and Tieck thought it worth his while to publish a free German version, with an interesting preface, 1827.—F. M. W.
ESPINOSA, Diego de (sometimes erroneously called Spinosa), a Spanish cardinal, born in 1502. He distinguished himself in the university of Salamanca, obtained the post of auditor of Seville, and afterwards that of president of the council of Castille, in which latter office the keen-sighted Philip II. did not fail to perceive the qualities which fitted him to be the prime minister of his despotic power. Becoming grand inquisitor in 1568, the name and the austere character of Espinosa became a terror even to the princes of the blood who surrounded the king. The contest between the party in the cabinet who advocated conciliation of the rising discontent, and the adherents of the duke of Alba, who would have suppressed all rebellion with a strong hand, threw the king entirely into the hands of the acute and implacable cardinal, to whom perhaps, more than to any other man, it was owing that Spain took no part in the great religious movement of the age. The fate of the unhappy Don Carlos is by some believed to have been hastened by his connivance; certain it is, that a deadly enmity had grown up between them, and during the funeral of the prince the cardinal contrived to withdraw, under pretence of indisposition. In his internal administration Espinosa was relentless and able, but in his foreign policy he failed to maintain that préstige which Spain had hitherto enjoyed. His arrogance, even towards the king himself, was long endured by the irresolute monarch; but at length, becoming alive to the errors of his foreign policy, he resolved to humble an arrogance which no Spanish subject had ever before dared to display. One day in the council, Espinosa, hastening as usual to give his opinion, was checked by the words—"I am president." The rebuff proved fatal; Espinosa died of a slight fever a few days afterwards, September 5th, 1572. It is said, that such haste was made with the embalmment of the body, that the surgeons discovered a slight palpitation of the heart, and that the terror of seeing the cardinal restored to life proved fatal to the operator. The king, looking at the tomb of Espinosa many years afterwards, remarked—"Here lies the best minister I ever had."—F. M. W.
ESPRÉMESNIL, Jean Jacques Duval d', a notable figure in the prologue to the French revolutionary drama, was born at Pondicherry in 1746. The son of an official of high rank in the service of the French East India Company and who had married a daughter of Dupleix, D'Esprémesnil went to the French bar, and became a counsellor of the parliament of Paris. His ardent temperament first distinguished itself by his enthusiastic devotion to the arch-quack Cagliostro, and his energetic hostility to Marie Antoinette, one of whose chief opponents he was in the affair of the diamond necklace. In the long and bitter quarrel between the parliament of Paris and the king, which ushered in the French revolution, D'Esprémesnil was the most conspicuous spokesman of the body to which he belonged; and in the final triumph of the parliament on the 27th September, 1788, he was the applauded and worshipped hero of the public ovation. But with the French revolution, which he had helped to produce, the rôle of D'Esprémesnil was transformed. Sent as a deputy to the states-general by the Paris noblesse, and a member of the constituent assembly, he became one of the warmest defenders of the authority and privileges, not only of the old parliaments, but of the king. So great was his revulsion of political sentiment, that he once expressed in the assembly the opinion that, if the king had done justice to the opposition of the parliaments in the pre-revolutionary period, their members would have been hanged. At the epoch of the 10th of August, and the ensuing September massacre, he was saved from destruction by the intervention of Pétion, to whom he then addressed the well-known exclamation—"Four years ago I was the idol of this people, as you are to-day." He withdrew to an estate which he possessed in the neighbourhood of Havre, and lived in quiet and obscurity, from which, however, he was dragged during the Reign of Terror to Paris, where he was guillotined in the spring of 1794. During the closing scenes of his life, he behaved with a calmness which presented as strong a contrast to his former impetuosity, as was afforded by the political convictions to which he died a martyr, when compared with those which had made him six years before the idol of the populace.—F. E.
ESPRIT, Jacques, born in 1611; died in 1678. Esprit was educated for the church, and was generally called the Abbé' Esprit. He did not take orders, but as was then the practice in France, he was supported by some ecclesiastical benefice. He was given a pension, and, through the interest of the crown, admitted a member of the academy. He was for a while "precepteur" of the children of the prince of Conti. He was a man much admired in society, and imitated the works which in his day attracted most attention. A work of his, "De la Fausseté des vertus humains," abridged by Des Bans, under the title of "L'art de Connaitre les Hommes," continues to be remembered, having been refuted by Leibnitz.—J. A., D.
ESPRONCEDA, José de, a Spanish poet, perhaps inferior to none of modern times. His father was colonel of the regiment of Bourbon, and in the spring of 1810 was employed in the memorable war of independence, in the province of Estremadura, his wife accompanying him. On the march, near Almendralejo, she gave birth to the future poet, who at five years of age was entered as a cadet of the regiment. On the conclusion of the war his parents went to reside at Madrid, where the abilities of young José attracted the warm encomiums of Alberto Lista, then professor of literature at the college of St. Matthew, who warmly encouraged him to persevere in his poetic career. But the time was pregnant with temptations to the Spanish youth to take part in more stirring pursuits. At fifteen years of age he became obnoxious to the law as a member of the secret society known as the "Numantinos," whose objects seem to have been confined to the overthrow of the minister, Calomarde. After four months' imprisonment, he underwent a further "rustication" in a convent at Guadalajara, and here the poem entitled "El Pelayo"—the favourite theme of Spanish epic poets—was commenced. On his return to Madrid, finding that suspicion still attached to him, he resolved to travel, and visited Gibraltar and Lisbon. He arrived in the latter city with a capital of a few pence only, and we are assured that his adventures at this time would fill a novel. But the jealousy of the government pursued him; he was shut up in the castle of San Georgio, and afterwards shipped off to London. With these unpromising outlooks, Espronceda chose to fall in love with the daughter of a fellow-prisoner, then only sixteen years of age. Chance, or a stronger power, brought her to London soon after Espronceda's arrival there; and, though the results of this love affair are not known, we may infer something from the fond recollections he always entertained of this period as the happiest of his life. While in England he studied Shakspeare, Milton, and Byron; the latter, especially, seems to have been adopted as a model. It was from London that he wrote an "Ode to Spain," perhaps the finest of his poems. In 1830 we find him fighting on the barricades at Paris, during the three days of July, and shortly afterwards he joined the gallant band under Don Pablo de Chapalangarra, but only survived to witness the failure of their attempt, and write an ode to the memory of their leader. Returning to Paris, he took part in the chivalrous but fruitless effort for the liberty of Poland. On the death of Ferdinand, the road to employment and honour seemed again open to Espronceda, who was among the earliest refugees to return to Spain. He entered in the regiment of the queen's guards, but a political song, which he had written for a banquet, led to his dismissal from his post and banishment to Cuellar. Here he wrote a novel entitled "Sancho Saldaña, ò el castellano de Cuellar," of which the merit is not great. As soon as the "estatuto real" nominally released the press from the trammels of censorship, Espronceda became one of the editors of the Siglo (the Age). But by the time the periodical had reached the fourteenth number, the whole of the articles intended for publication were condemned by anticipation. Espronceda hit upon an idea which has since been improved upon by journalists in similar straits. The sheet appeared with only the headings of the prohibited articles, among the rest his ode on the death of Don Joaquin de Pablo Chapalangarra. Probably the blank columns produced a greater effect than the most pointed writing could have done. The energies which could find no vent through the press, took other directions, and Espronceda was foremost in the revolutionary movements of 1835 and 1836. In 1840, when the popular cause triumphed, Espronceda once more resumed his post as a lieutenant of chasseurs, and ere long was appointed secretary of legation at the Hague. His friendly biographer—Ferrer del Rio—docs not attempt to conceal that his life had been one of perilous excess, and, even at this time, it was clear that not many years were in store for him. He returned from the Hague after a very short stay, to take his seat
