EPINAY, MADAME D’, a French writer, unhappily married in her youth; became notorious for her illicit intimacy with Rousseau and Grimm; her “Memoires et Correspondence” give a lively picture of her times (1725-1783).

EPIPHANIUS, ST., one of the Fathers of the Greek Church; of Jewish descent; flourished in the 4th century; led a monastic life, and founded a monastery in Eleutheropolis; was bishop of Constantia in 367; bigoted and tyrannical, he became notorious for his ecclesiastical zeal, and for his indictments of Origen and St. Chrysostom; left writings that show great but indiscriminate learning (330-402).

EPIPHANY, as observed in the Christian Church, is a festival held on the 12th day after Christmas, in commemoration of the manifestation of Christ to the Magi of the East; but up to the close of the 4th century the festival also commemorated the incarnation of Christ as well as the divine manifestation at His baptism.

EPI`RUS, was the NW. portion of ancient Hellas, Dodona its capital, and Acheron one of its rivers; in 1466 became part of the Ottoman empire, but in 1881 a portion was ceded to Greece.

EPISCOPACY, the name given to the form of Church government in which there are superior and inferior orders among the clergy, as between that of bishop and that of a presbyter; called also Prelacy.

EPISCOPIUS, SIMON, a Dutch theologian, born at Amsterdam; the head of the Arminian party after the death of Arminius; was unjustly misrepresented, and tyrannically, even cruelly, treated by the opposite party; he was a man of great ability, enlightened views, and admirable temper, and set more store by integrity and purity of character than orthodoxy of belief (1583-1643).

EPISTOLAE OBSCURORUM VIRORUM (i. e. letters of obscure men), a celebrated collection of Latin letters which appeared in the 16th century in Germany, attacking with merciless severity the doctrines and modes of living of the scholastics and monks, credited with hastening the Reformation.

EPITAPH, an inscription placed on a tombstone in commemoration of the dead interred below.  The natural feeling which prompts such inscriptions has manifested itself among all civilised peoples, and not a little of a nation’s character may be read in them.  The Greeks reserved epitaphs for their heroes, but amongst the Romans grew up the modern custom of marking the tombs of relatives with some simple inscription, many of their sepulchres being placed on the side of the public roads, a circumstance which explains the phrase, Siste, viator—­Stay, traveller—­found in old graveyards.

EPITHALAMIUM, a nuptial song, sung before the bridal chamber in honour of the newly-wedded couple, particularly among the Greeks and Romans, of whom Theocritus and Catullus have left notable examples; but the epithalamium of Edmund Spenser is probably the finest specimen extant of this poetic form.

EPPING FOREST, as it now exists in the SE. of Essex, is a remnant—­5600 acres—­of the famous Epping or Waltham Forest, which once extended over all Essex, and which then served as a royal hunting-ground, is now a favourite pleasure-ground and valuable field for explorations of botanical and entomological collectors.