ELECTROTYPING, an application of the art of electroplating (q.v.) to typography (q.v.). In copying engraved plates for printing purposes, copper may be deposited upon the original plate, the surface of which is first rendered slightly dirty, by means of a weak solution of wax in turpentine or otherwise, to prevent adhesion. The reversed plate thus produced is then stripped from the first and used as cathode in its turn, with the result that even the finest lines of the original are faithfully reproduced. The electrolyte commonly contains about 112 ℔ of copper sulphate and 12 ℔ of strong sulphuric acid per gallon, and is worked with a current density of about 10 amperes per sq. ft., which should give a thickness of 0.000563 in. of copper per hour. As time is an object, the conditions alluded to in the article on Copper as being favourable to the use of high current densities should be studied, bearing in mind that a tough copper deposit of high quality is essential. Moulds for reproducing plates or art-work are often taken in plaster, beeswax mixed with Venice turpentine, fusible metal, or gutta-percha, and the surface being rendered conductive by powdered black-lead, copper is deposited upon it evenly throughout. For statuary, and “undercut” work generally, an elastic mould—of glue and treacle (80 : 20 parts)—may be used; the mould, when set, is waterproofed by immersion in a solution of potassium bichromate followed by exposure to sunlight, or in some other way. The best results, however, are obtained by taking a wax cast from the elastic mould, and then from this a plaster mould, which may be waterproofed with wax, black-leaded, and used as cathode. In art-work of this nature the principal points to be looked to in depositing are the electrical connexions to the cathode, the shape of the anode (to secure uniformity of deposition), the circulation of the electrolyte, and, in some cases, the means for escape of anode oxygen. Silver electrotyping is occasionally resorted to for special purposes.
ELECTRUM, ELECTRON (Gr. ἤλεκτρον, amber), an alloy of
gold and silver in use among the ancients, described by Pliny
as containing one part of silver to four of gold. The term is
also applied in mineralogy to native argentiferous gold containing
from 20 to 50% of silver. In both cases the name is derived
from the pale yellow colour of electrum, resembling that of amber.
ELEGIT (Lat. for “he has chosen”), in English law, a judicial
writ of execution, given by the Statute of Westminster II.
(1285), and so called from the words of the writ, that the plaintiff
has chosen (elegit) this mode of satisfaction. Previously to the
Statute of Westminster II., a judgment creditor could only
have the profits of lands of a debtor in satisfaction of his judgment,
but not the possession of the lands themselves. But this
statute provided that henceforth it should be in the election of
the party having recovered judgment to have a writ of fieri facias
(q.v.) unto the sheriff on lands and goods or else all the chattels
of the debtor and the one half of his lands until the judgment
be satisfied. Since the Bankruptcy Act 1883 the writ of elegit
has extended to lands and hereditaments only. (See further
Execution.)
ELEGY, a short poem of lamentation or regret, called forth
by the decease of a beloved or revered person, or by a general
sense of the pathos of mortality. The Greek word ἐλεγεία is of
doubtful signification; it is usually interpreted as meaning a
mournful or funeral song. But there seems to be no proof that
this idea of regret for death entered into the original meaning
of ἐλεγεία. The earliest Greek elegies which have come down
to us are not funereal, although it is possible that the primitive
ἐλεγεία may have been a set of words liturgically used, with
music, at a burial. When the elegy appears in surviving Greek
literature, we find it dedicated, not to death, but to war and
love. Callinus of Ephesus, who flourished in the 7th century,
is the earliest elegist of whom we possess fragments. A little
later Tyrtaeus was composing his famous elegies in Sparta.
Both of these writers were, so far as we know, exclusively warlike
and patriotic. On the other hand, the passion of love inspires
Mimnermus, whose elegies are the prototypes not only of the
later Greek pieces, and of the Latin poems of the school of
Tibullus and Propertius, but of a great deal of the formal erotic
poetry of modern Europe. In the 6th century B.C., the elegies
of Solon were admired; they are mainly lost. But we possess
more of the work of Theognis of Megara than of any other
archaic elegist, and in it we can observe the characteristics of
Greek elegy best. Here the Dorian spirit of chivalry reaches its
highest expression, and war is combined with manly love.
The elegy, in its calm movement, seems to have begun to lose currency when the ecstasy of emotion was more successfully interpreted by the various rhythmic and dithyrambic inventions of the Aeolic lyrists. The elegy, however, rose again to the highest level of merit in Alexandrian times. It was reintroduced by Philetas in the 3rd cent. B.C., and was carried to extreme perfection by Callimachus. Other later Greek elegists of high reputation were Asclepiades and Euphorion. But it is curious to notice that all the elegies of these poets were of an amatory nature, and that antiquity styled the funeral dirges of Theocritus, Bion and Moschus—which are to us the types of elegy—not elegies at all, but idylls. When the poets of Rome began their imitative study of Alexandrian models, it was natural that the elegies of writers such as Callimachus should tempt them to immediate imitation. Gallus, whose works are unhappily lost, is known to have produced a great sensation in Rome by publishing his translation of the poems of Euphorion; and he passed on to the composition of erotic elegies of his own, which were the earliest in the Latin language. If we possessed his once-famous Cytheris, we should be able to decide the question of how much Propertius, who is now the leading figure among Roman elegists, owed to the example of Gallus. His brilliantly emotional Cynthia, with its rich and unexampled employment of that alternation of hexameter and pentameter which had now come to be known as the elegiac measure, seems, however, to have settled the type of Latin elegy. Tibullus is always named in conjunction with Propertius, who was his contemporary, although in their style they were violently contrasted. The sweetness of Tibullus was the object of admiration and constant imitation by the Latin poets of the Renaissance, although Propertius has more austerely pleased a later taste. Finally, Ovid wrote elegies of great variety in subject, but all in the same form, and his dexterous easy metre closed the tradition of elegiac poetry among the ancients. What remains in the decline of Latin literature is all founded on a study of those masters of the Golden Age.
When the Renaissance found its way to England, the word “elegy” was introduced by readers of Ovid and Propertius. But from the beginning of the 16th century, it was used in English, as it has been ever since, to describe a funeral song or lament. One of the earliest poems in English which bears the title of elegy is The Complaint of Philomene, which George Gascoigne began in 1562, and printed in 1576. The Daphnaida of Spenser (1591) is an elegy in the strict modern sense, namely a poem of regret pronounced at the obsequies of a particular person. In 1579 Puttenham had defined an elegy as being a song “of long lamentation.” With the opening of the 17th century the composition of elegies became universal on every occasion of public or private grief. Dr Johnson’s definition, “Elegy, a short poem without points or turns,” is singularly inept and careless. By that time (1755) English literature had produced many great elegies, of which the Lycidas of Milton is by far the most illustrious. But even Cowley’s on Crashaw, Tickell’s on Addison, Pope’s on an Unfortunate Lady, those of Quarles, and Dryden, and Donne, should have warned Johnson of his mistake. Since the 18th century the most illustrious examples of elegy in English literature have been the Adonais of Shelley (on Keats), the Thyrsis of Matthew Arnold (on Clough), and the Ave atque Vale of Mr Swinburne (on Baudelaire). It remains for us to mention what is the most celebrated elegy in English, that written by Gray in a Country Churchyard. This, however, belongs to a class apart, as it is not addressed to the memory of any particular person. A writer of small merit, James Hammond (1716–1742), enjoyed a certain success with his Love Elegies in which he endeavoured to introduce the erotic elegy as it was written by Ovid and Tibullus. This experiment took no
