ple, in the rind of the orange and lemon, the oil exists in distinct vesicles, and may be obtained by expression. The principal volatile or essential oils are those of turpentine, aniseed, nutmeg, lavender, cloves, caraway, peppermint, spearmint, sassafras, camomile and citron. The taste of these oils is acrid and burning; and their odor very pungent, generally resembling the taste and smell of the vegetables affording them. They are generally fluid, and remain so even at a low temperature; but some congeal at a very moderate degree of cold, and others are naturally concrete. They are extremely volatile, and boil at a temperature considerably above that of boiling water; thus oil of turpentine boils at 315. They are very soluble in strong alcohol, but, on adding water largely, are precipitated. They are soluble in ether in like manner, but do not form soaps with the alkalies, by which they are distinguished from the fixed oils. They are readily inflammed by strong nitric acid; especially with the precaution of adding a little sulphuric acid to render the former more concentrated. Exposed to the action of the air, they undergo an alteration in consequence of the absorption of oxygen, become thickened, and gradually change into a solid matter, resembling the true resins. When digested with sulphur, they unite with it, forming what have been called balsams of sulphur. One of the most useful and abundant of the essential oils is that of turpentine, commonly called spirit of turpentine. It is obtained by distilling turpentine and water, in due proportions, from a copper alembic. It is perfectly limpid and colorless, has a strong smell, a bitterish taste, boils at 316°, and is extremely inflammable. It is the solvent employed in making a variety of varnishes; but for purposes of nicety, it requires to be rectified by a second distillation. In general, the volatile oils are used in the practice of medicine, or as perfumes. Those applied to the latter use, as the essence of rose, of jasmine, violet, &c., are possessed of a more feeble odor, and, being obtained from the flowers of their respective plants, require much care in their preparation. This is done by spreading upon white wool, impregnated with olive oil, the petals of the flowers, and leaving them for some time, covered over with a woollen cloth, upon which flowers are also scattered. The flowers are renewed from time to time, until the olive oil employed appears to be saturated with the oil of the flowers, when this last is separated by digesting the wool in alcohol.

ESSEQUIBO; a river of English Guiana, which flows into the Atlantic; lon. 58° 30′ W.; lat. 7° N. It is 20 miles wide at its mouth, but difficult of navigation, on account of the sand banks, which run in different directions across its entrance. It contains a number of islands. The influence of the tide is felt about 100 miles up the river.

ESSEQUIBO; a settlement of English Guiana, on the borders of the above river, originally belonging to the Dutch, but, after having several times changed possessors, was finally ceded to Great Britain in 1814. The settlement is flourishing, the country well cultivated, and extremely fertile, producing coffee, cotton, cocoa and sugar.

ESSEX; a post-town in Essex county, New York, on the western shore of lake Champlain; 14 miles south-west of Burlington, 16 from Elizabethtown. There is a flourishing village on the lake in this township, which has considerable trade. The celebrated split rock is in this township, 5 miles south of the village. It projects 50 yards into lake Champlain; the point, consisting of about half an acre, and covered with trees, is separated from the main rock about 20 feet. The height of the rock, on each side of the opening, is about 20 feet. It appears to have been separated by some great convulsion, and is esteemed a great curiosity.

ESSLINGEN. (See Aspern.)

ESTACHAR, or ESTAKAR, or ISTACHAR; a town in Persia, in Chusistan; 30 miles N. N. E. of Schiras, 160 S. S. E. of Ispahan; lon. 53° 40′ E.; lat. 30° 5′ N. Near it are the ruins of ancient Persepolis. These ruins are on a plain, 6 miles in breadth, and 105 in length, from northwest to south-east. It is usually called Murdasjo, and the inhabitants pretend that it included 880 villages. The soil is chiefly converted into arable land, and watered by a great number of rivulets. According to Le Bruyn, no traces of the city now remain; the magnificent ruins which he saw in the year 1704, and of which he has given a description, with many plates, are those of the royal palace of the ancient kings of Persia, which the Persians call Chilminar, or Chalmenaer, which signifies forty columns. Among other ruins are those of a tomb, supposed to be the tomb of Darius.

ESTAFET; a particular kind of courier, who goes only a certain distance, when he is relieved, like a mail-carrier. He rides on horseback, and is furnished by the post-office. Estafettes travel faster

scendants: if it goes in successive order to his descendants without any distinction, it is called an estate in tail-general; if it is limited to certain descendants, as the children of a certain wife, it is an estate in tail-special. An estate in remainder is one of which the owner is to come into possession after the expiration of an intermediate estate of another person, or number of persons or heirs; and so also is an estate in reversion: thus, if one grants an estate tail, this estate tail may expire, in which case the lands will come back or revert to the grantor, and his estate, which still remains to him after he has granted the estate tail, is therefore called a reversion. As to the number of owners, an estate in common is a freehold belonging to more than one proprietor, in undivided shares; and so also is an estate in jointtenancy; but there is this distinction between these two kinds of estates, that when one joint-tenant dies, his share goes to the other joint-tenants, which is not the case in tenancies in common. An estate in coparcenary arises when an estate in fee simple descends, on the decease of the owner, to his daughters, sisters, aunts, or female cousins, or their representatives, being females; and they are called coparceners, or, for brevity, parceners. Real estate left to any one by will is called a devise, or an estate by devise, in distinction from a bequest of personal property, which is called a legacy.

ESTATES (in politics). Man, in the rudest state of human existence, lives almost entirely independent. We cannot properly speak of liberty in such a state, because liberty, truly so called, implies the protection of each man's rights by the laws of an organized society, the main object of political institutions being to secure individual liberty, by affording equal protection to all. But what a number of gradations are to be found between the lawlessness of the savage and the rational independence of the citizen of a free state. There are several prominent stages in the progress of man from the one to the other of these points:-a. The state of unsettled and roving tribes, the hunters and nomades. Though very great difference exists among nations in this state, yet all political developement is so much checked by the nonexistence of landed property (the beginning of proper civilization), that we may class them all together. b. The patriarchal state, in which the authority and power of the father of a family (patria potestas), that of the magistrate and of the priest are united in one person: this is the first rude begin

ning of political civilization.* c. The state in which the authority of the father and the magistrate are separated, but that of the priest and the magistrate still remain blended. This is the theocratic state. In this, priests form a separate caste, and are the rulers. d. When the authority of the father, priest and magistrate are separated, and the distinction between the family and state is clearly understood, but yet birth decides to what class an individual belongs. This is the state of castes. The whole people is divided into different classes, with different privileges. e. That state of government, which prevails in many parts of Europe, where the nobility have hereditary privileges, and correspond to the castes in the East, whilst the other subjects are divided into classes distinguished by their occupations, as peasants, citizens, &c. f. That state of political society in which all the members have equal privileges and rights, and are subject to equal burdens. In this class must be included several of the republics of antiquity, not

* We cannot abstain here from a few remarks of whom Charles Louis de Haller must be conon the gross error of many politicians of Europe, sidered the head, on account of his notorious work Restauration der Staatswissenschaft, oder Theorie des natürlichen geselligen Zustandes, der Chimere des Künstlich-bürgerlichen entgegen ration of the Science of Politics, or Theory of the gesetzt, Winterthur, 1816-1820, 4 vols. (Restonatural-social State, in Opposition to the Chimera of the artificial-civil). These absolutists ridicule the idea of a social contract, as the basis of the

political constitution of a nation, deriving all their arguments against it from the patriarchal origin of the political state. Political unions, say they, no where began with such a contract, but grew out of the relations of families. Haller calls it an idea communicated to him from Heaven, that, the father being the natural ruler of the children, the master stands in the same relation to his slaves, and the prince to his subjects. He says there is no foundation for the notion that princes are made for their subjects, but both are correlative-a very logical deduction, certainly, from the original condition of men! as if the highest branches of mathematics, particularly the exalted and abstract theory of functions, were visionary and groundless, because mathematics began with simple calculations applied to the most ordinary business of life, geometry, with the surveying of the banks of the Nile after its inundation! as if the laws of architecture applied to the erection of the stately cathedral were chimerical, because architecture began with the construction of miserable huts! as if grammatical writing were nonsense, as if the laws of war, by which its horrors are because language began with inarticulate sounds! mitigated, were unfounded, because war began with common murder! Yet Mr. Haller's theory is so well received by the illiberal party in Gerwould not even have found a publisher in Eng many, that a production which most probably land or the U. States, is there held up as a standard work! (See Constitutions.)

withstanding a large portion of the inhabitants were in servitude; for the slaves, in these cases, were not considered as belonging to the state, were not members of the political society. Such an anomalous form of government as existed in Algiers, where a tribe of soldiers, kept up by perpetual recruits from abroad, and excluding their own children from any share in their political privileges, elected their ruler, and tyrannised over the other inhabitants of the country, without allowing them any rights (although they did not actually treat them as slaves, at least not as the property of individuals), such a government does not fall under any one of the established divisions, and, in fact, can hardly be regarded in a different light from an association of robbers. That condition of government mentioned under e forms the subject of this article. Estates are those political bodies which partake, either directly or by representation, in the government: they are different from corporations (q. v.), which very often had, and still have, certain political privileges. Estates are of Teutonic origin, being found only in countries occupied by the descendants of Teutonic tribes. They are to be considered as a consequence of the feudal system, which originated from certain customs prevalent among the Germans, and from their conquests. (See Feudal System.) From the feudal system sprang the modern hereditary nobles-a privileged body, partaking essentially in, or, in some instances, chiefly forming the government. (See Nobility.) Bondage became gradually established-an institution, in many cases, of much more recent date than those who profit by it maintain. (See Villenage.) At the same time that the high nobility began to constitute a distinct and hereditary class (which is of much later date than the origin of feudalism), the high clergy, in many countries, began to participate in the government as a body, which they were, in those barbarous times, as much entitled to do as the warlike nobility; since they were the only members of society with whom the little knowledge which had survived the fearful storms of the dark ages had taken refuge. More or less distinct from each other, and from the lower orders of their respective classes, the high nobility and clergy continued to form the estates, which, together with the prince, constituted the general government so far as any general government can be said to have existed, when every feudal lord was, in most respects, entirely independent, and the higher clergy were almost always

feudal lords, so that a conflict of innumerable interests, privileges and liberties prevented any general and orderly administration of government and justice. "That prodigious fabric (as Hume calls it), for several centuries, preserved such a mixture of liberty and oppression, order and anarchy, stability and revolution, as was never experienced in any other age, or any other part of the world." But the time appeared when cities began to claim and assume political rights, the time to which we may apply, in respect of all Europe, what Spelman applies to England at the time of the Norman conquest, Novus seclorum nascitur ordo. It is to the cities that we owe the origin of the third estate, or citizens, from whom, through their contests with the other estates or estate (if the nobility and clergy were united), and through their greater number, which rendered a representation of them necessary, originated more general views of the administration of government and justice, more equitable laws, and more correct notions of individual liberty. To the historian, who sees, amid the conflicts of feudalism, the beginning of the political importance of the cities, it is like the first appearance of the rays of morning after a long and stormy night. (See Cities.) But the power of the other estates was too great; nor was it to be expected that the third estate should be in advance of the age: a general representation was not yet founded. The period from the downfall of the Roman empire to the establishment of the constitution of the U. States, may be called, by way of distinction, the time of privileges, hardly any part of the political system being established, or administered on general principles, or a well organized plan, but almost every thing being done by special privileges and grants; common rights arising from citizenship being hardly recognised, the individual enjoying only certain privileges, as a member of a favored class. The privileges of these three estates, arising from different causes, and acquired in different ways, were, of course, very different. However, the right to grant taxes was common to all, because taxes were at first considered as a mere gift to the prince, it being customary in all the Teutonic estates for the monarch to defray the expenses of government, particularly of war, on account of the large share of property which was every where set aside for him, as has been shown in the article Civil List. (See also Domain.) However, in many countries, the estates were not called together; in

others, their conduct rendered them very unpopular. Both their own incapacity and the power of the government rendered them, in most countries, either useless or obnoxious; and, in many countries, both the people and the government were equally desirous to abolish them, though for different reasons. The time of the French revolution approached, and views of general justice and legal equality became popular throughout Europe. Every reader knows that the system of the estates was abolished in France, and all the countries where the French obtained an ascendency in the new formation, or the reformation of governments. Since the downfall of Napoleon, many governments have reestablished the estates, or endeavored to satisfy the spirit of the age, which calls for a secure individual liberty, by a new organization of them. This subject has been particularly treated in the article Constitution. (q. v.) In Sweden, there is a fourth estate-that of the crown peasants. Circumstances have changed so entirely, civilization has so nearly equalised the different orders, the interests of men have become so generalized, that the institution of estates has become unsuited to the wants of the age: they have had their time, and have become obsolete. They are directly contrary to the spirit of our age, as is the whole feudal system, and can only be considered as remnants of former times, forms from which the spirit has long since departed. They serve at present only to frustrate the most just and reasonable demand of society-individual liberty, protected by equal laws and an equal representation.

ESTE; one of the most ancient and illustrious families of Italy. Muratori traces its origin to those petty princes who governed Tuscany in the time of the Carlovingians (10th century). In later times, they received from the emperors several districts and counties, to be held as fiefs of the empire, viz. Este, Rovigo, Montagnana, Casal Maggiore, Pontremoli and Obertenga, with the title of marquis. Of this family was Guelfo IV, who, having received the investiture of the duchy of Bavaria, founded the house of Brunswick, which, from this circumstance, was called the Estensian Guelf. During the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, the history of the house of Este is connected with the vicissitudes of the other ruling families and free states of Upper Italy. In the contests between the Guelfs and Ghibelines, the marquises of Este, as leaders of the Guelf party, acquired the territories of Ferrara and

Modena, notwithstanding many reverses. This house was much distinguished for its patronage of the arts and sciences. Nicolas II (died 1388) first made the court of Ferrara the seat of refinement and taste. The reign of Nicolas III (died 1441) was still more brilliant. He opened, in 1402, the university of Ferrara, founded by his father, Albert, and which had been suppressed during his minority; he also founded that of Parma. His liberality attracted the most distinguished men of the age, among whom were Guarini of Verona, the ancestor of the celebrated poet, and Giovanni Aurispa. He transmitted his love of literature to his sons, Lionel and Borso, who endeavored to render Ferrara the country of scholars and poets. The reign of Lionel was distinguished neither by conquests nor other great political occurrences; but no prince of the house of Este was more beloved by his contemporaries for his amiable disposition, the charms of his wit, and the elegance of his manners. He encouraged industry and commerce, the arts and sciences, by every method, and was himself a model of eloquence in the Latin and Italian languages. He corresponded with the most distinguished men of Italy, and contributed more than any prince of his time to restore ancient literature to that splendor which rendered the 16th century so illustrious. Under his brother and successor, Borso, (died 1471), agriculture, commerce, and all the arts of peace, were in a flourishing condition. Borso was fond of pomp, but, as he neither maintained fortresses nor armies, his expenditures did not exhaust his finances. emperor Frederic III, enchanted with his reception by Borso, on his passage through Ferrara, conferred on him the title of duke of Modena and Reggio. Borso also obtained from the pope, Pius V, the duchy of Ferrara, which he held as a fief of the church. His successor, Ercole I (died 1505), suffered much from the Venetians and their allies, who wished to deprive the house of Este of its territories; but Milan, Florence and Naples took arms in his defence, and a general war was the consequence. After concluding a disadvantageous peace in 1484, Ercole maintained a

The

neutrality for 21 years, although important revolutions took place in Italy. During this period, his subjects enjoyed all the blessings of peace, and his capital was distinguished for elegance and refinement. Boiardo, count of Scandiano, the celebrated author of Orlando Innamorato, was his friend and minister. Ariosto, yet