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 726 ESDRAS ESK gallery tunnelled in 1770 as a means of com- munication during storms. The most striking feature of the edifice is the church, built in general imitation of St. Peter's at Rome, in the form of a Greek cross with a cupola and two towers. It contains 40 chapels with their altars, and is 364 ft. long, 230 broad, divided into seven aisles, paved with black marble and roofed by the dome rising 330 ft. from the floor. The grand altar, 90 ft. high and 50 ft. wide, is of jasper and gilded bronze. Eighteen pillars, each 18 ft. high, of red and green jasper, sup- port an estrade on which the altar is placed. Porphyry and marbles of the richest descrip- tion incrust the walls, and on either side are statue portraits of the kings. Directly under the high altar, so that the host may be raised above the dead, is a mausoleum built by Philip IV., from a design after the Roman pantheon. This burial place is 36 ft. in diameter, with walls of jasper and black marble. Here the re- mains of all the sovereigns of Spain since Charles V. repose in niches one above another. An- other burial place in one of the chapels is call- ed the pantheon of the infantas. Several fine paintings adorn the church, but it is much shorn of its embellishments since it was plun- dered by the French. Benvenuto Cellini's mar- ble " Christ," presented to Philip by the grand duke of Tuscany, and brought from Barcelona on men's shoulders, is still shown here, and an immense collection of saintly relics amassed by the founder may also be seen. The interior of the church is a triumph of architectural effect, grand, massive, and solemn. On its steps are six colossal statues in granite, with marble heads and hands, and gilt crowns. These are called the kings of Judea. The edifice forms one side of a court, facing a finely sculp- tured portal, which opened twice for every Span- ish monarch, once when he was carried through it after his birth, and once after his death, when three nobles and three priests bore him to the tomb. The royal apartments contain little worthy of notice, excepting two picture gal- leries, from which, however, most of the chefs cTceuvre have been removed to Madrid. The arched room of the great library is 194 ft. long, 32 wide, and 36 high. The ceilings were paint- ed in fresco by Bartholomew Carducci. The library was said before the French invasion to have contained 30,000 printed and 4,300 MS. volumes, but we have no accurate estimate of its present contents. It is believed to contain between 4,000 and 5,000 MSS., of which 567 are Greek, 67 Hebrew, and 1,800 Arabic. The Arabic MSS. are not accessible to visitors. A portion of the library was destroyed by fire in 1671, and again in 1761 ; and the buildings were again seriously damaged from the same cause in October, 1872. ESDRAS, Books of, two apocryphal books of the Old Testament, given as the third and fourth books of Ezra (the second being prop- erly the book of Nehemiah) in several man- uscripts of the Latin Vulgate, as well as in all printed editions anterior to the decree of the council of Trent, which declared the two ad- ditional books uncanonical. In the English authorized version of the Apocrypha they are called 1st and 2d Esdras ; in the Clementine and Sixtine versions of the Vulgate they appear at the end of the volume, being inserted, as express- ly stated, in order to " preserve from being al- together lost books which had been sometimes cited by some of the holy fathers." Luther denounced the two books as worse than ^Esop's fables ; but the first was received into the Lu- theran Bible, among the Apocrypha, while the second is counted among the pseudepigrapha. In all the manuscripts of the Septuagint, the first of these books, or the so-called third of Ezra, precedes the canonical books of the Jewish scribe, which in this version include that of Nehemiah. It is a recapitulation of the history related in the canonical book of the same name, interspersed with some interpola- tions taken from 2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, and other sources. It is written in an elegant style, resembling that of Symmachus, though it appears to be rather a version than an ori- ginal work. The name and age of the author or translator are unknown. The 2d Esdras or 4th Ezra is of a different character from its apocryphal predecessor, and seems to owe its place among the uncanonical writings of the Old Testament only to the historical name which it bears. It contains a number of visions resembling those of the Apocalypse, related in a style acknowledged by prominent critics to rise occasionally to great sublimity of thought, energy of conception, and elegance of expres- sion. This book also is supposed by some to be a translation from the Hebrew or Chaldee. But both the original and the Greek transla- tion mentioned by Clement of Alexandria hav- ing been lost, the book was believed to exist only in the old Latin version, until more re- cent discoveries enriched Biblical literature with Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic translations. This book is ascribed to Ezra the scribe by Clement of Alexandria, and was regarded as prophetic by most of the fathers of the church, though it does not appear to have been known to Josephus. Jabn supposes the author to have been a Jew educated in Chaldea, and con- verted to Christianity, who flourished about the beginning of the 2d century. Dr. Lau- rence maintains that the author was a Jew who lived shortly before the Christian era ; and he accordingly rejects as interpolations the first two chapters of the book, which furnish the chief argument for his acquaintance with the doctrines of Christianity. Dr. Lee conjectures the author to have been also the author of the book of Enoch. The Latin text is given in Hilgenfeld, Messias Judceorum (1869), and in the edition of the apocryphal books by Fritz- sche (1871). The Ethiopic translation was published by Laurence in 1820. ESR, the name of several rivers of Scot- land. I. A river of Dumfriesshire, formed by