Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/530

LEFT EDEN 466 EDINBURGH a light equal to 159,600 candles, and vis- ible in clear weather to a distance of l?!/^ miles. EDEN, the garden of paradise. "It would be difficult," says a writer in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible" (i. 482), "in the whole history of opinion, to find any subject which has so invited, and at the same time so completely baffled conjecture, as the Garden of Eden. The three continents of the Old World have been subjected to the most rigorous search; from China to the Canary Isles, from the Mountains of the Moon to the coasts of the Baltic, no locality which in the slightest degree corresponded to the description of the first abode of the human race has been left unexamined." Philo Judssus (flour- ished about 20) first broached the alle- gorical theory of interpretation, teach- ing that paradise shadowed forth the governing faculty of the soul, and that the tree of life represented religion, the true means of immortality. Origen, adopting a somewhat similar view, re- garded Eden as heaven, the trees as angels, and the rivers as wisdom; and Ambrosius considered the terrestrial paradise and the third heaven, men- tioned by St. Paul (II Cor. xii: 2-4), as identical. Luther taught that Eden was guarded by angels from discovery and consequent profanation until the Deluge, when all traces were destroyed. Swedenborg, who regarded the first 11 chapters of Genesis as constituting a divine allegory, taught that Eden rep- resented the state of innocence in which man was orginally created and from which he degenerated in conse- quence of the Fall. EDGAR ATHELINa, grandson of Edmund Ironside and son of Edward the Outlaw, was born in Hungary, where his father had been conveyed in infancy to escape the designs of Canute. After the battle of Hastings, Edgar (who had been brought to England in 1057) was proclaimed King of England by the Saxons, but made peace with William and accepted the Earldom of Oxford. Having been engaged in some conspiracy against the king he was forced to seek refuge in Scotland, where his sister Margaret became the wife of Malcolm Canmore. Edgar subsequently was reconciled with William and was al- lowed to live in Rouen, where a pension was assigned to him. Afterward with the sanction of William Rufus he under- took an expedition to Scotland for the purpose of displacing the usurper Don- ald Bane, in favor of his nephew Edgar, son of Malcolm Canmore, and in this object he succeeded. He afterward took part in Duke Robert's unsuccessful struggle with Henry I., but was allowed to spend the remainder of his life quietly in England. EDGEWORTH, MARIA, an English novelist born in Black Bourton, Oxford- shire, Jan. 1, 1767. Her principal works are: "Castle Rackrent" (1800); "Early Lessons" (1801); "Belinda" (1801); "Moral Tales" (1801); "The Modern Griselda" (1804) ; "Leonora" (1806); "Tales of Fashionable Life" (1809-1812); "Patronage" (1814); "Or- mond" (1817); and "Helen" (1834). She died in Edgeworthstown, Ireland, May 22, 1849. EDICT OF NANTES, an edict by which, on April 13, 1598, Henry IV. of France granted toleration to his Protes- tant subjects. It was revoked on Oct. 22, 1685, by Louis XIV., the unwise act caus- ing the expatriation of about 50,000 Protestant families, who carried their in- dustry to England and other lands. EDINBURGH (ed'n-bur-6), the me- tropolis of Scotland and one of the finest as well as most ancient cities in the Brit- ish empire; lies within 2 miles of the S. shore of the Firth of Forth. It is pic- turesquely situated, being built on three eminences which run in a direction from E. to W., and surrounded on all sides by lofty hills except on the N., where the ground slopes gently toward the Firth of Forth. The central ridge, which consti- tuted the site of the ancient city is ter- minated by the castle on the W., situated on a high rock and by Holyrood House on the E., not far from which rise the lofty elevations of Salisbury Crags, Ar- thur's Seat (822 feet high), and the Cal- ton Hill overlooking the city. The valley to the N., once the North Loch, but now drained and traversed by the North British railway, leads to the New Town on the rising ground beyond. The houses here are all built of a beautiful white freestone found in the neighborhood. From Prince's street, which is lined by fine gardens adorned with Sir Walter Scott's monument and other notable buildings, a magnificent view of the Old Town with its picturesque outline maybe obtained. The principal street of the Old Town is that which occupies the crest of the ridge on which the latter is built, and which bears at different points the names of Canongate, High street, Lawnmarket, and Castle Hill. This an- cient and very remarkable street is up- ward of a mile in length, rising grad- ually with a regular incline from a small plain at the E. end of the town, on which stands the palace of Holyrood, and ter-