I unheedingly follow my path,
At the mercy of winds and of waves.
Wrapt thus within the arms of Fate,
What care I if lost or saved.
Estienne (Henri), the ablest of a family of learned French printers, known in England as Stephens; b. Paris, 1528. At the age of eighteen he assisted his father in collating the MSS. of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In 1557 he established a printing office of his own, and issued many Greek authors; and in 1572 the Thesaurus Linguæ Græcæ. His Apologie pour Herodote (Englished as a World of Wonders) is designed as a satire on Christian legends, and directed against priests and priestcraft. He was driven from place to place. Sir Philip Sidney highly esteemed him, and “kindly entertained him in his travaile.” Died 1598. Garasse classes him with Atheists.
Esteve (Pierre), French writer, b. Montpelier at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He wrote a History of Astronomy and an anonymous work on the Origin of the Universe explained from a Principle of Matter; Berlin, 1748.
Ettel (Konrad), Austrian Freethinker, b. 17 Jan. 1847, at Neuhof, Sternberg. Studied at the Gymnasium Kremsier, and at the wish of his parents at the Theological Seminary Olmütz, which he left to study philosophy at Vienna. He has written many poems and dramas. His Grundzuge der Natürlichen Weltanschauung (Sketch of a Natural View of the World), a Freethinker’s catechism, 1886, has reached a fourth edition.
Evans (George Henry), b. at Bromyard, Herefordshire, 25 March, 1803. While a child, his parents emigrated to New York. He set up as a printer, and published the Correspondent, the first American Freethought paper. He also published the Working Man’s Advocate, Man, Young America, and the Radical. He labored for the transportation of mails on Sundays, the limitation of the right to hold lands, the abolition of slavery, and other reforms. His brother became one of the chief elders of the Shakers. Died in Granville, New Jersey, 2 Feb. 1855.
Evans (William), b. Swansea, 1816, became a follower of Robert Owen. He established The Potter’s Examiner and Workman’s Advocate, ’43, and wrote in the Co-operative journals under the anagram of “Millway Vanes.” Died 14 March, 1887.
Evanson (Edward), theological critic, b. Warrington, Lancashire, 21 April, 1731. He graduated at Cambridge, became vicar of South Mimms, and afterwards rector of Tewkesbury. Entertaining doubts on the Trinity, he submitted them to the Archbishop of Canterbury without obtaining satisfaction. He made some changes in reading the Litany, and for expressing heretical opinions in a sermon in 1771, he was prosecuted, but escaped in consequence of some irregularity in the proceedings. In 1772 he published an anonymous tract on the Trinity. In 1797 he addressed a letter to the Bishop of Lichfield on the Prophecies of the New Testament, in which he tried to show that either Christianity was false or the orthodox churches. In the following year he resigned both his livings and took pupils. In 1792 he published his principal work, The Dissonance of the Four Generally-Received Evangelists, in which he rejected all the gospels, except Luke, as unauthentic. This work involved him in a controversy with Dr. Priestley, and brought a considerable share of obloquy and persecution from the orthodox. Died 25 Sept. 1805.