year and the place of his birth are unknown. He first appeared in Paris as a dominican, and academic teacher in the college of St. Jacques. He afterwards obtained the degree of doctor of theology in Rome, and was elected provincial of his order for Saxony. Three years later he was appointed by a chapter of the order, assembled at Strasburg, vicar-general of Bohemia, with full powers to reform the dominican convents of that country. Soon after he appears again in Strasburg preaching in the convents of the nuns, and then in Frankfort-on-the-Maine as prior of the Blackfriars of that city. But his doctrines had now aroused against him a suspicion of heresy; and he was accused of being in communication and sympathy with "The Brethren of the Free Spirit." At a chapter held in Venice in 1325, Gervasius, prior of Angers, was commissioned to inquire into these accusations; and in the following year, at a chapter assembled in Paris, Eckhard was deposed from his office and dignity as provincial prior of Germany. His doctrines having spread widely among the German dominicans, and especially among those of the diocese of Cologne, Henry, the archbishop of that see, brought an accusation of heresy against the whole order, and summoned Eckhard to appear before the inquisition on the 14th January, 1327. Eckhard, believing that he had taught nothing contrary to the doctrines of the church, submitted himself to the tribunal, and declared himself ready to recall whatever in his opinions should be proved heretical. The inquisitors, however, demanded from him an unlimited recantation, and failing in this, he was condemned as a heretic. He appealed to the pope, and was cited to appear at Avignon, where out of twenty-eight articles alleged against him out of his writings, seventeen were pronounced heretical, and the rest were condemned as suspicious. The bull of condemnation was published 27th March, 1329; but before its publication Eckhard had died. This censure, however, did not prevent his opinions from being propagated after his death by many zealous disciples. They spread widely through the convents of Germany, Switzerland, Tyrol, and Bohemia, and required to be condemned a second time, in 1430, by the university of Heidelberg. His system, so far as ascertained, was a combination of pantheistic speculation with mystical asceticism, and presents many points of resemblance, or even identity, to the pantheistic philosophy of modern Germany. This has occasioned a revival of interest in Meister Eckhard's long-forgotten writings; and Professor Franz Pfeiffer, author of the German Mystics of the Fourteenth Century, has been successful in bringing together a large collection of his pieces, including many never before printed. The second volume of that work contains one hundred and ten sermons, of Eckhard, eighteen tracts, seventy single sayings, and his "Liber Positionum." What the exact principles of his system were, is still under discussion, and he is claimed by speculative philosophers and orthodox theologians, by protestants and Roman catholics.—P. L.
ECKHARD, M. Tobias, the Younger, a member of a German family distinguished for their literary attainments, was born at Jüterbock on the 1st of November, 1662. After studying for a time at Halle, he went to Wittenberg, where he completed his education. He distinguished himself in general literature, theology, and logic, and was finally appointed rector of the university there. While here he published his work "On the Immutability of God." It was not, however, till after his removal to the rectorship of the university at Quedlinburg that he undertook his principal works. They are chiefly upon theology, logic, and philosophy, besides several in biography and history. He died on the 13th December, 1737.—J. F. W.
ECKHART, Johann Georg von, born at Duingen, 1674; died 1730. He wrote verses, and for a while made out life as a corrector of the press at Leipzig; became secretary to Fieldmarshal Fleming, with whom he went to Poland; fell in with Leibnitz, through whose recommendation he obtained a professorship of history at Helmstadt in 1706. In 1713 he was appointed historiographer of Hanover, and succeeded Leibnitz as librarian. Eckhart was perpetually in difficulties, and having turned Roman catholic, he lived for a while among the Benedictines at the abbey of Corvey. We next meet with him as a pensioner of the bishop of Wartzburg. He published several volumes of German antiquities and mediæval history.—J. A. D.
ECKHEL, Joseph Hilary, a German antiquary and numismatist, was born at Entzersfield in Austria in 1737, and died in 1798. He studied in the Jesuits' college, Vienna, and there, at an early age, exhibited those antiquarian tastes which were to enrich the literature of the period with many learned works. The superiors of the college found out the predilection of the young jesuit, and made him keeper of their collection of medals and coins. After a visit to Italy in 1772, for the purpose of arranging the antiquarian collection of the grand duke of Tuscany, Eckhel became director of the imperial cabinet of medals and professor of antiquities at Vienna. He had published in his younger years an ode or two and an oration, but it was not till 1775 that any work connected with his favourite studies appeared from his pen. The first was entitled "Nummi veteres anecdoti, ex museis Cæsareo Vindobonensi, Florentino magni ducis Etrusciæ," &c. In the year following, there appeared "Catalogus musæ Cæsarei Vindobonensis nummorum veterum," &c. In 1786 the indefatigable antiquary published two important works—"Sylloge I. nummorum anecdotorum thesauri Cæsarei;" and "Descriptio nummorum Antiochiæ Syriæ, sive specimen artis criticæ nummariæ." In 1787 he compiled a small work on coins, for the use of schools; and the following year published "Choix de pierres gravées du cabinet imperial des antiques." In 1792 appeared the first volume of the work which established the fame of Eckhel as the first writer of his time upon the subject of numismatics—viz., his "Doctrina nummorum veterum." The eighth and last volume of this work was published in 1798. A supplement to it appeared in 1826.—J. S., G.
ECKIUS, Leonard, a famous lawyer of the sixteenth century. During his lifetime and for some time after his death, his reputation was prodigious. Nothing—so it was popularly affirmed—could be well settled without the advice of Eckius. He enjoyed the confidence of the Emperor Charles V., and was on several occasions employed by him in the settlement of difficult questions. His death occurred in 1550.—R. M., A.
ECKIUS. See Eck, John.
* ECKSTEIN, Ferdinand, Baron of, born either at Copenhagen or Altona in 1790; embraced the catholic faith during a residence in Rome in his seventeenth year. He served in Lützow's free corps against France in 1813-14, after which he entered the Dutch service, and held military and civil power in Ghent, when Louis XVIII., during the Hundred Days, sought refuge there. His attention to the fugitive monarch led to his receiving, on his reinstatement, various appointments, and finally he became minister of foreign affairs. After the revolution of 1830 he devoted himself exclusively to literature. In a great variety of articles and treatises, as well as in his periodical, Le Catholique, and his work, "De l'Espagne," he advocates Catholicism in its ultramontane character. He is deeply read in oriental literature, and is said to be engaged on a history of mankind.—M. H.
ECLUSE. See Clusius.
EDEBALY, a Mahometan sage, was born in Caramania in 1210, and died in 1326. He was principal of a monastery which he had himself founded, and enjoyed an unrivalled reputation for piety throughout the Mahometan world. It was during one of his frequent visits to Edebaly that Othman his son-in-law, and the founder of the Turkish empire, dreamed the well-known dream which the sage interpreted as betokening his future greatness.—R. M., A.
EDELCRANTZ, Abraham Niklas, a Swedish man of letters, born in 1754. In 1778, as adjunct of philosophy at the university of Abo, he attracted the attention of Gustav III., who appointed him director of the theatre, and his private secretary; in 1805 he was made superintendent of the museum, and president of the college of commerce; and in 1815 he was raised to the rank of the nobility as Friherre. He was employed on various foreign missions, both public and on the king's private business, and thus became member of many foreign academies and societies. He was a great promoter and supporter of the natural sciences and the progress of industry. He introduced into Sweden the English steam-engine, and was the manager for many years of the Swedish telegraphs, and the inventor of a corn-drying machine, &c. Amidst all his varied activity he found time for literature. He produced three plays, and translated into Swedish and Finnish the English national anthem of God save the King. He died in 1821.—M. H.
EDELINCK, Gerard, the reformer of the art of engraving, was born at Antwerp in 1640, and died in Paris in 1707. It is impossible to do justice in writing to the immense improvement which this artist succeeded in introducing. All the stiffness inherent in the then existing style of line-engraving, was by his
