production of such resemblance as their art would enable them to give to their works; and accordingly, when we compare effigies with painted portraits of the same personages, we find that they corroborate one another. The prevalence of portraiture in the effigies of the 16th and 17th centuries, when their art generally underwent a palpable decline, by no means raises all works of this class, or indeed the majority of them, to the dignity of true portraits; on the contrary, in these effigies, as in those of earlier periods, it is the character of the art in each particular example that affects its merit, value and authority as a portrait. In judging of these latter effigies, however, we must estimate them by the standard of art of their own era; and, as a general rule, the effigies that are the best as works of art in their own class are the best also and the most faithful in their portraiture. The earlier effigies, usually produced without any express aim at exact portraiture, as we now employ that expression, have nevertheless strong claims upon our veneration. Often their sculpture is very noble; and even when they are rudest as works of art, there is rarely lacking a rough grandeur about them, as exhibited in the fine bold figure of Fair Rosamond’s son, Earl William of the Long Sword, which reposes in such dignified serenity in his own cathedral at Salisbury. These effigies may not bring us closely face to face with remote generations, but they do place before us true images of what the men and women of those generations were.
Observant students of monumental effigies will not fail to appreciate the singular felicity with which the medieval sculptors adjusted their compositions to the recumbent position in which their “images” necessarily had to be placed. Equally worthy of notice is the manner in which many monumental effigies, particularly those of comparatively early date, are found to have assumed an aspect neither living nor lifeless, and yet impressively life-like. The sound judgment also, and the good taste of those early sculptors, were signally exemplified in their excluding, almost without exception, the more extravagant fashions in the costume of their era from their monumental sculpture, and introducing only the simpler but not less characteristic styles of dress and appointments. Monumental effigies, as commonly understood, represent recumbent figures, and the accessories of the effigies themselves have been adjusted to that position. With the exceptions when they appear on one side resting on the elbow (as in the case of Thomas Owen (d. 1598) and Sir Thomas Heskett (d. 1605), both in Westminster Abbey), these effigies lie on their backs, and as a general rule (except in the case of episcopal figures represented in the act of benediction, or of princes and warriors who sometimes hold a sceptre or a sword) their hands are uplifted and conjoined as in supplication. The crossed-legged attitude of numerous armed effigies of the era of mail-armour has been supposed to imply the personages so represented to have been crusaders or Knights of the Temple; but in either case the supposition is unfounded and inconsistent with unquestionable facts. Much beautiful feeling is conveyed by figures of ministering angels being introduced as in the act of supporting and smoothing the pillows or cushions that are placed in very many instances to give support to the heads of the recumbent effigies. The animals at the feet of these effigies, which frequently have an heraldic significance, enabled the sculptors, with equal propriety and effectiveness, to overcome one of the special difficulties inseparable from the recumbent position. In general, monumental effigies were carved in stone or marble, or cast in bronze, but occasionally they were of wood: such is the effigy of Robert Curthose, son of William I. (d. 1135), whose altar tomb in Gloucester cathedral was probably set up about 1320.
In addition to recumbent statues, upright figures must receive notice here, especially those set in wall-monuments in churches mainly. These usually consisted in half-length figures, seen full-face, placed in a recess within an architectural setting more or less elaborate. They belong mainly to the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the many examples in old St Paul’s cathedral (destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666) were those of Dean Colet (d. 1519), William Aubrey (1595) and Alexander Nowell (d. 1601). In St Giles’s, Cripplegate, is the similarly designed effigy of John Speed (d. 1629); while that of John Stow (d. 1605) is a full-length, seated figure. This, like the figure of Thomas Owen, is in alabaster, but since its erection has always been described as terra-cotta—a material which came into considerable favour for the purpose of busts and half-lengths towards the end of the 16th century, imported, of course, from abroad. Sometimes the stone monuments were painted to resemble life, as in the monuments to Shakespeare and John Combe (the latter now over-painted white), in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon.
Bibliography.—Among the more noteworthy publications are the following: Monumental Effigies in Great Britain (Norman Conquest to Henry VIII.), by C. A. Stothard, folio (London, 1876); The Recumbent Monumental Effigies in Northamptonshire, by A. Hartshorne (4to, London, 1867–1876); Sepulchral Memorials (Northamptonshire), by W. H. Hyett (folio, London, 1817); Ancient Sepulchral Effigies and Monumental Sculpture of Devon, by W. H. H. Rogers (4to, Exeter, 1877); The Ancient Sepulchral Monuments of Essex, ed. by C. M. Carlton (4to, Chelmsford, 1890); and other works dealing with the subject according to counties. Of particular value is the Report of the Sepulchral Monuments Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, laboriously compiled at the request of the Office of Works, arranged (1) personally and chronologically, and (2) locally (1872). (C. B.; M. H. S.)
EGAN, PIERCE (1772–1849), English sporting writer, was born in London in 1772. He began life as sporting reporter for the newspapers, and was soon recognized as the best of his day. In 1814 he wrote, set and printed a book about the relations of the prince regent (afterwards George IV.) and Miss Robinson, called The Mistress of Royalty, or the Loves of Florizel and Perdita. But his best-known work is Life in London, or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom (1821), a book describing the amusements of sporting men, with illustrations by Cruikshank. This book took the popular fancy and was one of Thackeray’s early favourites (see his Roundabout Papers). It was repeatedly imitated, and several dramatic versions were produced in London. A sequel containing more of country sports and misadventures probably suggested Dickens’s Pickwick Papers. In 1824 Pierce Egan’s Life in London and Sporting Guide was started, a weekly newspaper afterwards incorporated with Bell’s Life. Among his numerous other books are Boxiana (1818), Life of an Actor (1824), Book of Sports (1832), and the Pilgrims of the Thames (1838). Egan died at Pentonville on the 3rd of August 1849.
His son, Pierce Egan (1814–1880), illustrated his own and his father’s books, and wrote a score of novels of varying merit, of which The Snake in the Grass (1858) is perhaps the best.
EGBO, a secret society flourishing chiefly among the Efiks of the Calabar district, West Africa. Egbo or Ekpé is a mysterious spirit who lives in the jungle and is supposed to preside at the ceremonies of the society. Only males can join, boys being initiated about the age of puberty. Members are bound by oath of secrecy, and fees on entrance are payable. The Egbo-men are ranked in seven or nine grades, for promotion to each of which fresh initiation ceremonies, fees and oaths are necessary. The society combines a kind of freemasonry with political and law-enforcing aims. For instance any member wronged in an Egbo district, that is one dominated by the society, has only to address an Egbo-man or beat the Egbo drum in the Egbo-house, or “blow Egbo” as it is called, i.e. sound the Egbo horn before the hut of the wrong-doer, and the whole machinery of the society is put in force to see justice done. Formerly the society earned as bad a name as most secret sects, from the barbarous customs mingled with its rites; but the British authorities have been able to make use of it in enforcing order and helping on civilization. The Egbo-house, an oblong building like the nave of a church, usually stands in the middle of the villages. The walls are of clay elaborately painted inside and ornamented with clay figures in relief. Inside are wooden images, sometimes of an obscene nature, to which reverence is paid. Much social importance attaches to the highest ranks of Egbo-men, and it is said that very large sums, sometimes more than a thousand pounds, are paid to attain these dignities. At certain festivals in the year the
