ESMOND, HENRY, the title of one of Thackeray’s novels, deemed by the most competent critics his best, and the name of its hero, a chivalrous cavalier of the time of Queen Anne.  “Esmond” is pronounced by Prof.  Saintsbury to be “among the very summits of English prose fiction, exquisitely written in a marvellous resurrection of eighteenth-century style, touched somehow with a strange modernity and life which make it no pastiche, containing the most brilliant passages of mere incident, and, above all, enshrining such studies of character ... as not four other makers of English prose and verse can show.”

ESNE, a town in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, and 25 m.  S. of Thebes; famous for the ruins of a temple.

ESOTERIC, a term used to denote teaching intended only for the initiated, and intelligible only to them.

ESPARTERO, a celebrated Spanish general and statesman, born at Granatula; supported, against the Carlist faction, the claims of Isabella to the throne of Spain; was for his services made Duke of Vittoria, and in 1841 elected regent; compelled to abdicate, he fled to England, but afterwards returned for a time to the head of affairs; an able man, but wanting in the requisite astuteness and tact for such a post (1793-1879).

ESPINASSE, CLARE FRANCOISE, a wit and beauty, born at Lyons, illegitimate child of the Countess d’Albon; went to Paris as companion to Madame du Deffand, with whom she quarrelled; set up a salon of her own, and became celebrated for her many attractions; D’Alembert was devoted to her; many of her letters to her lovers, the Marquis de Mora and M. de Guilbert in particular, have been published, and display a charming personality (1732-1776).

ESPINEL, VINCENT DE, a Spanish poet and musician, born at Ronda, Granada; first a soldier and then a priest, the friend of Lope de Vega, and author of a work which Le Sage made free use of in writing “Gil Blas”; was an expert musician; played on the guitar, and added a fifth string (1551-1634).

ESPIRITU SANTO, (1) a small and swampy maritime province of Brazil (121), lying on the N. border of Rio de Janeiro; does some trade in timber, cotton, coffee, and sugar; Victoria is the capital; (2) a town (32) in central Cuba; (3) the largest of the NEW HEBRIDES (q. v.) (20); the climate is unhealthy, but the soil fertile.

ESPRIT DES LOIS (i. e. the Spirit of Laws), the title of Montesquieu’s great work, at once speculative and historical, published in 1748, characterised in “Sartor” as the work, like many others, of “a clever infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic book the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in Heaven.”

ESPY, JAMES POLLARD, a meteorologist, born in Pennsylvania; did notable work in investigating the causes of storms, and in 1841 published “The Philosophy of Storms”; was appointed to the Washington observatory, where he carried on experiments in the cooling of gases and atmospheric expansion (1785-1860).