The branches are full of pith, having but little wood: the flowers are monopetalous, divided into several segments, and expand in form of a rose: these are, for the most part, collected into an umbel, and are succeeded by soft succulent berries, having three Miller. seeds in each.

They count him of the green-haired eld. Chap.
Fame's high temple stands;

Stupendous pile; not reared by mortal hands!
Whate'er proud Rome, or artful Greece beheld,
Or elder Babylon, its frame excelled.

Pope.

I lose my patience, and I own it too,
Where works are censured, not as bad, but new;
While, if our elders break all reason's laws,
Those fools demand not pardon but applause.
With musing-deep, astonished stare,
I viewed the heavenly-seeming fair;
A whispering throb did witness bear,
Of kindred sweet,

When with an elder sister's air

Id.

She did me greet. Burns. ELDER, in botany. See SAMBUCUS. ELDERS, OF SENIORS, in ancient Jewish polity, were persons the most considerable for age, experience, and wisdom. Of this sort were the seventy men whom Moses associated with himself in the government; such, likewise, afterwards were those who held the first rank in the synagogue, as presidents.

ELDERS, in the Presbyterian discipline, are officers, who, in conjunction with the ministers and deacons, compose the kirk-session, which formerly used to inspect and regulate matters of religion and discipline; but whose principal business now is to take care of the poor's funds. They are chosen from among the people, and are received publicly with some degree of ceremony. In Scotland, there is an indefinite number of elders in each parish; generally about twelve.

When a vacancy happens, it is filled up by an election made by the remaining members of the session. There is no legal limitation of the number of elders: but the general understanding is, that they are not to be multiplied unnecessarily, and as their office is a gratuitous one, and is attended with some little trouble, there is never much temptation to increase them, except when there is some particular point to be carried. They are commonly selected out of that respectable class of persons who are above the lower orders, and

yet rather below the higher rank of the society of the place, though there is no definite rule, and no absolute exclusion of any body, whose circumstances and character are respectable. The heritors are the proprietors of the real property within the parish. It is by them and their tenants that the sum raised for the maintenance of the poor, called the assessment, must be paid. This assessment is divided between the proprietors, and the tenants, according to rules which it is needless to explain here; but the general import of which is, that the proprietors are entitled to obtain relief of what is laid upon them, to the extent of one-half, from their lessees. These heritors are conjoined with the kirk-sessions, in the administration of the poor's funds; that is, they are legally entitled to act along with them, but, as the first report by the general assembly states, the heritors, in practice, seldom or never interfere in regulating the concerns of the poor or the poor's funds, except in parishes where assessments are levied.' The ordinary funds for the support of the poor, consist of the alms collected at the church door, parochial fines, and other dues, and any sum that may have been gifted to the parish. The last are commonly small; so that the chief fund arises from the church-door collections. The direct tax, called an assessment, is only resorted to when these resources fail. It is in this apparatus that the excellence of the Scottish system is said to consist.

The elders are held to be a class of persons admirably fitted for investigating every claim that can be made for admission upon the poor'sroll. They reside within the parish; they either know the claimant personally, or can easily inquire into his character and circumstances; and they are in that station of life to which such an employment, instead of being nauseous, is a fair ground of parochial power and importance.

ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY, among the ancients, a name given to that of the stoics, because taught at Elea.

ELEATIC SECT. The founder of this sect of philosophers is supposed to have been Xenophanes, who lived about the fifty-sixth Olympiad, or about A. A. C. 350. It was divided into two parties, which may be denominated metaphysical and physical; the one rejecting, and the other approving, the appeal to fact and experiment. Of the former kind were Xenophanes, Parmenides, Melissus, and Zeno of Elea. They are supposed to have maintained principles similar to those of Spinoza; they held the eternity and immutability of the world; that whatever existed was only one being; that there was neither any generation nor corruption; that this one being was immoveable and immutable, and was the true God; and whatever changes seemed to happen in the universe, they considered as mere appearances and illusions of sense. However, some learned men have supposed, that Xenophanes and his followers, speaking metaphysically, understood by the universe or the one being, not the material world, but the originating principle of all things, or the true God, whom they expressly affirm to be incorporeal. Thus Simplicius represents them as merely metaphysical writers, who distinguished between things

I will say positively and resolutely, that it is impossible an elective monarchy should be so free and absolute as an hereditary.

For what is man without a moving mind, Which hath a judging wit, and chusing will? Now if God's power should her election bind,

Id.

Davies.

natural and supernatural; and who made the former to be compounded of different principles. Accordingly, Xenophanes maintained, that the earth consisted of air and fire, that all things were produced out of the earth, and the sun and stars out of clouds, and that there were four ele-Her motions then would cease, and stand all still. ments. Parmenides also distinguished between the doctrine concerning metaphysical objects, called truth, and that concerning physical or corporeal things, called opinion; with respect to the former, there was one immoveable principle, but in the latter two that were moveable, viz. fire and earth, or heat and cold; in which particulars Zeno agreed with him. The other branch of the Eleatic sect were the atomic philosophers, who formed their system from an attention to the phenomena of nature; of these the most considerable were Leucippus, Democritus, and Protagoras.

I was sorry to hear with what partiality, and popular heat, elections were carried in many places.

ELECAMPA'NE, n. s. Lat. helenium. A plant, named also starwort. Botanists enumerate thirty species of this plant.

The Germans have a method of candying elecam-
pane root like ginger, to which they prefer it, and call
it German spice.
Hill's Materia Medica.

ELECAMPANE, in botany. See INULA.
ELECT, v. a., n. s., & adj.`

ELECTION, n. s.
ELECTIONEERING,
ELECTIVE, adj.

ELECTIVELY, adv.

Fr. elire; Ital. eleggere; Span. elegir; Port. eleger; Lat. electus, eligere. To ELECTOR, n. s. choose; select: ELECTORAL, adj. used, theologiELECTORATE, N. S. cally, for God's ELECTORESS, choice of his Son, ELECTRESS. J the Jews, Christians, &c. and in the same sense, as a substantive, for the party or parties chosen. An election, politically, is the ceremony of choosing, or too often of returning only, members of parliament: electioneering, the business, solicitations, or practices, whereby such returns are procured: elective, regulated, or bestowed, by election; exerting choice: elector, one who has a right, or power, to choose to office, or otherwise: electoral, having the right or dignity of elector, applied, in a particular sense, to certain German princes,

whose dominions are called their electorate: electoress, or electress, is the wife, or widow, of an electoral prince.

Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. Bible. Isa. xlii. 1. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? Id. Rom. viii. 33.

If the election of the minister should be committed to every several parish, do you think that they would chuse the meetest?

Whitgift.

You have here, lady,
And of your choice, these reverend fathers,
Yea, the elect of the land, who are assembled
To plead your cause. Shakspeare. Henry VIII.

The wisdom of nature is better than of books: prudence being a wise election of those things which never remain after one and the self-same manner.

King Charles.

It could not but be a great comfort to Aaron, to see his rod thus miraculously flourishing; to see this wonderful testimony of God's favour and election. Bp. Hall's Contemplations. Henry his son is chosen king, though young; And Lewis of France, elected first, beguiled.

Daniel.

A vicious liver, believing that Christ died for none but the elect, shall have attempts made upon him to Hammond. reform and amend his life.

Some I have chosen of peculiar grace,
Elect above the rest; so is my will.
Him, not thy election,

Milton.

Id.

But natural necessity, begot. From the new world her silver and her gold Came, like a tempest, to confound the old; Feeding with these the bribed electors' hopes, Alone she gave us emperors and popes. Waller. To talk of compelling a man to be good, is a contradiction; for where there is force, there can be no choice: whereas all moral goodness consisteth in the elective act of the understanding will.

Grew's Cosmologia Sacra. They work not electively, or upon proposing to themId. selves an end of their operations.

Thus while they speed their pace, the prince designs

The new elected seat, and draws the lines. Dryden.

The last change of their government, from elective to hereditary, has made it seem hitherto of less force, Temple.

and unfitter for action abroad.

Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and newmodel the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security?

Locke.

How or why that should have such an influence

upon the spirits, as to drive them into those muscles electively, I am not subtle enough to discern.

Ray on the Creation. As charity is, nothing can more increase, the lustre and beauty than a prudent election of objects, and a fit application of it to them. Sprat.

You see in elections for members to sit in parliament, how far saluting rows of old women, drinking with clowns, and being upon a level with the lowest part of mankind, in that wherein they themselves are lowest, their diversions, will carry a candidate.

Steele.

He has a great and powerful king for his son-inlaw; and can himself command, when he pleases, the whole strength of an electorate in the empire.

Addison's Freeholder.
Since the late dissolution of the club, many persons
put up for the next election.
Id. Spectator.

He calls upon the sinners to turn themselves and live; he tells us that he has set before us life and death, and referred it to our own election which we will chuse. Rogers.

The conceit about absolute election to eternal life, some enthusiasts entertaining, have been made remiss in the practice of virtue. Atterbury.

Counties could neither be purchased nor intimidated. But their solemn determined election may be rejected; and the man they detest may be appointed by another choice, to represent them in parliament. Junius.

Man, thus endued with an elective voice, Must be supplied with objects of his choice; Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight, Or present, or in prospect, meet his sight.

Cowper. There are not, in this island, one million of persons who have a vote in electing parliament-men: and yet, in this island, there are eight millions of persons who must obey the law.

The act of parliament settled the crown electress Sophia and her descendants.

Beattie.

on the Burke.

ELECTION, in British polity, is the people's choice of their representatives in parliament. See PARLIAMENT. In this consists the exercise of the democratical part of our constitution: for in a democracy there can be no exercise of sovereignty but by suffrage, which is the declaration of the people's will. In all democracies, therefore, it is of the utmost importance to regulate by whom and in what manner, the suffrages are to be given. And the Athenians were so justly jealous of this prerogative, that a stranger, who interfered in the assemblies of the people, was punished with death, being esteemed guilty of high treason, by usurping those rights of sovereignty to which he had no title. In Britain,' says Blackstone, where the people do not debate in a collective body, but by representation, the exercise of this sovereignty consists in the choice of representatives. The laws have therefore very strictly guarded against the usurpation or abuse of this power, by many salutary provisions; which may be reduced to these three points, 1. The qualifications of the electors. 2. The qualifications of the elected. 3. The proceedings at elections.

immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications; whereby some, who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting, in order to set other individuals, whose will may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other. And this constitution of suffrages is framed upon a wiser principle, with us, than either of the methods of voting, by centuries or by tribes, among the Romans. In the method by centuries, instituted by Servius Tullius, it was principally property, and not numbers, that turned the scale; in the method by tribes, gradually introduced by the tribunes of the people, numbers only were regarded, and property entirely overlooked. Hence the laws passed by the former method had usually too great a tendency to aggrandise the patricians or rich nobles: and those by the latter had too much of a levelling principle.

Our constitution steers between the two extremes. Only such are entirely excluded as can have no will of their own: there is hardly a free agent to be found, but what is entitled to a vote in some place or other in the kingdom. Nor is comparative wealth or property entirely disregarded in elections; for though the richest man has only one vote at one place, yet, if his property be at all diffused, he has probably a right to vote at more places than one, and therefore has many representatives. This is the spirit of our constitution: not that we assert it is in fact so perfect as we have endeavoured to describe it; for, if any alteration might be wished or suggested in the present form of parliaments, it should be in favor of a more complete representation of the people. But to return to the qualifications; and first, those of elections for knights of the shire. 1. By stat. 8 Hen. VI. c. 7 and 10, Hen. VI. c. 2. (amended by 14 Geo. III. c. 58), the knights of the shire shall be chosen of people, whereof every man shall have freehold to the value of forty shillings by the year within the county; which (by subsequent statutes) is to be clear of all charges and deductions, except parliamentary and parochial taxes. The knights of shires are the representatives of the landholders, or landed interests of the kingdom: their electors must therefore have estates in lands or tenements within the county represented. These estates must As to the Qualification of Electors.-The true be freehold, that is, for term of life at least; bereason of requiring any qualification, with re- cause beneficial leases for long terms of years gard to property, in voters, is to exclude such were not in use at the making of these statutes, persons as are in so mean a situation, that they and copyholders were then little bette" than vilare esteemed to have no will of their own. If leins, absolutely dependent upon their lords. these persons had votes, they would be tempted This freehold must be of forty shillings annual to dispose of them under some undue influence value; because that sum would then, with proor other. This would give a great, an artful, or per industry, furnish all the necessaries of life, a wealthy man, a larger share in elections than and render the freeholder, if he pleased, an inis consistent with general liberty. If it were dependent man; for bishop Fleetwood, in his probable that every man would give his vote Chronicon Pretiosum, written at the beginning freely, and without influence of any kind; then, of the eighteenth century, has fully proved forty upon the true theory and genuine principles of shillings in the reign of Henry VI. to have been liberty, every member of the community, how- equal to £12 per annum in the reign of queen ever poor, should have a vote in electing those Anne; and, as the value of money is very condelegates to whose charge is committed the dis- siderably lowered since the bishop wrote, we posal of his property, his liberty, and his life. may fairly conclude, from this and other circumBut since that can hardly be expected in persons stances, that what was equivalent to £12 in his of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the days, is equivalent to £30 at present. The other