Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/516

Rh 496 E P I E P &quot;Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power or hapless love ; Best here, distressed by poverty no more, Here find that calm thou gav st so oft before ; Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!&quot; In classifying epitaphs various principles of division may be adopted. Arranged according to nationality they indicate distinctions of race less clearly perhaps than any other form of literature does, and this obviously because when under the influence of the deepest feeling men think and speak very much in the same way whatever be their country. At the same time the influence of nationality may to some extent be traced in epitaphs. The characteristics of the French style, its grace, clearness, wit, and epigram matic point, are all recognizable in French epitaphs. Instances such as &quot; La premiere au rendezvous&quot; inscribed on the grave of a mother, Piron s epitaph written for himself after his rejection by the French Academy &quot; Ci-git Piron, qui ne fnt jarnais rien, Pas meme Academicien and one by a relieved husband, to be seen at Pere la Chaise &quot;Ci-git ma femme. Ahl qu elle est bien Pour son repos et pour le mien might be multiplied indefinitely. One can hardly look through a collection of English epitaphs without being struck with the fact that these represent a greater variety of intellectual and emotional states than those of any other nation, ranging through every style of thought from the sublime to the commonplace, every mood of feeling from the most delicate and touching to the coarse and even brutal. Few subordinate illustrations of the wonderfully complex nature of the English nationality are more striking than this. Epitaphs are sometimes classified according to their authorship and sometimes according to their subject, but neither division is so interesting as that which arranges them according to their characteristic features. What has just been said of English epitaphs is, of course, more true of epitaphs generally. They exemplify every variety of sentiment and taste, from lofty pathos and dignified eulogy to coarse buffoonery and the vilest scurrility. The extent to which the humorous and even the low comic element prevails among them is a noteworthy circumstance. It is curious that the most solemn of all subjects should have been frequently treated, intentionally or unintentionally, in a style so ludicrous that a collection of epitaphs is generally one of the most amusing books that can be picked up. In this as in other cases too it is to be observed that the unintended humour is generally of a much more entertain ing kind than that which has been deliberately perpetrated. It would be out of place to give here any specimens of a class of epitaphs which just because they are the most amusing are the most abundantly represented in all the ordinary collections. See Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, 1631. 1661 (Tooke s edit., 1767); Philip Labbe, Thesaurus cpitaphiorum, Paris, 1666: Theatrum Funcbre cxtructum a Dodone Richea sen Ottone Aicber, 1675; Hackett, Select and Remarkable Epitaphs, 1757; De la Place, Recucil d epitaphcs, 3 vols., Paris, 1782; Pulleyn, Church yard Gleanings, c. 1830 ; L. Lewysohn, Sechzig Epitaphicn von Grabsteinen d. israelit. Fricdhofes zu Worms. 1855 ; Pettigrew, Chronicles of the Tombs, 1857 ; S. Tissington, Epitaplis, 1857 ; Robinson, Epitaphs from Cemeteries in London. Edinburgh, &amp;lt;i-c., 1859 ; Le Blant, Inscriptions Chreticnnc.s de la Gaule antericurcs au VIII siecle, 1856, 1865 ; Blominaert, Gaillard, &c., Inscrip tions funcraircs et monumcntalcs de la prov. dc Flandre Orient. Ghent, 1857, 1860 ; Inscriptions fun. ct inon. de la prov. d Anvers, Antwerp, 1857-1860; Chwolson, Achtzchn Hcbraische Grabschriftcn aus der Krim, 1859 ; J. Brown, Epitaphs, &amp;lt;tr. , in Grcyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, 1867 ; H. J. Loaring, Quaint, Curious, and Elegant Epitaphs, 1872 ; Cansick, Ejritaphs in Cemeteries and Churches of St Pancras, 1872 ; Northend, Book of Epitaphs, New York, 1873; J. 11. Kippax, Churchyard Literature ; Choice coll. of American Epitaphs, 1876. (W. B. S.) EPITHALAMIUM (from n, and 0oAa/xo, a nuptial chamber), originally among the Greeks a song which was sung by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber. According to the scholiast on Theocritus, one form the KaTaKoi/jLrjrLKov, was employed at night, and another, the SieyepriKoV, to amuse the bride and bride groom on the following morning. In either case, as was natural, the main burden of the song consisted of invoca tions of blessing and predictions of happiness, interrupted from time to time by the ancient chorus of Hymen hymencee. Among the Romans, a similar custom was in vogue, but the song was sung by girls only, after the marriage guests had gone, and it contained much more of what modern morality would condemn as obscene. In the hands of the poets the epithalamium was developed into a special literary form, and received considerable cultivation. Sappho, Anacreon, Stesichorus, and Pindar are all regarded as masters of the species, but the finest example preserved in Greek literature is the 18th Idyll of Theocritus, which celebrates the marriage of Menelaus and Helena. Catullus, Statius, Ausonius, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Claudian are the authors of the best known epithalamia in clas sical Latin ; and they have been imitated by Buchanan, Scaliger, Sannazarius, and a whole host of modern Latin poets, with whom, indeed, the form was at one time in great favour. The names of Ronsard, Malherbe, and Scarron are especially associated with the species in French literature, and Marini and Metastasio in Italian. Perhaps no poem of the class has been more universally admired than the epithalamium of Spenser, though he has found no unworthy rivals in Ben Jonson and one or two of his successors. EPSOM, a market town in the county of Surrey, is situated about 14 miles S.W. of London, on a branch of the London and Brighton railway. The town is irregularly built, but contains some handsome new houses. The principal building is the parish church, a Gothic edifice, rebuilt in 1825, the interior of which contains some fine sculptures by Flaxman and Chantrey. Epsom has attained a w r ide celebrity on account of its mineral springs and its races. The former were discovered about 1618, and for some time after their discovery, the town enjoyed a wonder ful degree of prosperity. After the Piestoration, it was often visited by Charles II., and when Queen Anne came to the throne, her husband, Prince George of Denmark, made it his frequent resort. Epsom gradually lost its celebrity as a spa, but the annual races held on its downs have arrested the decay of the town. Races appear to have been established here as early as James I. s residence at Nonsuch, but they did not assume a permanent character until 1730. The principal races the Derby and Oaks are named after one of the earls of Derby, and his seat, the Oaks, which is in the neighbourhood. The latter race was established in 1779, and the former in the following year. The spring races are held on a Thursday and Friday to wards the close of April; and the great Epsom meeting takes place on the Tuesday and three following days immediately before Whitsuntide, the Derby on the Wednesday and the Oaks on the Friday. The grand stand, erected in 1829, is 156 feet wide and 70 feet in depth, consists of three stories, accommodating nearly 5000 spectators, and in cludes a saloon 108 feet by 34. The population of the civil parish, in 1871 was 6276. EPSOM SALTS, the magnesia sulphas of pharmacy, and the epsomite or hair-salt of mineralogical treatises, is an hydrated magnesium sulphate, of the chemical constitu tion MgSO 4 .7H 2 O, and isomorphous with zinc sulphate (see vol. vi. p. 527), which it resembles in appearance. The salt crystallizes in four-sided, right- rhombic, lustrous, colourless prisms, which in the commercial article are