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been killed by him. His queen was a Russian princess, the widow of a king of Norway, by whom he had no descendants, though his illegitimate son Svend afterwards reigned.

Erik, Lam, nephew and successor of the above, reigned from 1137 to 1147. He was the son of an illegitimate daughter of Erik Eigod; and the three princes who had hereditary claim and afterwards succeeded to the crown, being, on the death of Erik Emun, minors, he was elected king. He was a man of weak character, and his expeditions against the Wendes, or Vandals, who during his reign made constant ravages on the Danish coast, excited only ridicule, because he had no plan of operation. At length, wearied of government, he retired to St. Olaf's monastery at Odense, and shortly afterwards died, 1147. His death was the signal for a ten years' war amongst the three princes, who were all elected king. By his queen, Lutgard, he had no child, but his natural son Magnus was afterwards distinguished in the rebellion against King Waldemar the Great.

Erik, Plovpenning, King of Denmark, 1241, eldest son of King Waldemar Seier, was born in 1216. In the spring of 1249 he made a journey into Esthonia, and imposed a tax on the plough, which obtained for him his surname. On his return he visited his brother Abel in Slesvig, with whom he had been at variance, hoping that all animosity was over, and by him was murdered on the morning of the 10th of August, 1250. He was beheaded and his body sunk into the sea, but afterwards found by fishermen. He was handsome in person and amiable in character, and his melancholy end, together with the fate which, like a judgment of God, befel his murderers, caused him to be regarded as a martyr by the people, and many guilds were founded in his honour. Oehlenschlager, the great dramatist of Denmark, has celebrated this king in his drama of Erik and Abel.

Erik, Glipping, or the Winking, son of King Christopher I., and nephew of the foregoing, was born in 1249, and became king of Denmark on Christmas-day, 1259, under the guardianship of his mother. His reign was a continued combat with the church and the nobles, so much so that he was compelled by the diet at Nyborg, 1282, although he had established more municipal and general law than any of his predecessors, to sign an act, the first signed by any Danish king, binding himself to rule according to the laws of King Waldemar. But this did not bring about peace. He was cruelly murdered on the night of St. Cecilia, 22nd of November, 1286, by the Duke Waldemar of Sönderjylland, disguised as a monk, and his body was buried in the cathedral of Viborg. Many circumstances of his life, combined with his cruel death at so early an age, cast a veil over his faults, and have enshrined his memory in the hearts and poetry of the people. He married the beautiful Agnes of Brandenburg, with whom he fell in love whilst imprisoned in that duchy, by the duke of Sönderjylland.

Erik, Menved, son of the foregoing, succeeded his father, 1286, under the guardianship of his mother. War with Norway; raged for many years, in consequence of the powerful murderers of the late king having taken refuge there, and, with the archbishop of Lund, who was made primate of the kingdom against the will of the young king and his mother; and in 1294 Erik and his brother Christopher were taken prisoners by the archbishop, and confined in Söborg castle, from which Erik escaped and fled to Rome, to lay his grievances before Pope Boniface VIII. With Sweden also he was at war, and again with his restless nobles. Erik owed his surname to an oath—"ved (hellige) mœnd"—which he was accustomed to use. In character he was a maintainer of order, upright, and faithful to his word. He died childless, 13th November, 1319.

Erik of Pomerania, King of the three northern kingdoms; the same as Erik XIII. of Sweden.

Erik was also the name of several dukes of Sönderjylland and Langland, also kings of Norway, 933-1299.—M. H.

* ERIKSSON, Niels and Johan, two Swedish brothers, who have acquired great reputation as engineers, not only within, but beyond their own country. When quite young, they both entered the engineer corps as pupils.—Niels was born in 1802; he became first an officer in the engineer corps, but afterwards changed into the navy mechanic corps, in which he held considerable rank. In 1854 he was raised to the rank of the nobility, when he dropped an s in his name, and is at the present time engaged as head of the government iron-works. Amongst the works which have been executed under his management are the new locks on the Trollhättan canal, the new peculiar lock at Stockholm, as well as the Saima canal in Finland.—Johan was born 31st July, 1803. At the time that he served in the army—which he entered in 1819, and soon was promoted to a captaincy—he studied mechanics assiduously, for which, even as a child, he had exhibited unusual talent, and hence was suggested the idea of applying heated air as the propelling power in the place of steam. For this purpose he came to England in 1826, where he made himself well acquainted with the steam-engine, as well as with the application of the screw-propeller to the movement of the steam-vessel. Finding here, however, no opportunity for the realization of his favourite idea, he went to America, where he at length was enabled to test publicly the principle of his discovery, although not with complete success.—M. H.

ERINNA, a Greek poetess, lived about the end of the seventh century b.c. She was a friend of Sappho. She cultivated chiefly epic poetry; and though she died at the age of nineteen, her poems are said to have been ranked with those of Homer. Her great poem was called "The Distaff." Only four lines of it remain, with a few epigrams, the genuineness of some of which, however, is doubtful. Several epigrams are extant upon her early death, in which much praise is bestowed on her. More than one statue of her is mentioned. She wrote a mixed dialect, compounded of Doric and Æolic. The place of her birth is uncertain.—G. R. L.

ERIZZO, Francesco, elected doge of Venice in 1632. He had commanded the Venetian army during the war for the succession of Mantua in 1629, when the republic countenanced France and the duke of Nevers against Spain. His magistracy was chiefly devoted to internal administration. His last days, however, were marked by the most stirring events. The Sultan Ibrahim, on the pretence of having received some injury from the knights of Malta, challenged Christianity to war, and attacked the island of Candia—the only important colony remaining to Venice in the East. The Italian republic, left by the European powers almost alone in the struggle, called forth all its energy to prepare for the defence. Its venerable doge, then eighty-four years of age (1645), was chosen to command the expedition. When his election was announced to him, not without hesitation in regard to his great age, the veteran patriot answered cheerfully, that he felt his heart renovated at the thought of being still able to render some service to the republic. His aspirations, however, were not fulfilled; and, at the moment of setting sail, natural death prevented him from leading an enterprise in which he would have willingly encountered a nobler end.—A. S., O.

ERIZZO, Sebastiano, a Venetian antiquary of the sixteenth century, born of a noble family in 1530; died in 1585. Both he and his contemporary Enea Vico were the first in Italy to apply method and learning to numismatics. His "Discorso sopra le Medaglie degli Antichi," &c., was considered in his days a standard book. He translated also some dialogues of Plato, wrote an "Essay on the Inventive Powers of the Ancients," and a comment on the three canzoni of Petrarch—"Sugli occhi di Madonna Laura." But the work in which he is still distinguished as an Italian writer, is "Le sei Giornate"—a series of tales, in which, unlike his predecessors and his contemporaries in the same branch of literature, he combined a moral scope with purity of taste and elegance of diction.—A. S., O.

ERLACH, Johann Ludwig von, a soldier of fortune, was born at Berne in 1595. He was successively in the service of the princes of Anhalt and Nassau, and of Gustavus Adolphus, who appointed him lieutenant-colonel of his guards. In 1632 he was nominated a counsellor by Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimer, and put at the head of the troops which were appointed to take charge of the Swiss frontier. The duke placed the greatest confidence in him, sent him on a mission to Paris, and appointed him governor of Brisach after the capture of that city. He subsequently entered the French service, was nominated commander of Brisgau, and obtained letters of naturalization in France. He held the rank of lieutenant-general in the French army, and greatly distinguished himself in the war in Germany, which was terminated by the peace of Westphalia. He adhered to the government during the French civil war, and on 20th January, 1650, three days before his death, was created a marshal of France.—J. T.

ERLACH, Rudolph von, a Swiss patriot, the representative of an ancient and honourable family, distinguished for his gallant defence of Berne against the partisans of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. When his native district was menaced in