fluently and elegantly as he could himself. Nevertheless the trick wore out, with the taste that it had created, and by the close of the reign of James I. Euphuism had become a dead language.
Critics have not failed to insist, on the other hand, that a species of Euphuism existed before Euphues was thought of. It has been supposed that a translation of the familiar epistles, or, as they were called, the “Golden Letters,” of a Spanish monk, Antonio de Guevara, led Lyly to conceive the extraordinary style which bears the name of his hero. Between 1574 and 1578 Edward Hellowes (fl. 1550–1600) translated into a very extravagant English prose three of the works of Guevara. Earlier than this, in 1557, Sir Thomas North had published a version of the same Spanish writer’s Reloj de Principes (The Dial of Princes), a moral and philosophical romance which is not without a certain likeness in plan and language to Euphues. It is extremely difficult to know to what extent these translations, which were not strikingly unlike many other specimens of the ornamented English prose of their period, can be said to be responsible for the production of Euphuism. At all events no one can doubt that it was Lyly who concentrated the peculiarities of mannerism, and who gave to it the stamp of his own remarkable talent.
See Landmann, Der Euphuismus (1881); Arber’s edition of Euphues (1869); R. W. Bond’s Complete Works of Lyly (1902); Hallam, Jusserand, S. Lee, passim. (E. G.)
EUPION (Gr. εὖ, well, πίων, fat), a hydrocarbon of the paraffin
series, probably a pentane, C5H12, discovered by K. Reichenbach
in wood-tar. It is also formed in the destructive distillation of
many substances, as wood, coal, caoutchouc, bones, resin and
the fixed oils. It is a colourless highly volatile and inflammable
liquid, having at 20° C. a specific gravity of 0.65.
EUPOLIS (c. 446–411 B.C.), Athenian poet of the Old Comedy,
flourished in the time of the Peloponnesian War. Nothing
whatever is known of his personal history. With regard to his
death, he is said to have been thrown into the sea by Alcibiades,
whom he had attacked in one of his plays, but it is more likely
that he died fighting for his country. He is ranked by Horace
(Sat. i. 4, 1), along with Cratinus and Aristophanes, as the
greatest writer of his school. With a lively and fertile fancy
Eupolis combined a sound practical judgment; he was reputed
to equal Aristophanes in the elegance and purity of his diction,
and Cratinus in his command of irony and sarcasm. Although
he was at first on good terms with Aristophanes, their relations
subsequently became strained, and they accused each other,
in most virulent terms, of imitation and plagiarism. Of the
17 plays attributed to Eupolis, with which he obtained the first
prize seven times, only fragments remain. Of these the best
known were: the Kolakes, in which he pilloried the spendthrift
Callias, who wasted his substance on sophists and parasites;
Maricas, an attack on Hyperbolus, the successor of Cleon,
under a fictitious name; the Baptae, against Alcibiades and his
clubs, at which profligate foreign rites were practised. Other
objects of his attack were Socrates and Cimon. The Demoi
and Poleis were political, dealing with the desperate condition
of the state and with the allied (or tributary) cities.
Fragments in T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta, i. (1880).
EUPOMPUS, the founder of the great school of painting
which flourished in the 4th century at Sicyon in Greece. He
was eclipsed by his successors, and is chiefly remembered for
the advice which he is said to have given to Lysippus to follow
nature rather than any master.
EURASIAN, a term originally confined to India, where for
upwards of half a century it was used to denote children born
of Hindu mothers and European (especially Portuguese) fathers.
Following the geographical employment of the word Eurasia to
describe the whole of the great land mass which is divided
into the continents of Europe and Asia, Eurasian has come to be
descriptive of any half-castes born of parents representing the
races of the two continents. It has further an ethnological
sense, A. H. Keane (Ethnology, 1896) proposing to find in the
Eurasian Steppe the true home of the primitive Aryan groups.
Joseph Deniker (Anthropology, 1900) makes a Eurasian group
to include such peoples (Ugrians, Turko-Tatars, &c.) as are
represented in both continents. Giuseppe Sergi, in his Mediterranean
Race (London, 1901), uses Eurasiatic to denote that
variety of man which “brought with it into Europe (from Asia
in the later Neolithic period) flexional languages of Aryan or
Indo-European type.”
EURE, a department of north-western France, formed in
1790 from a portion of the old province of Normandy, together
with the countship of Évreux and part of Perche. Pop. (1906)
330,140. Area, 2330 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the department
of Seine Inférieure, W. by Calvados, S.W. by Orne, S. by Eure-et-Loir,
and E. by Seine-et-Oise and Oise. The territory of Eure,
which nowhere exceeds 800 ft. in altitude, is broken up by its
rivers into well-wooded plateaus with a general inclination
from south to north. Forests cover about one-fifth of the
department. The Seine flows from S.E. to N.W. through the
E. of the department, and after touching the frontier at two or
three points forms near its mouth part of the northern boundary.
All the rivers of the department flow into the Seine,—on the
right bank the Andelle and the Epte, and on the left the Eure
with its tributaries the Avre and the Iton, and the Risle with
its tributary the Charentonne. The Eure, from which the department
takes its name, rises in Orne, and flowing through Eure-et-Loir,
falls into the Seine above Pont de l’Arche, after a course
of 44 m. in the department. The Risle likewise rises in Orne,
and flows generally northward to its mouth in the estuary of
the Seine. The climate is mild, but moist and variable. The
soil is for the most part clayey, resting on a bed of chalk, and is,
in general, fertile and well tilled. The chief cereal cultivated
is wheat; oats, colza, flax and beetroot are also grown. There
is a wide extent of pasturage, on which are reared a considerable
number of cattle and sheep, and especially those horses of pure
Norman breed for which the department has long been celebrated.
Fruit is very abundant, especially apples and pears,
from which much cider and perry are made. The mineral
products of Eure include freestone, marl, lime and brick-clay.
The chief industries are the spinning of cotton and wool, and the
weaving, dyeing and printing of fabrics of different kinds. Brewing,
flour-milling, distilling, turnery, cotton-bleaching, cider-making,
metal-founding, tanning, and the manufacture of glass,
paper, iron ware, nails, pins, wind-instruments, bricks and sugar
are also carried on. Coal and raw materials for its industries
are the chief imports of Eure; its exports include cattle, poultry,
eggs, butter, grain and manufactured goods. The department
is served chiefly by the Western railway; the Seine, Eure and
Risle provide 87 m. of navigable waterway. Eure is divided into
the following arrondissements (containing 36 cantons, 700
communes):—Évreux, Louviers, Les Andelys, Bernay, and Pont-Audemer.
Its capital is Évreux, which is the seat of a bishopric
of the ecclesiastical province of Rouen. The department belongs
to the III. Army Corps and to the académie (educational division)
of Caen. Its court of appeal is at Rouen.
Évreux, Les Andelys, Bernay, Louviers, Pont-Audemer, Verneuil, Vernon and Gisors are the principal towns of the department. At Gaillon there are remains of a celebrated château of the archbishops of Rouen (see Louviers). Pont de l’Arche has a fine Gothic church, with stained-glass windows of the 16th and 17th centuries; the church of Tillières-sur-Arvre is a graceful specimen of the Renaissance style. The churches of Conches (15th or 16th century) and of Rugles (13th, 15th and 16th centuries), and the château of Beaumesnil (16th century) are also of architectural interest.
EURE-ET-LOIR, an inland department of north-western
France, formed in 1790 of portions of Orléanais and Normandy.
Pop. (1906) 273,823. Area, 2293 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the
department of Eure, W. by Orne and Sarthe, S. by Loir-et-Cher,
S. E. by Loiret, and E. by Seine-et-Oise. The Perche in the south-west
and the Thimerais in the north-west are districts of hills
and valleys, woods, lakes and streams. The region of the east
and south is a level and uniform expanse, consisting for the most
part of the riverless but fertile plain of Beauce, sometimes called
