the simpler but not less characteristic styles of dress and appointments. In all representations of monumental effigies, it must be kept in remembrance that they represent recumbent figures, and that the accessories of the effigies themselves have been adjusted to that position. With rare exceptions, when they appear resting on one side, these effigies lie on their backs, and as a general rule (except in the case of episcopal figures represented in the act of benediction, or of princes and warriors who sometimes hold a sceptre or a sword) their hands are uplifted and coujoined as in supplication. The crossed-legged attitude of numerous armed effigies of the era of mail-armour has been supposed to imply the personages so represented to have been crusaders or Knights of the Temple; but in either case the supposition is unfounded, and inconsistent with unquestionable facts. Much beautiful feeling is conveyed by figures of ministering angels being introduced as in the act of supporting and smoothing the pillows or cushions that are placed, in very many instances to give support to the heads of the recumbent effigies. The animals at the feet of these effigies, which frequently have an heraldic significance, enabled the sculptors, with equal propriety and effectiveness, to overcome one of the special difficulties inseparable from the recumbent position. In conclusion, it remains only to remark upon the masterly treatment of outline composition which so honourably distinguishes the earlier examples of the engraven effigies in monumental brasses, (c. B.)

EGBERT, or ECGBERHT, king of the West Saxons, was born about 775, and laid claim to the throne in 786, but Brihtric was elected, and he was compelled to take refuge with Offa, king of Mercia. Although Offa refused to surrender him when requested by Brihtric, he declined to give him further protection. Egbert thereupon fled to France, and took up his residence at the court of Charlemagne; and it is doubtless to the training he received from that great general and statesman that the success of his reign in Wessex is in a large measure to be traced. When Brihtric was poisoned by his queen Edbrugha in 800, Egbert was recalled and ascended the West Saxon throne. From his reign may be dated the supremacy of the West Saxon kings in England. In 823 he defeated Beornwulf, king of Mercia, at Ellandun (near Wilton); and in the same year he united _Kent, Essex, and Sussex to his crown, and compellet East Anglia to acknowledge him as its over-lord. In 827 he compelled the submission of Mercia, and leading an army into Northumbria received its submission without trial of battle. In 828 he conquered Wales, and thus the isle of Britain, with the exception of the Picts, the Scots, and the Strathclyde Welsh, acknowledged a West Saxon king as its over-lord. During the last period of his reign his kingdom was subjected to repeated attacks by the Danes. In 832 they ravaged Sheppey, and in 833 defeated Egbert at Carrum (thought by some to be Charmouth, in Devon), but in 835 he gained a great victory over a united force of Danes and Welsh at Hengestesdun, in Cornwall. He died in 836.

EGEDE, HANS (1686-1758), the first missionary of Greenland, was born in the vogtship of Senjen, in Norway, on the 31st January 1686. In his 22d year he became pastor at Waagen, in the bishopric of Drontheim, but the

study of the chronicles of the northmen having awakened in him the desire to visit the colony of northmen in Greenland, and to convert them to Christianity, he resigned his charge in 1717; and having, after great difficulty, obtained the sanction and help of the Danish Government in his enterprise, he set sail with three ships from Bergen on the 3d May 1721, accompanied by his wife and children. He landed on the west coast of Greenland on the 3d July, but found to his dismay that the northmen were entirely superseded by the Esquimaux, in whom he had no particular interest, and whose language he would be able to master, if at all, only after years of study. But, though compelled to endure for some years great privations, and at one time to see the result of his labours almost annihilated by the ravages of small-pox, he remained resolutely at his post. He soon gained the affections of the people, and succeeded gradually in converting many of them to Christianity, and in establishing a considerable commerce with Denmark. Ill-health compelling him to return home in 1734, he was made principal of the seminary at Copenhagen, in which workers were trained for the Greenland mission; and from 1740 to 1747 he was superintendent of the mission. He died in 1758. He is the author of a book on the natural history of Greenland.

EGEDE, PAUL (1708-1789), son of the preceding, accompanied his father to Greenland, assisted him in his labours there, and acted as his successor from 1734 to 1740. On his return to Denmark he became professor of theology in the mission seminary, and afterwards was superintendent of the Greenland mission. He published a Greenland-Danish-Latin Dictonary (1750), Greenland Grammar (1760), and Greenland Catechism (1756). In 1766 he completed the translation, begun by his father, of the New Testament into the Greenland tongue; and in 1787 he translated Thomas à Kempis. In 1789 he pub. lished a journal of his life in Greenland.

EGER, the chief town of a circle in the kingdom of Bohemia, is situated on the river Eger, and lies at the foot of one of the spurs of the Fichtelgebirge. It possesses an upper gymnasium and a real-school. In the townhouse, which at that time was the burgomaster's house, Wallenstein was murdered, 25th February 1634. His sword and writing table are exhibited in the town. Among the industries of Eger are the manufacture of cloth of various sorts, hats, and shoes. Population in 1869, 13,390.

Previous to the middle of the 12th century Eger and the Egergau formed an allodial possession of the counts of Vohburg; but they were added to the imperial domains on the marriage of Adelheid of Vohburg with Frederick I. After being repeatedly transferred from the one power to the other, according to the preponderance of Bohemia or the empire, the town and territory were finally incorporated with Bohemia in 1350, after the Bohemian king became the emperor Charles IV. Several imperial privileges, however, continued to be enjoyed by the town till 1849. It suffered severely during the Hussite war, during the Swedish invasion in 1631 and 1647, and in the War of the Austrian Succession in 1742. (See Grüber, Die Kayserburg zu Eger, 1865; Drivok, Aeltere Geschichte der Deutschen Reichstadt Eger und des Reichsgebietes Egerland, 1874.) EGG, the name given to the body formed in the female reproductive organs, which, when impregnated by the male element, gives origin to the young of animals. Although differing widely among themselves in form and structure, the eggs of all animals are found to consist of the same essential parts, viz., the germ cell, the yolk, and the yolk membrane, one chief difference between them consisting in the relative quantity of the yolk element present, this apparently depending on the degree of development which the young attain before leaving the egg. Thus birds, which leave the shell in a highly developed state, have in their eggs a large quantity of yolk, besides the albumen or "white," which is added to the egg before it receives the outer calcareous covering and which, along with the yolk,

serves as a storehouse of food for the young chick during the process of incubation. In insects, on the other hand, which leave the egg in the immature condition of larvæ, the yolk is comparatively small, as it is also in mammals, whose eggs or ova are exceedingly minute, and which owe the high development they attain before birth to nourishment drawn directly from the parent. The majority of animals are oviparous,—that is, the eggs leave the body of the female and are hatched outside; a few are ovo-viviparous, the eggs being retained in the oviduct until the young are ready to leave; while mammals are viviparous, the young, after leaving the egg, attaining considerable development before birth, in the womb of the female. In oviparous animals the egg, within certain limits, is proportional in size to that of the adult form to which it gives origin; the larger the bird, for example, the larger, as a rule, is the egg. This, however, is not without exceptions; thus the egg of the guillemot is as large as that of the eagle, and ten times larger than that of the raven, although guillemot and raven are of nearly equal size.

Owing to the fluid nature of the contents of eggs, they are generally roundish in form, although in this respect they also offer considerable variety; thus the eggs of owls and of turtles are nearly spherical, those of ducks, crocodiles, and snakes oval, and those of most sea-fowl pear-shaped. The external covering is generally more or less smooth, as in the eggs of birds, but in the case of insects they exhibit the most varied markings, being covered with spines, tubercles, and pits, often symmetrically arranged. Considerable diversity also exists in the composition of the outer covering of the egg in oviparous animals; in snakes and lizards it consists of a parchment-like membrane not unlike the inner coating of a hen's egg; in birds, turtles, and crocodiles, there is a hard calcareous shell; in cartilaginous fishes, as sharks and rays, the egg in passing through the oviduct is imbedded in a four-sided horny case, from the corners of which tendrils are given off, by which the egg-capsule is moored to floating sea-weed. These, after the escape of the young fish, are often cast upon the shore, where they are familiarly known as "mermaids' purses." The external covering of the eggs of osseous fishes, as salmon and trout, is exceedingly tough and elastic, "rebounding," says Mr Frank Buckland, "from the floor like an india-rubber ball;" and this no doubt prevents them from being crushed in the gravelly beds of the running streams in which they are deposited. The eggs of frogs and toads are surrounded with a tough layer of albuminous substance, which expands in water into a transparent jelly. The eggs of the frog occur in great masses, piled together liko miniature cannon balls, while those of the toad are connected together so as to resemble strings of beads. Among many molluscous animals the eggs are provided with an additional covering or nidus, consisting of a leathery pouch or cup, containing a large number of eggs. These capsules are either attached singly, by little stalks, to the rocks as in the common purpura (Purpura lapillus), or are extruded in a compound mass as in the whelk (Buccinium undatum). Those of the latter were named by Ellis sea wash balls," from being used by the sailors instead of soap to wash their hands, and are common objects on the sea-shore. greatest variety exists in the number of eggs produced by different animals, and even among forms allied to each other. Thus the common snail produces only from thirty to fifty eggs at a time, while other mollusks, as the whelk, deposit their spawn in tens of thousands. Among insects, the white ant is pre-eminently prolific, the queen being said to lay about sixty eggs in a minute, or upwards of 80,000 in a day, and as this probably continues for two years, it is estimated that the total number of her eggs amounts to fifty millions. Among mollusks the spawn or

The

spas, as it is called, in a single mature oyster, numbers 1,800,000. Among vertebrate animals, fish are the most prolific; the eggs or roe, as they are called, however, often fail to get fertilized by the milt of the male, and great quantities are also eaten by fishes and crustaceans, so that they do not increase so rapidly as might be supposed from the enormous number of their eggs. Thus in trout and salmon there are over a thousand eggs to every pound of their weight. According to Buckland (Fish Culture) a roach weighing was found to contain 480,480 eggs; a herring weighingb, 19,840; a turbot of 8 b weight, 385,200; and a cod of 20 b, 4,872,000. Large quantities of the roe of the cod are used in France as food, and also as bait in the sardine fishery. The sturgeon is also exceed ingly prolific, the eggs usually forming one-third of the entire weight of the creature; and in Russia these, in a prepared form known as caviare, are much esteemed as a table delicacy. The number of eggs in reptiles and birds is comparatively small, the common English snake depositing 16 to 20 of these in such situations as dung-hills, where they are left to be hatched by the heat generated in the decomposing mass. The crocodile buries about 25 eggs on the muddy banks of the rivers it frequents, and the turtle leaves the ocean to deposit from 150 to 200 on the shores of such oceanic islands as Ascension. The eggs of the crocodile are considered a luxury by the natives along the banks of the Nile, while those of the turtle are regarded as special delicacies by people of more refined tastes. Of birds, the most prolific in eggs are those domesticated forms which have been carefully selected by man for centuries, with a view to the improvement of their egg-laying capacity. The chief of these are the duck, which lays an egg daily during the season extending from March to July, and the barn-door fowl, which produces annually about 120 eggs. The rearing of the latter for egg-producing purposes has now become an important industry in France and Belgium, and in a customs' return just issued (July 1877) it is stated that eggs were imported into Britain last year to the extent of 753 millions, valued at £2,620,000. The number has increased 41 per cent. since 1872, and it is now nearly seven times what it was in 1856. Besides these, the eggs of the turkey, the guinea fowl, the partridge, and other gallinaceous birds are in great request as articles of food. The eggs of the guillemot are also occasionally offered for sale in our markets, while these and the eggs of other species of seafowl form an important article of food among the western islands and along the north-western sea-coast of Scotland. The largest eggs are those produced by the emu and the ostrich, a single ostrich egg weighing as much as three dozen eggs of the barn-door fowl. These are eaten in Africa both by the natives and by Europeans. From two to five female ostriches are said to deposit their eggs (10 in number) in one nest, and the natives by removing, during the absence of the female, a few of these at a time, taking care not to touch them with their fingers, but using sticks to prevent any taint of their presence being left behind, get them to continue depositing eggs for a considerable time to supply the place of those removed. The shells are used through out Africa as drinking-cups. The egg of the moa, some specimens of which have been found buried in New Zealand, is much larger than that of the ostrich, measuring in one specimen 10 inches in length and 7 inches broad. A still larger egg has been found fossil in Madagascar, the produce of the extinct æpiornis, and having a capacity equal to that of 148 eggs of the common fowl.

See Hewitson, Coloured Illustrations of the Eggs of British Birds, 8vo, 8d ed., London, 1856; C. F. Morris, A Natural History of the Nests and Eggs of Birds, 3 vols., London; Lefèvre, Atlas des oeufs des oiseaux d'Europe, 8vo, Paris, 1845; Brewer, North American Oology, 4to, Washington, 1859; Bädeker, Die Eier der Europä ischen Vogel, Leipsic, 1863. (J. GL.)

EGG, AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD (1816-1863), a painter, was born on 2d May 1816, in Piccadilly, London, where his father carried on business as a gun-maker. He had some schooling at Bexley, and was not at first intended for the artistic profession; but, developing a faculty in this line, he entered in 1834 the drawing class of Mr Sass, and in 1835 the school of the Royal Academy. His first exhibited picture appeared in 1837 at the Suffolk Street Gallery. In 1838 he began exhibiting in the Academy, his subject being a Spanish Girl; altogether he sent twenty-seven works to this institution. In 1848 he became an associate, and in 1860 a full member, of the Academy. In 1857 he took a leading part in selecting and arranging the modern paintings in the Art-Treasures Exhibition in Manchester. His constitution being naturally frail, he went in 1853, with Dickens and Wilkie Collins, to Italy for a short trip, and in 1863 he visited Algeria. Here he benefited so far as his chronic lung-disease was concerned; but, riding out one day exposed to a cold wind, he caught an attack of asthma, which cut him off on 26th March 1863, at Algiers, near which city his remains were buried.

Egg was a gifted and well-trained painter of genre, chiefly in the way of historical anecdote, or of compositions from the poets and novelists. As years progressed, he developed in seriousness of subject-matter and of artistic treatment; and at the time of his death he might be ranked among our best painters in his particular class-clever, skilled, and observant-although he had not any marked originality of point of view or of style. Among his principal pictures may be named:-1843, the Introduction of Sir Piercie Shafton and Halbert Glendinning (from Scott's Monastery); 1846, Buckingham Rebuffed; 1848, Queen Elizabeth discovers she is no longer young; 1850, Peter the Great sees Catharine for the first time; 1854, Charles I. raising the Standard at Nottingham (a study); 1855, the Life and Death of Buckingham; 1857 and 1858, two subjects from Thackeray's Esmond; 1858, Past and Present, & triple picture of a faithless wife; 1859, the Night before Naseby; 1860, his last exhibited work, the Dinner Scene from The Taming of the Shrew. The National Gallery contains one of his earlier pictures, Patricio entertaining two Ladies, from the Diable Boiteux; it was painted in 1844.

Egg was rather below the middle height, with dark hair and a handsome well-formed face; the head of Peter the Great (in the picture of Peter and Catharine, which may be regarded as his best work, along with the Life and Death of Buckingham) was studied, but of course considerably modified, from his own countenance. He was manly, kindhearted, pleasant, and very genial and serviceable among brother-artists; social and companionable, but holding mainly aloof from fashionable circles. As an actor he had uncommon talent. He appeared among Dickens's company of amateurs, in 1852 in Lord Lytton's comedy Not so Bad as we Seem, and afterwards in Wilkie Collins's Frozen Deep. playing the humorous part of Job Want.

EGINHARD is best known as the biographer of Charlemagne. His name is variously spelled in manuscripts. Einhardus, Einhartus, Ainhardus, Heinhardus, are the earliest forms. In the 10th century it was altered into Agenardus, and out of this form arose Eginardus and Eginhardus. The French and English languages have adopted this later form; but it is unquestionably wrong, and the weight of authority is for Einhardus or Einhartus. The circumstances of his life are involved in considerable obscurity, owing partly to the want of information and partly to the doubtfulness or indefiniteness of our authorities. According to the statement of Walafridus Strabo, a contemporary, he was born in the district which is watered by the river Maine in the modern duchy of HesseVIL 88