ESSAY. 216 ESSENES. the high function to which this class of litera- ture may attain. The most beautiful ethical teachings of a nation have been preserved to us in the form of essays. If with Lamb the public was but 'an enlarged circle of friends,' with Emer- son the world was but an enlarged circle of brothers. Rush, Paulding, Hawthorne, Whipple, Curtis, and Lowell are other deservedly treasured names. In German literature the essays of Les- sing and Schlegel head the list, and there is also the tine work of Hermann Grimm, while France may think with most pride of Voltaire, Rousseau, Cousin, Lamartine, Sainte-Beuve, and Michelet. ESSAY ON CRITICISM, Ax. A didactic poem by Alexander Pope (1711), laying down the canons of poetic taste and verse structure. The poem abounds in passages which have be- come familiar quotations. ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDER- STANDING. A famous philosophical work by John Locke (1690). It assigns the derivation of ideas to experience and reasoning, not to intuition. ESSAY ON MAN, Ax. A noted philosophi- cal and deistic poem by Alexander Pope, in four parts, which appeared from 1732 to 1734. inspired by the metaphysical vagaries of Bolingbroke. It was imitated by Voltaire and Wieland, but ridi- culed by Lessing. It contains many expressions which have become proverbial. ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. The title of a volume of essays published in 1860, by -ix clergy- men and one layman of the Church of England — Or. Frederick Temple, Dr. Rowland Williams, Prof. Baden Powell, H. B. Wilson, Mark Patti- son, Prof. 15. Jowett, and C. W. Goodwin. The book, which was severely censured for heterodox views by marly all the bishops and many of the clergy, was condemned by Convocation in 1804. The ecclesiastical courts sentenced Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson to suspension for one year: but on appeal the sentence was reversed by the Privy < ouncil. The most remarkable among the works pu1 forth in opppsition were the Aids to Faith, edited by Bishop Thomson, and Replies to Essays dud Reviews, edited by Bishop Wilberforce. ES'SEG. See Eszek. ESSEN, eVscn. A town in the Prussian Rhine Province, situated between the Ruhr and the Erascher, 2n miles northeast of DUsseldorf I Map: Prussia, is 3). The town is substantially built, «iih .Iran, well l.ii.inut streets. The cathedral, founded in 873, i- one of the oldest churches in Germany. It- treasury contains some valuable works oi art imong modern Beeular buildings are the RalhaUS, in front of which -land- 8| statue of Alfred Krupp, the new courl house, and the Municipal Theatre. The town'- affairs are administered by a municipal council of 36 in board of eight membei - It has a model n • hi in excellent water-sup- ply, mu pal gas works, and an abattoir. i] in i he cent re of one of t he richc I coal . ny, Essen has excellent facilities for an ndustry. First iniln-t rial est ibli hmenl - f re I he b el and iro w hich em- ploy more than i n en. There are also a number ol irks, manufactures of ■,'ii' l in ii.i ii i!n ii-s and an elei trie street railway. It is the seat of a United States consular agency. Population, in 1890, 78,700; in 1900, 118,803. Although the industrial activ- ity of Essen is only of recent growth, the town itself is very old, tracing its origin to the famous Benedictine nunnery of the same name, founded in a.d. 873. In the tenth century it was given municipal privileges by the Abbess Hagona. It was taken by the Spanish and the Dutch in the seventeenth centurv, and was annexed to Prus- sia in 1813. ESSEN, Haxs Henbik, Count (1755-1824). A Swedish statesman, born at Kafvelas, 'West Gothland. He was educated in the State Uni- versity at L T psala, then entered the army, and accompanied Gustavus III. in his travels and campaigns. He became Governor of Stock- holm in 1795, was subsequently Governor- General of Swedish Pomerania and Riigen, and in 1807. as commander of the Pomeranian Army, distinguished himself and won the title of Count by his defense of Stralsund against the French. In 1810 he was sent as Ambassador to Paris by Charles XIII., and his negotiations with Napoleon's ministers restored Pomerania to Sweden. He was promoted field-marshal in 1811; was sent against Norway and appointed Gov- ernor of that country after its union with Sweden, and in 1817 became Governor-General of Skane, an old province in southern Sweden. ESSENCE (Lat. essentia, existence, from esse, to be). In logic, that which is included in the logical definition (q.v.) and is opposed to accidents. But as definitions are based upon classifications into genus and species, and as there is no absolute objective classification, but all classifications are controlled by some pre- vailing interest, it follows that what is essence according to one classification is accident accord- ing to another. In metaphysics essence is some- times used as equivalent to substance (q.v.). In theology, Athanasius and other Greek writers dis- tinguish ovala, ousia (essence or substance), de- noting what is common to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from wr6<n-a<Rs, hypostasis (per- snni. denoting what is individual, distinctive, and peculiar. ESSENCE DE PETIT GRAIN, gs'sass' de pi !•*' graN (Fr., essence of small grain). A per- fume obtained by the distillation of small, unripe oranges, about the size of a cherry. ES'SENCES. See Spirits. ESSENES, es-senz'. A Jewish brotherhood, whose origin can be traced hack to the second century B.C., and which ceased to exist in the ■i mill century A.I). The derivation of the name is doubtful. Its source may perhaps lie in the ianiaie chase, the two plural forms of which. en ami chasaia, would correspond to the two Greek names interchangeably used by Josephus for the order 'Hour?;™!, Essenoi, and 'K<r<rafoi, £V As an organization it was confined to Palestine, having it- chief, if not its only, settle- ment on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea: though it represented tendencies of thought and life which were generally prevalent in that time and consequently manifested themselves in many regions, especially where Judaism was present. Information regarding the order is meagre, being practically confined to that received frsm the elder Pliny. Josephus. and Philo, who alone
