of heaven when they
first flew into being at the voice of the Creator.
--Klopstock, _The Messiah_, i. (1748).

ELOI (_St._), that is, St. Louis. The kings of France were called
Loys up to the time of Louis XIII. Probably the "delicate oath" of
Chaucer's prioress, who was a French scholar "after the scole of
Stratford-atte-Bowe," was St. Loy, _i.e._ St. Louis, and not St. Eloi
the patron saint of smiths and artists. St.

Eloi was bishop of Noyon in the reign of Dagobert, and a noted
craftsman in gold and silver. (Query, "Seint Eloy" for Seinte Loy?)

Ther was also a nonne, a prioresse,
That of hire smiling was full simp' and coy,
Hire greatest othe was but by Seint Eloy!

Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ (1388).

ELOPS. There was a fish so-called, but Milton uses the word
(_Paradise Lost_, x. 525) for the dumb serpent or serpent which gives
no warning of its approach by hissing or otherwise. (Greek, _ellops_,
"mute or dumb.")

ELOQUENCE (_The Four Monarchs of_): (1) Demonsthenes, the Greek orator
(B.C. 385-322); (2) Cicero, the Roman orator (B.C. 106-43); (3) Burke,
the English orator (1730-1797); (4) Webster, the American orator
(1782-1852).

ELOQUENT (_That old Man_), Isocrates, the Greek orator. When he heard
that the battle of Chaeronea was lost, and that Greece was no longer
free, he died of grief.

That dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,
Killed with report that Old Man Eloquent.

Milton, _Sonnet_ ix.

In the United States the term was freely applied to John Quincy Adams,
in the latter years of his life.

ELOQUENT DOCTOR (_The_), Peter Aurelolus, archbishop of Aix
(fourteenth century).

ELPINUS, Hope personified. He was "clad in sky-like blue" and the
motto of his shield was "I hold by being held." He went attended by
Pollicita (_promise_). Fully described in canto ix. (Greek, _elpis_,
"hope.")--Phineas Fletcher, _The Purple Island_ (1633).

ELSA. German maiden, accused of having killed her little brother.
At her trial a knight appears, drawn by a swan, champions her and
vanquishes her accuser. Elsa weds him (Lohengrin) promising never to
ask of his country or family. She breaks the vow; the swan appears and
bears him away from her.--_Lohengrin_ Opera, by Richard Wagner.

ELSHENDER THE RECLUSE, called "the Canny Elshie" or the "Wise Wight of
Mucklestane Moor." This is "the black dwarf," or Sir Edward Mauley,
the hero of the novel.--Sir W. Scott, _The Black Dwarf_ (t