Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/470

Rh 450 E N S E N T espanoles), is a series of satirical sketches in prose and verse, which partake of the character of the picaresque romance. La culpa dd primer peregrino (Rouen, 1644 ; Madrid, 1735), a mystical poem ; Luis dado de Dios d Anna (Paris, 1645), presenting the author s views on political matters ; Politico, Angelica (Rouen, 1647) ; La torre de Babilonia (Rouen, 1(547 ; Madrid, 1670), containing the two parts of Fernan Mendez Pinto ; Samson Nazareno, a heroic poem ; and several comedies not mentioned above, complete the list of Enriquez s acknowledged writings. Adolfo de Castro, however, in his notes to Gil Bias, advanced the opinion that the comedies usually attributed to Fernando de Zarate were really the production of Enriquez Gomez, who had merely adopted the shelter of a pseudonym to facilitate the introduction of his works into Spain. His principal authority was the following entry in the Index Expurgatorius : &quot; Don Fernando de Zarate (is Antonio Enriquez Gomez) His comedy, El capdlaii de la Virgen, San Ildefonso, is prohibited;&quot; and the fact that almost nothing was known about Zarate lent a strong show of probability to his theory. The matter has since been eagerly debated. Mesonero Romanes, editor of vol. i. of the Dmmaticos posteriores d Lope de Vega (i.e., vol. xlvii. of Rivadeneyra s Biblioteca), though at first he adopted Castro s opinion, has since become its vigorous opponent ; and Barrera makes out a very strong case in favour of the historical individuality of Zarate, alleging, among other arguments, that the subjects of the plays ascribed to him, El gran sepidcro de Cristo, Santa Maria Magdalena, &c., are not such as were likely to be treated in his later years by the Jewish poet, that autograph manuscripts of Zarate exist in various collections, and that the style and methods of the two writers are perceptibly distinct. See Jose Amador de los Eios, Estudios historicos, &c., sobre los Judios de Espaiia, Madrid 1848 ; Schack, Gcschichte der dram. Lit. und Kunst in Spanien, 1849 ; Kayserling, Sepkardim, Leipsic, 1859 ; Barrera, Catalogo del Tcatro Antiguo Espanol, Madrid, 1860. ENSCHEDE, a town in the Overyssel province of Holland, is situated near the Prussian boundary, about 45 miles S.E. of Zwolle, at the junction of three railways. Its principal industry is the spinning and weaving of cotton, in which six spinning mills and thirteen steam-power looms are employed. Two-thirds of the town was destroyed by fire on the 7th May 1862, but was very soon rebuilt. Population in 1875, 5291. ENTAIL (from tattler, to cut) really means a limited succession one cut out by the will of the maker of the entail from the ordinary legal course. of succession. The derivation of the word from talis (tales hse redes qui in tenore investiturae contfneantur) is now abandoned. But, as an existing social institution, entail has also generally involved more or less restriction on the proprietary powers of the heirs succeeding to the subject of entail. The policy of entails has therefore been keenly discussed. 1 The attempt to settle the matter on legal principles entirely failed. On the one hand, in the language of the civil law, unusquisque est rei suce moderator et arbiter. This was said to imply an unlimited right to dictate the conditions on which an estate was to bs enjoyed after the death of its owner. On the other hand, it was argued that on death the ownership must change, and that the restrictions imposed on heirs of entail were. inconsistent with the nature of property. These legal conceptions are themselves merely the products of different states of society. A powerful and learned writer 2 has recently shown that the notion of absolute and exclusive private property is of quite modern date ; and it may be 1 See J. R. M Culloch s note xix. to his edition of Wealth q/ Nations, 1828, afterwards republished as Treatise on the Succession to Property vacant by Death, London, 1848. 2 M. de Laveleye, in. his De la Propritte et de ses formes primitives, Paris, 1874. added that the power of testamentary disposition was un known in primitive times, and has only been very gradually admitted. In most civilized countries, so far as concerns the creation of perpetuities, it is now being curtailed in obedience to those considerations of social expediency which alone can decide the question of entails. Conservative philosophers have maintained that the hope of founding a family and an estate which will together be immortal is so great an incentive to the higher forms of industry that the state cannot afford to do without it. But the irresistible answer is that if you give this powerful motive to the founder of a perpetuity, you take it away from every suc ceeding generation of his descendants. They are born to wealth which their idleness will not dissipate, and possibly to social distinction which has not been earned by their exertions. Besides, it is not disputed that perpetuities are opposed to the interest of the state in the annual produce of the soil, which they place extra commercium. These evil consequences of entails have been vividly described by Blackstone 3 in a passage borrowed without acknowledg ment from Bacon : 4 &quot; Children grew disobedient when they knew they could not be set aside ; farmers were ousted of their leases made by tenants in tail ; for, if such leases had been valid, then under colour of long leases the issue might have been virtually disinherited ; creditors were defrauded of their debts ; for if tenant in tail could have charged his estate with their payment, he might have also defeated his issue by mortgaging it for as much as it was worth ; innumerable latent entails were produced to deprive purchasers of the land they had fairly bought of suits in consequence of which our ancient books are full ; and treasons were encouraged as estates-tail were not liable to forfeiture longer than for the tenant s life.&quot; It is, indeed, obvious that, even if we assume heirs of entail as a class to have been keenly alive to the duties or the true interests of ownership, they had no power to improve their estates or to assist their tenants in doing so. But even if entailed estates were managed so as to yield the greatest possible amount of produce, it would still be a misfortune, and a complete answer to the argument we have been considering, that the land, so far as entailed, would be beyond the most ambitious hopes of the mercantile and manufacturing community. Perpetuities have, however, been defended on the perfectly distinct principle, not economical (in the narrower sense), but broadly political, that they are essential to the permanent well-being of an aristocracy. It is impossible here to discuss the advantages resulting from the existence of an aristocratic caste, whether invested with the hereditary privilege of legislation or regarded merely as contributing to political life an element of safety and independence and culture and historical continuity. These advantages, if they be facts, do not seem to be necessarily connected with any particular system of land-laws, and in certain circumstances a system of perpetuities might possibly impoverish and degrade a real aristocracy. But it is certainly true that in the past the two institutions are found in very close connection. Perhaps, in this view, the earliest type of an entail occurs when, out of the common property of a tribe or other primitive organization, some lands are given to a family who hold a public office or exercise definite hereditary functions. In later times the connection is sufficiently illustrated by the Carlovingian institution of majoratus, which spread through France and Italy and Spain, and which, like so many other Carlovingian ideas, was reproduced by Napoleon in the tawdry magnifi cence of the imperial decrees of 1808. 5 The strong feeling 3 Commentaries on the Laws of England, ii. 7, p. 116, Sweet s edition, 1844. 4 &quot; On the Use of the Law,&quot; Works (Spedding s ed.), vii. 490. 5 Merlin, Ecpertoire de jurisprudence, tome vii. p. 702.