Rhadamanthys rules, and where the people are vexed by neither snow nor storm, heat nor cold, the air being always tempered by the zephyr wafted from the ocean. It is no dwelling of the dead nor part of the lower world, but distinguished heroes are translated thither without dying, to live a life of perfect happiness. In Hesiod (W. and D. 166) the same description is given of the Islands of the Blessed under the rule of Cronus, which yield three harvests yearly. Here, according to Pindar, Rhadamanthys sits by the side of his father Cronus and administers judgment (Ol. ii. 61, Frag. 95). All who have successfully gone through a triple probation on earth are admitted to share these blessings. In later accounts (Aeneid, vi. 541) Elysium was regarded as part of the underworld, the home of the righteous dead adjudged worthy of it by the tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus. Those who had lived evil lives were thrust down into Tartarus, where they suffered endless torments.
ELZE, KARL (1821–1889), German scholar and Shakespearian
critic, was born at Dessau on the 22nd of May 1821. Having
studied (1839–1843) classical philology, and modern, but especially
English, literature at the university of Leipzig, he was a master
for a time in the Gymnasium (classical school) at Dessau, and
in 1875 was appointed extraordinary, and in 1876 ordinary,
professor of English philology at the university of Halle, in which
city he died on the 21st of January 1889. Elze began his literary
career with the Englischer Liederschatz (1851), an anthology
of English lyrics, edited for a while a critical periodical Atlantis,
and in 1857 published an edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with
critical notes. He also edited Chapman’s Alphonsus (1867) and
wrote biographies of Walter Scott, Byron and Shakespeare;
Abhandlungen zu Shakespeare (English translation by D. Schmitz,
as Essays on Shakespeare, London, 1874), and the excellent
treatise, Notes on Elizabethan Dramatists with conjectural emendations
of the text (3 vols., Halle, 1880–1886, new ed. 1889).
ELZEVIR, the name of a celebrated family of Dutch printers
belonging to the 17th century. The original name of the family
was Elsevier, or Elzevier, and their French editions mostly retain
this name; but in their Latin editions, which are the more
numerous, the name is spelt Elzeverius, which was gradually
corrupted in English into Elzevir as a generic term for their
books. The family originally came from Louvain, and there
Louis, who first made the name Elzevir famous, was born in
1540. He learned the business of a bookbinder, and having been
compelled in 1580, on account of his Protestantism and his
adherence to the cause of the insurgent provinces, to leave his
native country, he established himself as bookbinder and bookseller
in Leiden. His Eutropius, which appeared in 1592, was
long regarded as the earliest Elzevir, but the first is now known
to be Drusii Ebraicarum quaestionum ac responsionum libri duo,
which was produced in 1583. In all he published about 150
works. He died on the 4th of February 1617. Of his five sons,
Matthieu, Louis, Gilles, Joost and Bonaventure, who all adopted
their father’s profession, Bonaventure, who was born in 1583,
is the most celebrated. He began business as a printer in 1608,
and in 1626 took into partnership Abraham, a son of Matthieu,
born at Leiden in 1592. Abraham died on the 14th of August
1652, and Bonaventure about a month afterwards. The fame
of the Elzevir editions rests chiefly on the works issued by this
firm. Their Greek and Hebrew impressions are considered
inferior to those of the Aldi and the Estiennes, but their small
editions in 12mo, 16mo and 24mo, for elegance of design, neatness,
clearness and regularity of type, and beauty of paper,
cannot be surpassed. Especially may be mentioned the two
editions of the New Testament in Greek (Ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη,
Novum Testamentum, &c.), published in 1624 and 1633, of which
the latter is the more beautiful and the more sought after;
the Psalterium Davidis, 1653; Virgilii opera, 1636; Terentii
comediae, 1635; but the works which gave their press its chief
celebrity are their collection of French authors on history and
politics in 24mo, known under the name of the Petites
Républiques, and their series of Latin, French and Italian classics
in small 12mo. Jean, son of Abraham, born in 1622, had since
1647 been in partnership with his father and uncle, and when
they died Daniel, son of Bonaventure, born in 1626, joined him.
Their partnership did not last more than two years, and after
its dissolution Jean carried on the business alone till his death
in 1661. In 1654 Daniel joined his cousin Louis (the third of
that name and son of the second Louis), who was born in 1604,
and had established a printing press at Amsterdam in 1638.
From 1655 to 1666 they published a series of Latin classics
in 8vo, cum notis variorum; Cicero in 4to; the Etymologicon
linguae Latinae; and a magnificent Corpus juris civilis in
folio, 2 vols., 1663. Louis died in 1670, and Daniel in 1680.
Besides Bonaventure, another son of Matthieu, Isaac, born in
1593, established a printing press at Leiden, where he carried on
business from 1616 to 1625; but none of his editions attained
much fame. The last representatives of the Elzevir printers
were Peter, grandson of Joost, who from 1667 to 1675 was a
bookseller at Utrecht, and printed seven or eight volumes of
little consequence; and Abraham, son of the first Abraham,
who from 1681 to 1712 was university printer at Leiden.
Some of the Elzevir editions bear no other typographical mark than simply the words Apud Elzeverios, or Ex officina Elseveriana, under the rubrique of the town. But the majority bear one of their special devices, four of which are recognized as in common use. Louis Elzevir, the founder of the family, usually adopted the arms of the United Provinces, an eagle on a cippus holding in its claws a sheaf of seven arrows, with the motto Concordia res parvae crescunt. About 1620 the Leiden Elzevirs adopted a new device, known as “the solitary,” and consisting of an elm tree, a fruitful vine and a man alone, with a motto Non solus. They also used another device, a palm tree with the motto, Assurgo pressa. The Elzevirs of Amsterdam used for their principal device a figure of Minerva with owl, shield and olive tree, and the motto, Ne extra oleas. The earliest productions of the Elzevir press are marked with an angel bearing a book and a scythe, and various other devices occur at different times. When the Elzevirs did not wish to put their name to their works they generally marked them with a sphere, but of course the mere fact that a work printed in the 17th century bears this mark is no proof that it is theirs. The total number of works of all kinds which came from the presses of the Elzevirs is given by Willems as 1608; there were also many forgeries.
See “Notice de la collection d’auteurs latins, français, et italiens, imprimée de format petit en 12, par les Elsévier,” in Brunet’s Manuel du libraire (Paris, 1820); A. de Reume, Recherches historiques, généalogiques, et bibliographiques sur les Elsévier (Brussels, 1847); Paul Dupont, Histoire de l’imprimerie, in two vols. (Paris, 1854); Pieters, Annales de l’imprimerie Elsévirienne (2nd ed., Ghent, 1858); Walther, Les Elséviriennes de la bibliothèque impériale de St-Pétersbourg (St Petersburg, 1864); Alphonse Willems, Les Elzévier (Brussels, 1880), with a history of the Elzevir family and their printing establishments, a chronological list and detailed description of all works printed by them, their various typographical marks, and a plate illustrating the types used by them; Kelchner, Catalogus librorum officinae Elsevirianae (Paris, 1880); Frick, Die Elzevirschen Republiken (Halle, 1892); Berghman, Études sur la bibliographie Elzévirienne (Stockholm, 1885), and Nouvelles études, &c. (ib. 1897).
EMANATION (Lat. emanatio, from e-, out, manare, to flow),
in philosophy and theology, the name of one of the three chief
theories of existence, i.e. of the relation between God and men—the
One and the Many, the Universal and the Particular. This
theory has been propounded in many forms, but the central idea
is that the universe of individuals consists of the involuntary
“outpourings” of the ultimate divine essence. That essence
is not only all-inclusive, but absolutely perfect, while the
“emanated” individuals degenerate in proportion to the degree
of their distance from the essence. The existence of evil in
opposition to the perfect goodness of God, as thus explained,
need not be attributed to God’s agency, inasmuch as the whole
emanation-process is governed by necessary—as it were
mechanical—laws, which may be compared to those of the
physical universe. The doctrine of emanation is thus to be
distinguished from the cosmogonic theory of Judaism and
Christianity, which explains human existence as due to a
single creative act of a moral agent. The God of Judaism and
