EGER (Ger. Erlau, Med. Lat. Agria), a town of Hungary, capital of the county of Heves, 90 m. E.N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 24,650. It is beautifully situated in the valley of the river Eger, an affluent of the Theiss, and on the eastern outskirts of the Mátra mountains. Eger is the see of an archbishopric, and owing to its numerous ecclesiastical buildings has received the name of “the Hungarian Rome.” Amongst the principal buildings are the beautiful cathedral in the Italian style, with a handsome dome 130 ft. high, erected in 1831-1834 by the archbishop Ladislaus Pyrker (1772-1847); the church of the Brothers of Mercy, opposite which is a handsome minaret, 115 ft. high, the remains of a mosque dating from the Turkish occupation, other Roman Catholic churches, and an imposing Greek church. The archiepiscopal palace; the lyceum, with a good library and an astronomical observatory; the seminary for Roman priests; and the town-hall are all noteworthy. On an eminence N.E. of the town, laid out as a park, are the ruins of the old fortress, and a monument of Stephen Dobó, the heroic defender of the town against the assaults of the Turks in 1552. The chief occupation of the inhabitants is the cultivation of the vineyards of the surrounding hills, which produce the red Erlauer wine, one of the best in Hungary. To the S.W. of Eger, in the same county of Heves, is situated the town of Gyöngyös (pop. 15,878). It lies on the south-western outskirts of the Mátra mountains, and carries on a brisk trade in the Erlauer wine, which is produced throughout the district. The Hungarians defeated the Austrians at Gyöngyös on the 3rd of April 1849. To the S.W. of Gyöngyös is situated the old town of Hatvan (pop. 9698), which is now a busy railway junction, and possesses several industrial establishments.
Eger is an old town, and owes its importance to the bishopric created by King Stephen in 1010, which was one of the richest in the whole of Hungary. In 1552 Eger resisted the repeated assaults of a large Turkish force; in 1596, however, it was given up to the Turks by the Austrian party in the garrison, and remained in their possession until 1687. It was created an archbishopric in 1814. During the revolution of 1848-1849, Eger was remarkable for the patriotic spirit displayed by its inhabitants; and it was here that the principal campaigns against the Austrians were organized.
EGERIA, an ancient Italian goddess of springs. Two distinct localities were regarded as sacred to her,—the grove of Diana Nemorensis at Aricia, and a spring in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome at the Porta Capena. She derives her chief importance from her legendary connexion with King Numa, who had frequent interviews with her and consulted her in regard to his religious legislation (Livy i. 19; Juvenal iii. 12). These meetings took place on the spot where the sacred shield had fallen from heaven, and here Numa dedicated a grove to the Camenae, like Egeria deities of springs. After the death of Numa, Egeria was said to have fled into the grove of Aricia, where she was changed into a spring for having interrupted the rites of Diana by her lamentations (Ovid, Metam. xv. 479). At Aricia there was also a Manius Egerius, a male counterpart of Egeria. Her connexion with Diana Nemorensis, herself a birth goddess, is confirmed by the fact that her aid was invoked by pregnant women. She also possessed the gift of prophecy; and the statement (Dion. Halic. ii. 60) that she was one of the Muses is due to her connexion with the Camenae, whose worship was displaced by them.
EGERTON, SIR PHILIP DE MALPAS GREY, Bart. (1806-1881), English palaeontologist, was born on the 13th of November 1806, the son of the 9th baronet. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1828. While at college his interest in geology was aroused by the lectures of W. Buckland, and by his acquaintance with W.D. Conybeare. Subsequently when travelling in Switzerland with Lord Cole (afterwards 3rd earl of Enniskillen) they were introduced to Prof. L. Agassiz at Neufchatel, and determined to make a special study of fossil fishes. During the course of fifty years they gradually gathered together two of the largest and finest of private collections—that of Sir Philip Grey Egerton being at Oulton Park, Tarporley, Cheshire. He described the structure and affinities of numerous species in the publications of the Geological Society of London, the Geological Magazine and the Decades of the Geological Survey; and in recognition of his services the Wollaston medal was awarded to him in 1873 by the Geological Society. He was elected F.R.S. in 1831, and was a trustee of the British Museum. As a member of Parliament he represented the city of Chester in 1830, the southern division of Cheshire from 1835 until 1868, and the western division from 1868 to 1881. He died in London on the 6th of April 1881. His collection of fossil fishes is now in the British Museum.
EGG, AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD (1816-1863), English painter, was born on the 2nd of May 1816 in London, where his father carried on business as a gun-maker. He had some schooling at Bexley, and was not at first intended for the artistic profession; but, developing a faculty in this line, he entered in 1834 the drawing class of Mr Sass, and in 1836 the school of the Royal Academy. His first exhibited picture appeared in 1837 at the Suffolk Street gallery. In 1838 he began exhibiting in the Academy, his subject being a “Spanish Girl”; altogether he sent twenty-seven works to this institution. In 1848 he became an associate and in 1860 a full member of the Academy: he had considerable means, apart from his profession. In 1857 he took a leading part in selecting and arranging the modern paintings in the Art-Treasures Exhibition in Manchester. His constitution being naturally frail, he went in 1853, with Dickens and Wilkie Collins, to Italy for a short trip, and in 1863 he visited Algeria. Here he benefited so far as his chronic lung-disease was concerned; but exposure to a cold wind while out riding brought on an attack of asthma, from which he died on the 26th of March 1863 at Algiers, near which city his remains were buried.
Egg was a gifted and well-trained painter of genre, chiefly in the way of historical anecdote, or of compositions from the poets and novelists. Among his principal pictures may be named: 1843, the “Introduction of Sir Piercie Shafton and Halbert Glendinning” (from Scott’s Monastery); 1846, “Buckingham Rebuffed”; 1848, “Queen Elizabeth discovers she is no longer young”; 1850, “Peter the Great sees Catharine for the first time”; 1854, “Charles I. raising the Standard at Nottingham” (a study); 1855, the “Life and Death of Buckingham”; 1857 and 1858, two subjects from Thackeray’s Esmond; 1858, “Past and Present, a triple picture of a faithless wife”; 1859, the “Night before Naseby”; 1860, his last exhibited work, the Dinner Scene from The Taming of the Shrew. The Tate Gallery contains one of his earlier pictures, Patricio entertaining two Ladies, from the Diable boiteux; it was painted in 1844.