Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/611

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as an interpreter he was eminently fair-minded. In the professor's chair, as in the pulpit, his strength lay in the tact with which he selected the soundest results of biblical criticism, whether his own or that of others, and presented them in a clear and connected form, with a constant view to their practical bearing. If this last fact gave a non-academic aspect to some portions of his lectures, it rendered them not less interesting and probably not less useful to his auditors. Eadie's merits as a scholar were early acknowledged by the usual honorary university distinctions. He received the degree of LL.D. from Glasgow

in 1844, and that of D.D. from St Andrews in 1850.

Busily engaged as he was in two distinct offices, either of which might well of itself have employed all his energies, Eadie nevertheless found time for an amount of work in a third sphere, of which the same thing might be said. His labours as an author would have been more than creditable to one who had no other occupation. Most of his works were connected with biblical criticism and interpretation, some of them being designed for popular use and others being more strictly scientific. To the former class belong the Biblical Cyclopcedia, his edition of Cruderis Concord ance, his Early Oriental History, and his discourses on The, Divine Love and on Paul the Preacher; to the latter belong his commentaries on the Greek text of St Paul s epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Galatians, published at intervals in four volumes, which take a high rank among excgetical works. His Life of Dr Kitto obtained a deserved popularity. His last work, the History of the English Bible (2 vols. 1876), will probably be the most enduring memorial of his ability as an author. Though not unimpeachable in point of arrangement and style, it contains a fuller and more accurate account of the subject than is to be found anywhere else, and almost every page bears marks of the life-long interest and loving research of the author. His almost unrivalled knowledge of the various English versions, as well as his ability as a critic and interpreter of the original, led to his being selected as one of the company for the revision of the authorized version of the New Testament, and in this capacity it is understood that he rendered excellent service. Dr Eadie died at Glasgow on the 3d June 1876.

EADMER, or Edmer (in Latin Eadmerus, and by mistake Edimerus and Edinerus), an English ecclesiastic and historian of the Norman period, probably, as his name suggests, of English as opposed to Norman parentage. At an early age he was sent to the Benedictine monastery at Canterbury; and there he became acquainted with Anselm, at the time of the latter s first visit to England as abbot of Bee. The intimacy was renewed when Anselm was raised to the episcopal see; and thenceforward Eadmer was not so much the archbishop s disciple and follower as his friend and director, and that at last not only by Anselm's private recognition, but by the formal appointment of Pope Urban II. So complete, indeed, was the obedience shown by the great scholastic philosopher and head of the English Church to his self-elected tutor, that according to William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum Anglorum, lib. i. he is said to have waited for his express permission before he rose from his bed, or even turned from one side to the other. After Anselm's death Eadmer accompanied Radulph, the new archbishop, to Rome in 1119; and on their return in 1120 he was nominated to the see of St Andrews in Scotland. Owing, however, to the refusal of the Scotch to recognize the claims put forward by Eadmer and his patron in support of the episcopal authority of the see of Canterbury, he was never formally inducted into the office. He was at Canterbury in 1121, and he spent the latter part of his life as prior of the monastery there. His death is variously assigned to the year 1123 and 1137.


Eadmer has left a large number of works, of which a list is given in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, part ii. Most important are his Historiæ Novorum, in six books treating of his own times down to the death of Radulph in 1122, and his Vita Anselmi, which ranks as one of the chief authorities in regard to the primate. The former was first published by Selden in 1623, the latter at Antwerp in 1551; and both have since been several times reprinted. Of less mark are his lives of Odo, Bregwin, and Dunstan, and of Oswald and Wilfrid of York, and his treatises formerly ascribed to Anselm De quatuor m???tutibus quæ fuerunt in leata Maria virgin???, and De Similitudinilus S. Anselmi. Nearly all his works are to be found in an early MS. in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (C.C.C.C., No 371), and most of them have been reprinted as an appendix to Anselm's Opera by Gerberon, fol. 1675, and by the Benedictine monks of St Maure, fol. Paris, 1721. A number of his letters are preserved in MSS. Cotton., Otho, A. xii. See especially Wright, Biographia Brit. Lit., Anglo-Norman Period, 184???; Ch???ma, Saint Anselm, 1853, pp. 186, 187; Burton, History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 422–4???4.

EAGLE (French Aigle, from the Latin Aquila), the name generally given to the larger Diurnal Birds-of-prey which are not Vultures; but the limits of the subfamily Aquilinæ have been very variously assigned by different writers on systematic ornithology, and, as before observed (Buzzard, vol. iv. p. 603), there are Eagles smaller than certain Buzzards. By some authorities the Lammfrgeier of the Alps, and other high mountains of Europe, North Africa, and Asia, is accounted an Eagle, but by others the genus Gypaetus is placed with the Vulturidce, as its common English name (Bearded Vulture) shows. There are also other forms, such as the South-American Harpyia and its allies, which though generally called Eagles have been ranked as Buzzards. In the absence of any truly scientific definition of the family Aqiiilince it is best to leave these and many other more or less questionable members of the group such as the genera Spizaetus, Circaetus, Spilornis, Hdotarsus, and so forth and, so far as space will allow, to treat here of those whose position cannot be gainsaid. True Eagles inhabit all the Regions of the world, and some seven or eight species at least are found in Europe, of which two are resident in the British Islands. In England and in the Lowlands of Scotland Eagles only exist as stragglers; but in the Hebrides and some parts of the Highlands a good many may yet be found, and their num bers appear to have rather increased of late years than diminished; for the foresters and shepherds, finding that a high price can be got for their eggs, take care to protect the owners of the eyries, which are nearly all well known, and to keep up the stock by allowing them at times to rear their young. There are also now not a few occupiers of Scottish forests who interfere so far as they can to protect the king of birds. But hardly twenty years ago trapping, poisoning, and other destructive devices were resorted to without stint, and there was then every probability that before long not an Eagle would be left to add the wild majesty of its appearance to the associations of the moun tain or the lake.[1] In Ireland the extirpation of Eagles seems to have been carried on almost unaffected by the prudent considerations which in the northern kingdom have operated so favourably for the race, and except in the wildest parts of Donegal, Mayo, and Kerry, Eagles in the sister-island are said to be almost birds of the past.

Of the two British species the Erne (Icel. Œrn) or Sea-




  1. The late Lord Breadalbane was perhaps the first large landowner who set the example that has been since followed by others. On his unrivalled forest of Black Mount, Eagles elsewhere persecuted to the death were by him ordered to be unmolested so long as they were not numerous enough to cause considerable depredations on the farmers flocks. He thought, and all who have an eye for the harmonies of nature will agree with him, that the spectacle of a soaring Eagle was a fitting adjunct to the grandeur of his Argyllshire mountain- scenery, and a good equivalent for the occasional loss of a lamb, or the slight deduction from the rent paid by his tenantry in consequence. How faithfully his wishes were carried out by his head-forester, Mr Peter Robertson, the present writer has abundant means of knowing.