difference between envy and emulation; which latter is a brave and noble thing, and quite of another nature, as consisting only in a generous imitation of something excellent; and that such an imitation as scorns to fall short of its copy, but strives if possible to outdo it. The emulator is impatient of a superior, not by depressing or maligning another, but by perfecting himself. So that while that sottish thing envy sometimes fills the whole soul, as a great fog does the air; this on the contrary inspires it with a new life and vigour, whets and stirs up all the powers of it to action.' But 'emulation,' though sometimes used by our early writers in this nobler sense, was by no means always so; it was often an exact equivalent to envy.

So every step,

Exampled by the first step that is sick

Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.

SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 3.

And the patriarchs through emulation [moved with envy, E.V.] sold Joseph into Egypt.-Acts vii. 9. Rheims.

ENDEAVOUR. This, connected with 'devoir,' is used as a reflexive verb in our version of the New Testament and in the Prayer Book. Signifying now no more than to try, it signified once to bend all our energies, not to the attempt at fulfilling, but to the actual fulfilment of a duty.

This is called in Scripture a just man,' that endeavoureth himself to leave all wickedness.-LATIMER, Sermons, p. 340.

One thing I do, I forget that which is behind, and endevour myself unto that which is before.-Phil. iii. 13. Geneva.

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Engrave Ensure.

ENGRAVE. This word has now quite lost the sense of 'to bury,' which it once possessed, See 'Grave.'

So both agree their bodies to engrave:

The great earth's womb they open to the sky;

They lay therein their corses tenderly.

SPENSER, Fairy Queen, ii. 1, 60.

And now with happy wish he closely craved
For ever to be dead, to be so sweet ingraved.

Britain's Ida.

Thou death of death, oh! in thy death engrave me.

PHINEAS FLETCHER, Poetical Miscellanies.

ENJOY. Not, when Wiclif wrote, nor till some time later, distinguished from 'rejoice,' which see.

And joye and gladinge schal be to thee, and manye schulen enjoye in his natyvite.-Luke i. 14. WICLIF.

ENORMOUS, Now only applied to that which is ENORMITY. irregular in excess, in this way transcending the established norm or rule. But departure from rule or irregularity in any direction might be characterized as 'enormous' once.

O great corrector of enormous times,

Shaker of o'er-rank states, thou grand decider
Of dusty and old titles, that heal'st with blood
The earth when it is sick.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Two Noble
Kinsmen, act v. sc. I.

Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.

MILTON, Paradise Lost, b. v.

Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of vainglory, and wild enormities of ancient magnanimity,-Sir T. BROWNE, Hydriotaphia.

ENSURE. None of our Dictionaries, as far as I can observe, have taken notice of an old use of this word,

namely, to betroth, and thus to make sure the future husband and wife to each other. See 'Assure,' 'Sure.'

After his mother Mary was ensured to Joseph, before they were coupled together, it was perceived she was with child.Matt. i. 18. Sir JOHN CHEKE.

Albeit that she was by the king's mother and many other put in good comfort to affirm that she was ensured unto the king; yet when she was solemnly sworn to say the truth, she confessed that they were never ensured.-Sir T. MORE, History of King Richard III.

EPICURE. Now applied only to those who devote themselves, yet with a certain elegance and refinement, to the pleasures of the table. We may trace two earlier stages in its meaning. By Lord Bacon and others, the followers of Epicurus, whom we should call Epicureans, are often called 'Epicures,' after the name of the founder of their sect. From them it was transferred to all who were, like them, deniers of a divine providence; and this is the common use of it by our elder divines. But inasmuch as those who have persuaded themselves that there is nothing above them, will seek their good, since men must seek it somewhere, in the things beneath them, in sensual delights, the name has been transferred, by that true moral instinct which is continually at work in speech, from the philosophical speculative atheist to the human swine, for whom the world is but a feeding-trough.

So the Epicures say of the Stoics' felicity placed in virtue, that it is like the felicity of a player, who if he were left of his auditors and their applause, he would straight be out of heart and countenance.-BACON, Colours of Good and Evil, 3.

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Equal Equivocal.

Aristotle is altogether an Epicure; he holdeth that God careth nothing for human creatures; he allegeth God ruleth the world like as a sleepy maid rocketh a child.-LUTHER, Table-Talk, c. 73.

The Epicure grants there is a God, but denies his providence. -SYDENHAM, The Athenian Babbler, 1627, p. 7.

EQUAL. The ethical sense of 'equal,' as fair, candid, just, has almost, if not altogether, departed from it.

O my most equal hearers, if these deeds
May pass with suffrance, what one citizen
But owes the forfeit of his life, yea, fame,
To him that dares traduce him?

BEN JONSON, The Fox, act iv. sc. 2. Hear now, O house of Israel; is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal? Ezek. xviii. 25. Authorized Version.

EQUIVOCAL,
EQUIVOCALLY,

The calling two or more different things by one and the same name EQUIVOCATION.) (æque vocare) is the source of almost all error in human discourse. He who wishes to throw dust in the eyes of an opponent, to hinder his arriving at the real facts of a case, will often have recourse to this artifice, and thus 'to equivocate' and 'equivocation' have attained their present secondary meaning, very different from their original, which was simply the naming of two or more different things by one and the same word.

This visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein, as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric. -Sir T. BROWNE, Religio Medici.

Which [courage and constancy] he that wanteth is no other than equivocally a gentleman, as an image or a carcass is a man. -BARROW, Sermon on Industry in our several Callings.

Essay

Exemplary.

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He [the good herald] knows when indeed the names are the same, though altered through variety of writing in various ages; and where the equivocation is untruly affected.-FULLER, The Holy State, b. ii. c. 22.

All words, being arbitrary signs, are ambiguous; and few disputers have the jealousy and skill which is necessary to discuss equivocations; and so take verbal differences for material.BAXTER, Catholic Theology, Preface.

ESSAY. There is no particular modesty now in calling a treatise or dissertation an essay;' but from many passages it is plain that there was so once; which indeed is only agreeable to the proper meaning of the word, an 'essay' being a trial, proof, specimen, taste of a thing, rather than the very and completed thing itself.

To write just treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure in the reader; and therefore are not so fit neither in regard of your highness' princely affairs, nor in regard of my continual service; which is the cause which hath made me choose to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the thing is ancient.-BACON, Intended Dedication of his Essays to Prince Henry.

Yet modestly he does his work survey,

And calls a finished poem an essay.

DRYDEN, Epistle 5, To the Earl of Roscommon.

EXEMPLARY. A certain vagueness in our use of 'exemplary' makes it for us little more than a loose synonym for excellent. We plainly often forget that 'exemplary' is strictly that which serves, or might serve for an exemplar to others, while only through keeping this distinctly before us will passages like the following yield their exact meaning to us.

We are not of opinion, therefore, as some are, that nature in