[Estrades, Count d'], a French diplomatist (1579-1680).
[Estremadura] (1,111), a coast province of Portugal, between Beira and Alemtejo, watered by the Tagus; richly fertile in many parts, but sparely cultivated; silk is an important industry, and an increasing; Lisbon is the chief city, and with Setubal monopolises the trade; salt, fruits, wine, and oil are exported; also name of a district in Spain between Portugal and New Castile, now divided into the provinces of Badajoz and Cácéres.
[Etéocles], a son of Oedipus, king of Thebes, agreed on the banishment of his father to govern the state alternately with his brother Polynices, but failing to keep his engagement, the latter appealed to his guardian, out of which there arose the War of the Seven against Thebes, which ended in the slaughter of the whole seven, upon which the brothers thought to end the strife in single combat, when each fell by the sword of the other.
[Eternal City], ancient Rome in the esteem of its inhabitants, in accordance with the promise, as Virgil feigns, of Jupiter to Venus, the goddess-mother of the race.
[Eternities, The Conflux of], Carlyle's expressive phrase for Time, as in every moment of it a centre in which all the forces to and from Eternity meet and unite, so that by no past and no future can we be brought nearer to Eternity than where we at any moment of Time are; the Present Time, the youngest born of Eternity, being the child and heir of all the Past times with their good and evil, and the parent of all the Future, the import of which (see Matt. xvi. 27) it is accordingly the first and most sacred duty of every successive age, and especially the leaders of it, to know and lay to heart as the only link by which Eternity lays hold of it and it of Eternity.
[Ethelbert], a king of Kent, in whose reign Christianity was introduced by St. Augustin and a band of missionaries in 597; drew up the first Saxon law code (552-616).
[Etheldreda], a Saxon princess, whose name, shortened into St. Audrey, was given to a certain kind of lace, whence "tawdry"; she took refuge from the married state in the monastery of St. Abb's Head, and afterwards founded a monastery in the Isle of Ely (630-679).
[Ethelred I.], king of Saxon England (866-871), predecessor and brother of Alfred; his reign was a long and unsuccessful struggle with the Danes.
[Ethelred II.], the Unready, a worthless king of Saxon England (979-1016), married Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, a step which led in the end to the claim which issued in the Norman Conquest (968-1016).
[Ether], a volatic liquid prepared from the distillation of alcohol and sulphuric acid at high temperature; is colourless, and emits a sweet, penetrating odour; is highly combustible; a useful solvent, and an important anæsthetic.