their day it came more and more into vogue, and the form was almost invariably that which Ben Jonson had brought into fashion, namely, the short complete piece in heroic couplets. The hey-day of the epilogue, however, was the Restoration, and from 1660 to the decline of the drama in the reign of Queen Anne scarcely a play, serious or comic, was produced on the London stage without a prologue and an epilogue. These were almost always in verse, even if the play itself was in the roughest prose, and they were intended to impart a certain literary finish to the piece. These Restoration epilogues were often very elaborate essays or satires, and were by no means confined to the subject of the preceding play. They dealt with fashions, or politics, or criticism. The prologues and epilogues of Dryden are often brilliantly finished exercises in literary polemic. It became the custom for playwrights to ask their friends to write these poems for them, and the publishers would even come to a prominent poet and ask him to supply one for a fee. It gives us an idea of the seriousness with which the epilogue was treated that Dryden originally published his valuable “Defence of the Epilogue; or An Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age” (1672) as a defence of the epilogue which he had written for The Conquest of Granada. In France the custom of reciting dramatic epilogues has never prevailed. French criticism gives the name to such adieux to the public, at the close of a non-dramatic work, as are reserved by La Fontaine for certain critical points in the “Fables.” (E. G.)
EPIMENIDES, poet and prophet of Crete, lived in the 6th
century B.C. Many fabulous stories are told of him, and even his
existence is doubted. While tending his father’s sheep, he is
said to have fallen into a deep sleep in the Dictaean cave near
Cnossus where he lived, from which he did not awake for
fifty-seven years (Diogenes Laërtius i. 109–115). When the
Athenians were visited by a pestilence in consequence of
the murder of Cylon, he was invited by Solon (596) to purify
the city. The only reward he would accept was a branch of the
sacred olive, and a promise of perpetual friendship between
Athens and Cnossus (Plutarch, Solon, 12; Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 1).
He died in Crete at an advanced age; according to his countrymen,
who afterwards honoured him as a god, he lived nearly
three hundred years. According to another story, he was
taken prisoner in a war between the Spartans and Cnossians,
and put to death by his captors, because he refused to prophesy
favourably for them. A collection of oracles, a theogony, an
epic poem on the Argonautic expedition, prose works on purifications
and sacrifices, and a cosmogony, were attributed to him.
Epimenides must be reckoned with Melampus and Onomacritus
as one of the founders of Orphism. He is supposed to be the
Cretan prophet alluded to in the epistle to Titus (i. 12).
See C. Schultess, De Epimenide Cretensi (1877); O. Kern, De Orphei, Epimenidis . . . Theogoniis (1888); G. Barone di Vincenzo, E. di Creta e le Credenze religiose de’ suoi Tempi (1880); H. Demoulin, Épiménide de Crète (1901); H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1903); O. Kern in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie.
ÉPINAL, a town on the north-eastern frontier of France,
capital of the department of Vosges, 46 m. S.S.E. of Nancy on the
Eastern railway between that town and Belfort. Pop. (1906),
town 21,296, commune (including garrison) 29,058. The town
proper—the Grande Ville—is situated on the right bank of the
Moselle, which at this point divides into two arms forming an
island whereon another quarter—the Petite Ville—is built. The
lesser of these two arms, which is canalized, separates the island
from the suburb of Hospice on its left bank. The right bank of
the Moselle is bordered for some distance by pleasant promenades,
and an extensive park surrounds the ruins of an old stronghold
which dominated the Grande Ville from an eminence on the east.
Apart from the church of St Goëry (or St Maurice) rebuilt in the
13th century but preserving a tower of the 12th century, the
public buildings of Épinal offer little of architectural interest.
The old hospital on the island-quarter contains a museum with
interesting collections of paintings, Gallo-Roman antiquities,
sculpture, &c. Close by stands the library, which possesses many
valuable MSS.
The fortifications of Épinal are connected to the southward with Belfort, Dijon and Besançon, by the fortified line of the Moselle, and north of it lies the unfortified zone called the Trouée d’Épinal, a gap designedly left open to the invaders between Épinal and Toul, another great fortress which is itself connected by the Meuse forts d’arrêt with Verdun and the places of the north-east. Épinal therefore is a fortress of the greatest possible importance to the defence of France, and its works, all built since 1870, are formidable permanent fortifications. The Moselle runs from S. to N. through the middle of the girdle of forts; the fortifications of the right bank, beginning with Fort de la Mouche, near the river 3 m. above Épinal, form a chain of detached forts and batteries over 6 m. long from S. to N., and the northernmost part of this line is immensely strengthened by numerous advanced works between the villages of Dognéville and Longchamp. On the left bank, a larger area of ground is included in the perimeter of defence for the purposes of encampment, the most westerly of the forts, Girancourt, being 7 m. distant from Épinal; from the lower Moselle to Girancourt the works are grouped principally about Uxegney and Sarchey; from Girancourt to the upper river and Fort de la Mouche a long ridge extends in an arc, and on this south-western section the principal defence is Fort Ticha and its annexes. The circle of forts, which has a perimeter of nearly 30 m., was in 1895 reinforced by the construction of sixteen new works, and the area of ground enclosed and otherwise protected by the defences of Épinal is sufficiently extensive to accommodate a large army.
Épinal is the seat of a prefect and of a court of assizes and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, training-colleges, a communal college and industrial school, and exchange and a branch of the Bank of France. The town, which is important as the centre of a cotton-spinning region, carries on cotton-spinning, -weaving and -printing, brewing and distilling, and the manufacture of machinery and iron goods, glucose, embroidery, hats, wall-paper and tapioca. An industry peculiar to Épinal is the production of cheap images, lithographs and engravings. There is also trade in wine, grain, live-stock and starch products made in the vicinity. Épinal is an important junction on the Eastern railway.
Épinal originated towards the end of the 10th century with the founding of a monastery by Theodoric (Dietrich) I., bishop of Metz, whose successors ruled the town till 1444, when its inhabitants placed themselves under the protection of King Charles VII. In 1466 it was transferred to the duchy of Lorraine, and in 1766 it was, along with that duchy, incorporated with France. It was occupied by the Germans on the 12th of October 1870 after a short fight, and until the 15th was the headquarters of General von Werder.
EPINAOS (Gr. ἐπί, after, and ναός, a temple), in architecture,
the open vestibule behind the nave. The term is not found in any
classic author, but is a modern coinage, originating in Germany,
to differentiate the feature from “opisthodomus,” which in the
Parthenon was an enclosed chamber.
ÉPINAY, LOUISE FLORENCE PÉTRONILLE TARDIEU D’ESCLAVELLES D’
(1726–1783), French writer, was born at
Valenciennes on the 11th of March 1726. She is well known on
account of her liaisons with Rousseau and Baron von Grimm,
and her acquaintanceship with Diderot, D’Alembert, D’Holbach
and other French men of letters. Her father, Tardieu
d’Esclavelles, a brigadier of infantry, was killed in battle when
she was nineteen; and she married her cousin Denis Joseph de
La Live d’Épinay, who was made a collector-general of taxes.
The marriage was an unhappy one; and Louise d’Épinay
believed that the prodigality, dissipation and infidelities of her
husband justified her in obtaining a formal separation in 1749.
She settled in the château of La Chevrette in the valley of
Montmorency, and there received a number of distinguished
visitors. Conceiving a strong attachment for J. J. Rousseau,
she furnished for him in 1756 in the valley of Montmorency a
cottage which she named the “Hermitage,” and in this retreat
he found for a time the quiet and natural rural pleasures he
praised so highly. Rousseau, in his Confessions, affirmed that
