m. The slope of the river, moreover, is taken in its winding course; and

if it is 4 in. per mile, the slope of the axis of the valley parallel to which the canals may be made to flow is at least 6 in. per mile, so that a canal with a slope of 2 in. gains 4 in. per mile.

The system of having one canal overlapping another has one difficulty to contend with. Occasionally the desert cliffs and slopes come right down to the river, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to carry the higher-level canals past these obstructions. It should also be noticed that on the higher strip bordering the river it is the custom to take advantage of its nearness to raise water by pumps, or other machinery, and thereby to grow valuable crops of sugar-cane, maize or vegetables. When the river rises, these crops, which often form a very important part of the year's produce and are termed _Nabari_, are still in the ground, and they require water in moderate and regulated quantities, in contradistinction to the wholesale flooding of the flats beyond. Fig. 3 will serve to explain this system of irrigation, the firm lines representing canals, the dotted lines embankments. It will be seen, beginning on the east or right bank of the river, that a high-level canal from an upper system is carried past a steep slope, where perhaps it is cut entirely out of rock, and it divides into two. The right branch waters all the desert slopes within its reach and level. The left branch passes, by a syphon aqueduct, under what is the main canal of the system, taken from the river close at hand (and therefore at a lower level). This left branch irrigates the _Nabari_ on the high lands bordering the river. In years of very favourable flood this high-level canal would not be wanted at all; the irrigation could be done from the main canal, and with this great advantage, that the main canal water would carry with it much more fertilizing matter than would be got from the tail of the high-level canal, which left the river perhaps 25 m. up. The main canal flows freely over the flats C and D, and, if the flood is good, over B and part of A. It is carried round the next desert point, and to the north becomes the high-level canal. The masonry works required for this system are a syphon to pass the high level under the main canal near its head, bridges fitted with sluices where each canal passes under an embankment, and an escape weir at the tail of the system, just south of the desert point, to return surplus water to the river. Turning to the left bank, there is the same high-level canal from the upper system irrigating the basins K, P and L, as well as the large basin E in such years as it cannot be irrigated from the main canal. Here there are two main canals--one following the river, irrigating a series of smaller basins, and throwing out a branch to its left, the other passing under the desert slopes and supplying the basins F, G, H and S. For this system two syphons will be required near the head, regulating bridges under all the embankments, and an escape weir back into the river.

In the years following 1888 about 100 new masonry works of this kind were built in Upper Egypt, nearly 400 m. of new canal were dug, and nearly 300 m. of old canal were enlarged and deepened. The result has been, as already stated, that with a complete failure of the Nile flood the loss to the country has been trifling compared with that of 1877.

Assiut Weir and Esna Barrage.

The first exception in Upper Egypt to the basin system of irrigation was due to the Khedive Ismail. The khedive, having acquired vast estates in the provinces of Assiut, Miniah, Beni-Suef and the Fayum, resolved to grow sugar-cane on a very large scale, and with this object constructed a very important perennial canal, named the Ibrahimia, taking out of the left bank of the Nile at the town of Assiut, and flowing parallel to the river for about 200 m., with an important branch which irrigates the Fayum. This canal was badly constructed, and by entirely blocking the drainage of the valley did a great deal of harm to the lands. Most of its defects had been remedied, but one remained. There being at its head no weir across the Nile, the water in the Ibrahimia canal used to rise and fall with that of the river, and so the supply was apt to run short during the hottest months, as was the case with the canals of Lower Egypt before the barrage was built. To supply the Ibrahimia canal at all during low Nile, it had been necessary to carry on dredging operations at an annual cost of about L12,000. This has now been rectified, in the same way as in Lower Egypt, by the construction of a weir across the Nile, intended to give complete control over the river and to raise the water-surface 8.2 ft. The Assiut weir is constructed on a design very similar to that of the barrage in Lower Egypt. It consists of a bridge of 111 arches, each 5 metres span, with piers of 2 metres thickness. In each arch are fitted two gates. There is a lock 80 metres long and 16 metres wide at the left or western end of the weir, and adjoining it are the regulating sluices of the Ibrahimia canal. The Assiut weir across the Nile is just about half a mile long. The work was begun at the end of 1898 and finished early in 1902--in time to avert over a large area the disastrous effects which would otherwise have resulted from the low Nile of that year. The money value of the crops saved by the closing of the weir was not less than LE690,000. The conversion of the lands north of Assiut from basin to perennial irrigation began immediately after the completion of the Assiut weir and was finished by the end of 1908. To render the basin lands of the Kena province independent of the flood being bad or good, another barrage was built across the Nile at Esna at a cost of L1,000,000. This work was begun in 1906 and completed in 1909.

Storage.

These works, as well as that in Lower Egypt, are intended to raise the water-surface above it, and to control the distribution of its supply, but in no way to store that supply. The idea of ponding up the superfluous flood discharge of the river is not a new one, and if Herodotus is to be believed, it was a system actually pursued at a very early period of Egyptian history, when Lake Moeris in the Fayum was filled at each Nile flood, and drawn upon as the river ran down. When British engineers first undertook the management of Egyptian irrigation many representations were made to them of the advantage of storing the Nile water; but they consistently maintained that before entering on that subject it was their duty to utilize every drop of the water at their disposal. This seemed all the more evident, as at that time financial reasons made the construction of a costly Nile dam out of the question. Every year, however, between 1890 and 1902 the supply of the Nile during May and June was actually exhausted, no water at all flowing then out into the sea. In these years, too, owing to the extension of drainage works, the irrigable area of Egypt was greatly enlarged, so that if perennial cultivation was at all to be increased, it was necessary to increase the volume of the river, and this could only be done by storing up the flood supply. The first difficulty that presented itself in carrying this out, was that during the months of highest flood the Nile is so charged with alluvial matter that to pond it up then would inevitably lead to a deposit of silt in the reservoir, which would in no great number of years fill it up. It was found, however, that the flood water was comparatively free from deposit by the middle of November, while the river was still so high that, without injuring the irrigation, water might go on being stored up until March. Accordingly, when it was determined to construct a dam, it was decided that it should be supplied with sluices large enough to discharge unchecked the whole volume of the river as it comes down until the middle of November, and then to begin the storage.

The Assuan Dam.

The site selected for the great Nile dam was at the head of the First Cataract above Assuan. A dyke of syenite granite here crosses the valley, so hard that the river had nowhere scoured a deep channel through it, and so it was found possible to construct the dam entirely in the open air, without the necessity of laying under-water foundations. The length of the dam is about 6400 ft.--nearly 1(1/4) m. The greatest head of water in it is 65 ft. It is pierced by 140 under-sluices of 150 sq. ft. each, and by 40 upper-sluices, each of 75 sq. ft. These, when fully open, are capable of discharging the ordinary maximum Nile flood of 350,000 cub. ft. per second, with a velocity of 15.6 ft. per second and a head of 6.6 ft. The top width of the dam is 23 ft., the bottom width at the deepest part about 82 ft. On the left flank of the dam there is a canal, provided with four locks, each 262 by 31 ft. in area, so that navigation is possible at all seasons. The storage capacity of the reservoir is about 3,750,000 millions of cub. ft., which creates a lake extending up the Nile Valley for about 200 m. The reservoir is filled yearly by March; after that the volume reaching the reservoir from the south is passed on through the sluices. In May, or earlier when the river is late in rising, when the demand for water increases, first the upper and then the under sluices are gradually opened, so as to increase the river supply, until July, when all the gates are open, to allow of the free passage of the flood. On the 10th of December 1902 this magnificent work was completed. The engineer who designed it was Sir W. Willcocks. The contractors were Messrs John Aird & Co., the contract price being L2,000,000. The financial treaties in which the Egyptian government were bound up prevented their ever paying so large a sum as this within five years; but a company was formed in London to advance periodically the sum due to the contractors, on receipt from the government of Egypt of promissory notes to pay sixty half-yearly instalments of L78,613, beginning on the 1st of July 1903. Protective works downstream of the dam were completed in 1906 at a cost of about LE304,000. It had been at first intended to raise the dam to a height which would have involved the submergence, for some months of every year, of the Philae temples, situated on an island just upstream of the dam. Had the natives of Egypt been asked to choose between the preservation of Ptolemy's famed temple and the benefit to be derived from a considerable additional depth of water storage, there can be no question that they would have preferred the latter; but they were not consulted, and the classical sentiment and artistic beauty of the place, skilfully pleaded by archaeologists and artists, prevailed. In 1907, however, it was decided to carry out the plan as originally proposed and raise the dam 26 ft. higher. This would increase the storage capacity 2(1/2) times, or to about 9,375,000 millions of cubic feet.

There is no middle course of farming in Egypt between irrigation and desert. No assessment can be levied on lands which have not been watered, and the law of Egypt requires that in order to render land liable to taxation the water during the Nile flood must have flowed naturally over it. It is not enough that it should be pumped on to the land at the expense of the landowner. The tax usually levied is from L1 to L2 per acre.

See Sir W. Willcocks, _Egyptian Irrigation_ (2nd ed., 1899); Sir C. C. Scott-Moncrieff, _Lectures on Irrigation in Egypt. Professional Papers on the Corps of Royal Engineers_, vol. xix. (London, 1893); Sir W. Garstin, _Report upon the Basin of the Upper Nile_. Egypt No. 2 (1904).

V. _India._--Allusion has already been made to the irrigation of India. The year 1878, which saw the end of a most disastrous famine, may be considered as the commencement of a new era as regards irrigation. It had at last been recognized that such famines must be expected to occur at no very long intervals of time, and that the cost of relief operations must not be met by increasing the permanent debt on the country, but by the creation of a famine relief and a famine insurance fund. For this purpose it was fixed that there should be an annual provision of [R]x. 1,500,000, to be spent on: (1) relief, (2) protective works, (3) reduction of debt. Among protective works the first place was given to works of irrigation. These works were divided into three classes: (i.) productive works; (ii.) protective works; (iii.) minor works.

Productive works, as their name implies, are such as may reasonably be expected to be remunerative, and they include all the larger irrigation systems. Their capital cost is provided from loan funds, and not from the relief funds mentioned above. In the seventeen years ending 1896-1897 the capital expenditure on such works was [R]x. 10,954,948, including a sum of [R]x. 1,742,246 paid to the Madras Irrigation Company as the price of the Kurnool-Cuddapah canal, a work which can never be financially productive, but which nevertheless did good service in the famine of 1896-1897 by irrigating 87,226 acres. In the famine year 1877-1878 the area irrigated by productive canals was 5,171,497 acres. In the famine year 1896-1897 the area was 9,571,779 acres, including an area of 123,087 acres irrigated on the Swat river canal in the Punjab. The revenue of the year 1879-1880 was nearly 6% on the capital outlay. In 1897-1898 it was 7(1/2)%. In the same seventeen years [R]x. 2,099,253 were spent on the construction of protective irrigation works, not expected to be directly remunerative, but of great value during famine years. On four works of this class were spent [R]x. 1,649,823, which in 1896-1897 irrigated 200,733 acres, a valuable return then, although in an ordinary year their gross revenue does not cover their working expenses. Minor works may be divided into those for which capital accounts have been kept and those where they have not. In the seventeen years ending 1896-1897, [R]x. 827,214 were spent on the former, and during that year they yielded a return of 9.13%. In the same year the irrigation effected by minor works of all sorts showed the large area of 7,442,990 acres. Such are the general statistics of outlay, revenue and irrigated area up to the end of 1896-1897. The government might well be congratulated on having through artificial means ensured in that year of widespread drought and famine the cultivation of 27,326 sq. m., a large tract even in so large a country as India. And progress has been steadily made in subsequent years.

Some description will now be given of the chief of these irrigation works. Beginning with the Punjab, the province in which most progress has been made, the great Sutlej canal, which irrigates the country to the left of that river, was opened in 1882, and the Western Jumna canal (perhaps the oldest in India) was extended into the dry Hissar and Sirsa districts, and generally improved so as to increase by nearly 50% its area of irrigation between 1878 and 1897. Perhaps this is as much as can well be done with the water at command for the country between the Sutlej and the Jumna, and it is enough to secure it for ever from famine. The Bari Doab canal, which irrigates the Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Lahore districts, has been enlarged and extended so as to double its irrigation since it was projected in 1877-1878. The Chenab canal, the largest in India and the most profitable, was only begun in 1889. It was designed to command an area of about 2(1/2) million acres, and to irrigate annually rather less than half that area. This canal flows through land that in 1889 was practically desert. From the first arrangements were made for bringing colonists in from the more congested parts of India. The colonization began in 1892. Nine years later this canal watered 1,830,525 acres. The population of the immigrant colony was 792,666, consisting mainly of thriving and prosperous peasants with occupancy rights in holdings of about 28 acres each. The direct revenue of this canal in 1906 was 26% on the capital outlay. The Jhelum canal was opened on the 30th of October, 1901. It is a smaller work than the Chenab, but it is calculated to command 1,130,000 acres, of which at least half will be watered annually. A much smaller work, but one of great interest, is the Swat river canal in the Peshawar valley. It was never expected that this would be a remunerative work, but it was thought for political reasons expedient to construct it in order to induce turbulent frontier tribes to settle down into peaceful agriculture. This has had a great measure of success, and the canal itself has proved remunerative, irrigating 123,000 acres in 1896-1897. A much greater scheme than any of the above is that of the Sind Sagar canal, projected from the left bank of the Indus opposite Kalabagh, to irrigate 1,750,000 acres at a cost of [R]x. 6,000,000. Another great canal scheme for the Punjab proposed to take off from the right bank of the Sutlej, and to irrigate about 600,000 acres in the Montgomery and Multan districts, at a cost of [R]x. 2,500,000. These three last projects would add 2,774,000 acres to the irrigated area of the province, and as they would flow through tracts almost unpeopled, they would afford a most valuable outlet for the congested districts of northern India. In addition to these great perennial canals, much has been done since 1878 in enlarging and extending what are known as the "inundation canals" of the Punjab, which utilize the flood waters in the rivers during the monsoon season and are dry at other times. By these canals large portions of country throughout most of the Punjab are brought under cultivation, and the area thus watered has increased from about 180,000 to 500,000 acres since 1878.

It is on inundation canals such as these that the whole cultivation of Sind depends. In 1878 the area was about 1,500,000 acres; in 1896-1897 it had increased to 2,484,000 acres. This increase was not due to famine in Sind, for that rainless province depends always on the Indus, as Egypt does on the Nile, and where there is no rainfall there can be no drought. But the famine prices obtained for agricultural produce doubtless gave an impetus to cultivation. In Sind, too, there is room for much increase of irrigation. It has been proposed to construct two new canals, the Jamrao and the Shikarpur, and to improve and extend three existing canals--Nasrat, Naulakhi and Dad. The total cost of these five projects, some of which are now in progress, was estimated at [R]x. 1,596,682, and the extension of irrigation at 660,563 acres.

Turning from the basin of the Indus to that of the Ganges, the commissioners appointed to report on the famine of 1896-1897 found that in the country between the Ganges and the Jumna little was left to be done beyond the completion of some distributary channels. The East India Company's great work, the Ganges canal, constructed between 1840 and 1854 before there was a mile of railway open in India, still holds its place unsurpassed among later irrigation work for boldness of design and completeness of execution, a lasting monument to the genius of Sir Proby Cautley, an officer of the Bengal Artillery, but a born engineer. Ever since 1870 consideration has been given to projects for irrigating the fertile province of Oudh by means of a great canal to be drawn from the river Sarda. The water is there in abundance, the land is well adapted for irrigation, but as there is a considerable rainfall, it is doubtful whether the scheme would prove remunerative, and a large section of the landowners have hitherto opposed it, as likely to waterlog the country. Among the four protective works of irrigation which were said above to have irrigated 200,733 acres in 1896-1897, one of the most important is the Betwa canal, in the parched district of Bundelkhand. This canal has cost [R]x. 428,086, and causes an annual loss to the state in interest and working expenses of about [R]x. 20,000. It irrigated, however, in 1896-1897 an area of 87,306 acres, raising crops valued at [R]x. 231,081, or half the cost of the canal, so it may be said to have justified its construction. A similar canal from the river Ken in the same district has been constructed. Proceeding farther east, we find very satisfactory progress in the irrigation of southern Behar, effected by the costly system of canals drawn from the river Sone. In 1877-1878 these canals irrigated 241,790 acres. Rapid progress was not expected here, and 792,000 acres was calculated as being the maximum area that could be covered with the water supply available. In the five years preceding 1901-1902 the average irrigated area was 463,181 acres, and during that year the area was 555,156 acres, the maximum ever attained.

The canal system of Orissa was never expected to be remunerative, since in five years out of six the local rainfall is sufficient for the rice crop. In 1878-1879 the area irrigated was 111,250 acres, and the outlay up to date was [R]x. 1,750,000. In 1900-1901 the area was 203,540 acres, the highest ever attained, and the capital outlay amounted to [R]x. 2,623,703. It should be mentioned in favour of these canals that although the irrigation is not of yearly value, they supply very important water communication through a province which, from its natural configuration, is not likely to be soon intersected by railways. If, moreover, such a famine were again to occur in Orissa as that of 1866-1867, there would be no doubt of the value of these fine canals.

In the Madras presidency and in Mysore irrigation has long assumed a great importance, and the engineering works of the three great deltas of the Godavari, Kistna and Cauvery, the outcome of the genius and indefatigable enthusiasm of Sir Arthur Cotton, have always been quoted as showing what a boon irrigation is to a country. In 1878 the total area of irrigation in the Madras presidency amounted to about 5,000,000 acres. The irrigation of the eight productive systems was 1,680,178 acres, and the revenue [R]x. 739,778. In 1898 there were ten of these systems, with an irrigation area, as shown by the accompanying table, of 2,685,915 acres, and a revenue of [R]x. 1,163,268:

+-----------------------+----------+----------+---------+----------+----------+-----------+ | | | | | | Capital |Percentage | | Irrigation. | Area | Total | Total | Net | and | of Net | | | Watered. | Revenue. | Expendi-| Revenue. | Indirect | Revenue | | | | | ture. | | Charges. |to Capital.| +-----------------------+----------+----------+---------+----------+----------+-----------+ | _Major Works._ | Acres. | [R]x. | [R]x. | [R]x. | [R]x. | | | 1. Godavari Delta | 779,435 | 328,443 | 68,376 | 260,067 |1,297,807 | 19.15 | | 2. Kistna Delta | 520,373 | 254,579 | 74,142 | 180,437 |1,319,166 | 13.18 | | 3. Pennar Weir System | 70,464 | 28,160 | 5,937 | 23,123 | 189,919 | 7.59 | | 4. Sangam System | 76,277 | 32,627 | 7,037 | 25,590 | 385,601 | 3.68 | | 5. Kurnool Canal | 47,008 | 15,622 | 12,404 | 3,218 |2,171,740 | .15 | | 6. Barur Tank System | 4,421 | 1,162 | 385 | 777 | 4,250 | 1.39 | | 7. Cauvery Delta | 989,808 | 434,346 | 43,464 | 390,882 | 199,458 | 44.87 | | 8. Srivaikuntam System| 41,668 | 19,349 | 4,680 | 14,669 | 147,192 | 5.45 | | 9. Periyar Project | 89,143 | 37,526 | 10,751 | 26,775 | 852,914 | .27 | |10. Rushikulya Canal | 67,318 | 11,454 | 3,678 | 7,776 | 464,423 | .54 | | +----------+----------+---------+----------+----------+-----------+ | Total |2,685,915 |1,163,268 |229,954 | 933,314 |7,032,470 | 7.88 | | | | | | | | | | _Minor Works._ | | | | | | | |23 Works for which | | | | | | | | Capital and Revenue | | | | | | | | Accounts are kept | 535,813 | 200,558 | 34,655 | 165,903 |1,693,878 | 4.44 | |Minor Works for which | | | | | | | | such Accounts are | | | | | | | | not kept |3,131,009 | 830,175 |193,295 | 636,880 | .. | .. | | +----------+----------+---------+----------+----------+-----------+ | Grand Total |6,352,737 |2,194,001 |457,904 |1,736,097 | .. | .. | +-----------------------+----------+----------+---------+----------+----------+-----------+

In the three great deltas, and the small southern one that depends on the Srivaikuntam weir over the river Tumbraparni, extension and improvement works have been carried on. The Sangam and Pennar systems depend on two weirs on the river Pennar in the Nellore district, the former about 18 m. above and the latter just below the town of Nellore. The former irrigates on the left, the latter on the right bank of the river. This district suffered severely in the famine of 1877-1878, and the irrigation works were started in consequence. The Barur tank system in the Salem district was also constructed after the famine of 1877-1878. As yet it has not fulfilled expectations. The Periyar scheme has for its object both the addition of new irrigation and the safeguarding of that which exists in the district of Madura, a plain watered by means of a great number of shallow tanks drawing their supply from a very uncertain river, the Vaigai. This river takes its rise on the eastern slopes of the Ghat range of mountains, and just opposite to it, on the western face of the range, is the source of the river Periyar. The rainfall on the west very much exceeds that on the east, and the Periyar used to find its way by a short torrent course to the sea, rendering no service to mankind. Its upper waters are now stemmed by a masonry dam 178 ft. high, forming a large lake, at the eastern end of which is a tunnel 5700 ft. long, piercing the watershed and discharging 1600 cub. ft. per second down the eastern side of the mountains into the river Vaigai. No bolder or more original work of irrigation has been carried out in India, and the credit of it is due to Colonel J. Pennycuick, C.S.I. The dam and tunnel were works of unusual difficulty. The country was roadless and uninhabited save by wild beasts, and fever and cholera made sad havoc of the working parties; but it was successfully accomplished. The last of those given in the table above was not expected to be remunerative, but it should prove a valuable protective against famine. The system consists of weirs over the rivers Gulleri, Mahanadi and Rushikulya in the backward province of Ganjam, south of Orissa. From these weirs flow canals altogether about 127 m. long, which, in connexion with two large reservoirs, are capable of irrigating 120,000 acres. In 1901 the works, though incomplete, already irrigated 67,318 acres.

In addition to all these great engineering systems, southern India is covered with minor works of irrigation, some drawn from springs in the sandy beds of rivers, some from the rainfall of 1/2 sq. m. ponded up in a valley. In other cases tanks are fed from neighbouring streams, and the greatest ingenuity is displayed in preventing the precious water from going to waste.

Allusion has been already made to the canals of Sind. Elsewhere in the Bombay presidency, in the Deccan and Gujarat, there are fewer facilities for irrigation than in other parts of India. The rivers are generally of uncertain volume. The cost of storage works is very great. The population is backward, and the black soil is of a nature that in ordinary years can raise fair crops of cotton, millet and maize without artificial watering. Up to the end of 1896-1897 the capital spent on the irrigation works of the Deccan and Gujarat was [R]x. 2,616,959. The area irrigated that year was 262,830 acres. The most important works are the Mutha and Nira canals in the Poona district.

In Upper Burma three productive irrigation works were planned at the opening of the century--the Mandalay, the Shwebo, and the Mon canals, of which the first was estimated to cost [R]x. 323,280, and to irrigate 72,000 acres. The area estimated from the whole three projects is 262,000 acres, situated in the only part of Burma that is considered liable to famine.

In 1901, after years of disastrous drought and famine, the government of India appointed a commission to examine throughout all India what could be done by irrigation to alleviate the horrors of famine. Up to that time it had been the principle of the government not to borrow money for the execution of irrigation works unless there was a reasonable expectation that within a few years they would give a return of 4 or 5% on the capital outlay. In 1901 the government took larger views. It was found that although some irrigation works (especially in the Bombay Deccan) would never yield a direct return of 4 or 5%, still in a famine year they might be the means of producing a crop which would go far to do away with the necessity for spending enormous sums on famine relief. In the Sholapur district of Bombay, for instance, about three years' revenue was spent on relief during the famine of 1901. An expenditure of ten years' revenue on irrigation works might have done away for all future time with the necessity for the greater part of this outlay. The Irrigation Commission of 1901-1903 published a very exhaustive report after a careful study of every part of India. While emphatically asserting that irrigation alone could never prevent famine, they recommended an outlay of L45,000,000 spread over a period of 25 years.

See also _Annual Reports Irrigation Department Local Governments of India_; _Reports of the Indian Famine Commissions of 1878, 1898 and 1901_; Sir Hanbury Brown, _Irrigation, its Principles and Practice_ (London, 1907).

VI. _United States._--At the opening of the 20th century, during Mr Roosevelt's presidency, the new "Conservation" policy (i.e. conservation of natural resources by federal initiative and control), to which he gave so much impetus and encouragement, brought the extension of irrigation works in the United States to the front in American statecraft (see Vrooman, _Mr Roosevelt, Dynamic Geographer_, 1909). Though the carrying out of this policy on a large scale was hampered by many difficulties, the subject was made definitely one of national importance.

On account of the aridity of the climate throughout the greater part of the western third of the United States, the practice of agriculture is dependent upon an artificial supply of water. On most of the country west of the 97th meridian and extending to the Pacific Ocean less than 20 in. of rain falls each year. The most notable exceptions are in the case of a narrow strip west of the Cascade Range and of some of the higher mountain masses. In ordinary years the climate is too dry for successful cultivation of the field crops, although under favourable conditions of soil and cultivation there are certain areas where cereals are grown by what is known as "dry farming." The progress in irrigation up to the end of the 19th century was spasmodic but on the whole steady. The eleventh census of the United States, 1890, showed that 3,564,416 acres were irrigated in 1889. This included only the lands from which crops were produced. Besides this, there were probably 10 million acres under irrigation systems constructed in whole or in part. In 1899 the irrigated area in the arid states and territories was more than twice as great as in 1889, the acreage being as follows:--

Arizona 185,936 California 1,445,872 Colorado 1,611,271 Idaho 602,568 Montana 951,154 Nevada 504,168 New Mexico 203,893 Oregon 388,310 Utah 629,293 Washington 135,470 Wyoming 605,878 --------- Total 7,263,813

In addition to the area above given, in 1899, 273,117 acres were under irrigation in the semi-arid region, east of the states above mentioned and including portions of the states of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma. The greater part of these lands was irrigated by canals or ditches built by individuals acting singly or in co-operation with their neighbours, or by corporations. The national and state governments had not built any works of reclamation excepting where the federal government, through the Indian department, had constructed irrigation ditches for Indian tribes, notably the Crow Indians of Montana. A few of the state governments, such, for example, as Colorado, had built small reservoirs or portions of canals from internal improvement funds.

The construction of irrigation canals and ditches was for the most part brought about by farmers joining to plough out or dig ditches from the rivers, descending on a gentle grade. Some of the corporations constructing works for the sale of water built structures of notable size, such, for example, as the Sweet-water and Hemet dams of southern California, the Bear river canal of Utah, and the Arizona canal, taking water from Salt river, Arizona. The cost of bringing water to the land averaged about $8 per acre where the ordinary ditches were built. The owners of extensive works were charged from $12 to $20 per acre and upwards for so-called "water rights," or the privilege to take water from the canal, this covering cost of construction. Besides the first cost of construction, the irrigator was usually called upon to pay annually a certain amount for maintenance, which might often be worked out by labour on the canal. The cost ranged from 50 cents to $1 per acre; or, with incorporated companies, from $1.50 to $2.50 per acre and upwards. The largest expense for water rights and for annual maintenance was incurred in southern California, where the character of the crops, such as citrus fruits, and the scarcity of the water make possible expensive construction and heavy charges. The legal expense for the maintenance of water rights was often large because of the interminable suits brought during the times of water scarcity. The laws regarding water in most of the arid states were indefinite or contradictory, being based partly on the common law regarding riparian rights, and partly upon the Spanish law allowing diversion of water from natural streams. Few fundamental principles were established, except in the case of the state of Wyoming, where an official was charged with the duty of ascertaining the amount of water in the streams and apportioning this to the claimants in the order of their priority of appropriation for beneficial use.

It may be said that, up to the year 1900, irrigation progressed to such an extent that there remained few ordinary localities where water could not be easily or cheaply diverted from creeks and rivers for the cultivation of farms. The claims for the available supply from small streams, however, exceeded the water to be had in the latter part of the irrigating season. There remained large rivers and opportunities for water storage which could be brought under irrigation at considerable expense. The large canals and reservoirs built by corporations had rarely been successful from a financial standpoint, and irrigation construction during the latter part of the decade 1890-1899 was relatively small. Owing to the difficulty and expense of securing water from running streams by gravity systems, a great variety of methods were developed of pumping water by windmills, gasoline or hot-air engines, and steam. Ordinary reciprocating pumps were commonly employed, and also air lifts and similar devices for raising great quantities of water to a height of from 20 to 50 ft. For greater depths the cost was usually prohibitive. Throughout the Great Plains region, east of the Rocky Mountains, and in the broad valleys to the west, windmills were extensively used, each pumping water for from 1 to 5 acres of cultivated ground. In a few localities, notably in South Dakota, the Yakima valley of Washington, San Joaquin, and San Bernardino valleys of California, San Luis valley of Colorado, and Utah valley of Utah, water from artesian wells was also used for the irrigation of from 1 to 160 acres. The total acreage supplied by such means was probably less than 1% of that watered by gravity systems.

The development of irrigation was in part retarded by the improper or wasteful use of water. On permeable soils, especially those of the terrace lands along the valleys, the soluble salts commonly known as alkali were gradually leached out and carried by the percolating waters towards the lower lands, where, reaching the surface, the alkali was left as a glistening crust or as pools of inky blackness. Farms adjacent to the rivers were for a time increased in richness by the alkaline salts, which in diffuse form might be valuable plant foods, and then suddenly become valueless when the concentration of alkali had reached a degree beyond that which the ordinary plants would endure.

The situation as regards the further progress of irrigation on a large scale was however dominated in the early years of the 20th century by the new Conservation policy. Mr Roosevelt brought the whole subject before Congress in his message of the 3rd of December 1901, and thereby started what seemed likely to be a new sphere of Federal initiative and control. After referring to the effects of forests (see FORESTS AND FORESTRY) on water-supply, he went on as follows:--

"The forests alone cannot fully regulate and conserve the waters of the arid regions. Great storage works are necessary to equalize the flow of the streams and to save the flood waters. Their construction has been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for private effort. Nor can it be best accomplished by the individual states acting alone.

"Far-reaching interstate problems are involved, and the resources of single states would often be inadequate. It is properly a national function, at least in some of its features. It is as right for the National Government to make the streams and rivers of the arid regions useful by engineering works for water storage, as to make useful the rivers and harbours of the humid regions by engineering works of another kind. The storing of the floods in reservoirs at the headquarters of our rivers is but an enlargement of our present policy of river control, under which levees are built on the lower reaches of the same streams.

"The government should construct and maintain these reservoirs as it does other public works. Where their purpose is to regulate the flow of streams, the water should be turned freely into the channels in the dry season, to take the same course under the same laws as the natural flow.

"The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands presents a different problem. Here it is not enough to regulate the flow of streams. The object of the government is to dispose of the land to settlers who will build homes upon it. To accomplish the object water must be brought within their reach.

"The reclamation and settlement of the arid lands will enrich every portion of our country, just as the settlement of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys brought prosperity to the Atlantic States. The increased demand for manufactured articles will stimulate industrial production, while wider home markets and the trade of Asia will consume the larger food supplies and effectually prevent Western competition with Eastern agriculture. Indeed, the products of irrigation will be consumed chiefly in upbuilding local centres of mining and other industries, which would otherwise not come into existence at all. Our people as a whole will profit, for successful home-making is but another name for the upbuilding of the nation."

In 1902, by Act of Congress, a "reclamation fund" was created from moneys received from the sale of public lands; it was to be used under a "Reclamation Service" (part of the Department of the Interior) for the reclamation of arid lands. The "Truckee-Carson project" for irrigation in Nevada was immediately begun. About thirty other government projects were taken in hand under the new Reclamation Service, in some cases involving highly interesting engineering problems, as in the Uncompahgre Project in Colorado. Here the Uncompahgre and Gunnison rivers flowed parallel, about 10 m. apart, with a mountain range 2000 ft. high between them. The Uncompahgre, with only a small amount of water, flowed through a broad and fertile valley containing several hundred thousand acres of cultivable soil. The Gunnison, with far more water, flowed through a canyon with very little land. The problem was to get the water from the Gunnison over the mountain range into the Uncompahgre valley; and a tunnel, 6 m. long, was cut through, resulting in 1909 in 148,000 acres of land being irrigated and thrown open to settlers. Similarly, near Yuma in Arizona, a project was undertaken for carrying the waters of the main canal on the California side under the Colorado river by a siphon. In the report for 1907 of the Reclamation Service it was stated that it had dug 1881 m. of canals, some carrying whole rivers, like the Truckee river in Nevada and the North Platte in Wyoming, and had erected 281 large structures, including the great dams in Nevada and the Minidoka dam (80 ft. high and 650 ft. long) in Idaho. As the result of the operations eight new towns had been established, 100 m. of branch railroads constructed, and 14,000 people settled in what had been the desert.

A White House conference of governors of states was held at Washington in May 1909, which drew up a "declaration of principles" for the conservation of natural resources, recommending the appointment of a commission by each state to co-operate with one another and with the Federal government; and by the end of the year thirty-six states had appointed Conservation committees. Thus, in the first decade of the 20th century a great advance had been made in the way in which the whole problem was being viewed in America, though the very immensity of the problem of bringing the Federal power to bear on operations on so vast a scale, involving the limitation of private land speculation in important areas, still presented political difficulties of considerable magnitude.

IRULAS ("Benighted ones," from Tamil, _iral_, "darkness"), a semi-Hinduized forest-tribe of southern India, who are found mainly in North Arcot, Chingleput, South Arcot, Trichinopoly, and the Malabar Wynaad. The typical Irulas of the Nilgiris live a wild life on the lower slopes of those hills. At the 1901 census this branch of the Irulas numbered 1915, while the total of so-called Irulas was returned at 86,087.

See J. W. Breeks, _Primitive Tribes of the Nilgiris_ (1873); _Nilgiri Manual_, i. 214-217; _North Arcot Manual_, i. 248-249.

IRUN, a frontier town of northern Spain, in the province of Guipuzcoa, on the left bank of the river Bidassoa, opposite the French village of Hendaye. Pop. (1900) 9912. Irun is the northern terminus of the Spanish Northern railway, and a thriving industrial town, with ironworks, tan-yards, potteries and paper mills. Its principal buildings are the fine Renaissance parish church and the fortress-like 17th-century town hall. It derives its prosperity from the fact that it is the most important custom-house in Spain for the overland trade with the rest of Europe. Irun is also on the chief highway for travellers and mails. It is the terminus of some important narrow-gauge mining railways and steam tramways, which place it in communication with the mining districts of Guipuzcoa and Navarre, and with the valuable oak, pine and beech forests of both provinces. There are hot mineral springs in the town.

IRVINE, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and seaport of Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 9607. It is situated on the north bank of the estuary of the Irvine, 29(1/2) m. S.W. of Glasgow by the Caledonian railway, with a station also on the Glasgow & South Western railway. It is connected with the suburb of Fullarton on the south side of the river by a stone bridge, which was built in 1746 and widened in 1827. Alexander II. granted it a charter, which was confirmed by Robert Bruce. Towards the end of the 17th century it was reckoned the third shipping port in Scotland (Port Glasgow and Leith being the leaders), and though its importance in this respect declined owing to the partial silting-up of the harbour, its water-borne trade revived after 1875, the sandy bar having been removed and the wharfage extended and improved. The public buildings include the town hall, academy (1814) and fever hospital. The principal historical remains are the square tower of Stanecastle and the ancient Seagate Castle, which contains some good specimens of Norman architecture. The industries include engine-making, shipbuilding, iron- and brass-founding, the manufacture of chemicals, brewing and soap-making. Irvine unites with Ayr, Campbeltown, Inveraray and Oban in sending one member to parliament. The exports consist principally of coal, iron and chemical products, and the imports of grain, timber, limestone, ores and general produce. At DREGHORN, 2 m. to the S.E. (pop. 1155) coal and iron are worked.

IRVING, EDWARD (1792-1834), Scottish church divine, generally regarded as the founder of the "Catholic Apostolic Church" (q.v.), was born at Annan, Dumfriesshire, on the 4th of August 1792. By his father's side, who followed the occupation of a tanner, he was descended from a family long known in the district, and the purity of whose Scottish lineage had been tinged by alliance with French Protestant refugees; but it was from his mother's race, the Lowthers, farmers or small proprietors in Annandale, that he seems to have derived the most distinctive features of his personality. The first stage of his education was passed at a school kept by "Peggy Paine," a relation of the well-known author of the _Age of Reason_, after which he entered the Annan academy, taught by Mr Adam Hope, of whom there is a graphic sketch in the _Reminiscences_ of Thomas Carlyle. At the age of thirteen he entered the university of Edinburgh. In 1809 he graduated M.A.; and in 1810, on the recommendation of Sir John Leslie, he was chosen master of an academy newly established at Haddington, where he became the tutor of Jane Welsh, afterwards famous as Mrs Carlyle. He became engaged in 1812 to Isabella Martin, whom in 1823 he married; but it may be at once stated here that meanwhile he gradually fell in love with Jane Welsh, and she with him. He tried to get out of his engagement with Miss Martin, but was prevented by her family. If he had married Miss Welsh, his life, as well as hers, would have been very different. It was Irving who in 1821 introduced Carlyle to her.

His appointment at Haddington he exchanged for a similar one at Kirkcaldy in 1812. Completing his divinity studies by a series of partial sessions, he was "licensed" to preach in June 1815, but continued to discharge his scholastic duties for three years. He devoted his leisure, not only to mathematical and physical science, but to a course of reading in English literature, his bias towards the antique in sentiment and style being strengthened by a perusal of the older classics, among whom Richard Hooker was his favourite author. At the same time his love of the marvellous found gratification in the wonders of the _Arabian Nights_, and it is further characteristically related of him that he used to carry continually in his waistcoat pocket a miniature copy of _Ossian_, passages from which he frequently recited with "sonorous elocution and vehement gesticulation."

In the summer of 1818 he resigned his mastership, and, in order to increase the probability of obtaining a permanent appointment in the church, took up his residence in Edinburgh. Although his exceptional method of address seems to have gained him the qualified approval of certain dignitaries of the church, the prospect of his obtaining a settled charge seemed as remote as ever, and he was meditating a missionary tour in Persia when his departure was arrested by steps taken by Dr Chalmers, which, after considerable delay, resulted, in October 1819, in Irving being appointed his assistant and missionary in St John's parish, Glasgow. Except in the case of a select few, Irving's preaching awakened little interest among the congregation of Chalmers, Chalmers himself, with no partiality for its bravuras and flourishes, comparing it to "Italian music, appreciated only by connoisseurs"; but as a missionary among the poorer classes he wielded an influence that was altogether unique. The benediction "Peace be to this house," with which, in accordance with apostolic usage, he greeted every dwelling he entered, was not inappropriate to his figure and aspect, and it is said "took the people's attention wonderfully," the more especially after the magic of his personality found opportunity to reveal itself in close and homely intercourse. This half-success in a subordinate sphere was, however, so far from coinciding with his aspirations that he had again, in the winter of 1821, begun to turn his attention towards missionary labour in the East, when the possibility of fulfilling the dream of his life was suddenly revealed to him by an invitation from the Caledonian church, Hatton Garden, London, to "make trial and proof" of his gifts before the "remnant of the congregation which held together." Over that charge he was ordained in July 1822. Some years previously he had expressed his conviction that "one of the chief needs of the age was to make inroad after the alien, to bring in the votaries of fashion, of literature, of sentiment, of policy and of rank, who are content in their several idolatries to do without piety to God and love to Him whom He hath sent"; and, with an abruptness which must have produced on him at first an effect almost astounding, he now had the satisfaction of beholding these various votaries thronging to hear from his lips the words of wisdom which would deliver them from their several idolatries and remodel their lives according to the fashion of apostolic times.

This sudden leap into popularity seems to have been occasioned in connexion with a veiled allusion to Irving's striking eloquence made in the House of Commons by Canning, who had been induced to attend his church from admiration of an expression in one of his prayers, quoted to him by Sir James Mackintosh. His commanding stature, the symmetry of his form, the dark and melancholy beauty of his countenance, rather rendered piquant than impaired by an obliquity of vision, produced an imposing impression even before his deep and powerful voice had given utterance to its melodious thunders; and harsh and superficial half-truths enunciated with surpassing ease and grace of gesture, and not only with an air of absolute conviction but with the authority of a prophetic messenger, in tones whose magical fascination was inspired by an earnestness beyond all imitation of art, acquired a plausibility and importance which, at least while the orator spoke, made his audience entirely forgetful of their preconceived objections against them. The subject-matter of his orations, and his peculiar treatment of his themes, no doubt also, at least at first, constituted a considerable part of his attractive influence. He had specially prepared himself, as he thought, for "teaching imaginative men, and political men, and legal men, and scientific men who bear the world in hand"; and he did not attempt to win their attention to abstract and worn-out theological arguments, but discussed the opinions, the poetry, the politics, the manners and customs of the time, and this not with philosophical comprehensiveness, not in terms of warm eulogy or measured blame, but of severe satire varied by fierce denunciation, and with a specific minuteness which was concerned primarily with individuals. A fire of criticism from pamphlets, newspapers and reviews opened on his volume of _Orations_, published in 1823; but the excitement produced was merely superficial and essentially evanescent. Though cherishing a strong antipathy to the received ecclesiastical formulas, Irving's great aim was to revive the antique style of thought and sentiment which had hardened into these formulas, and by this means to supplant the new influences, the accidental and temporary moral shortcomings of which he detected with instinctive certainty, but whose profound and real tendencies were utterly beyond the reach of his conjecture. Being thus radically at variance with the main current of the thought of his time, the failure of the commission he had undertaken was sooner or later inevitable; and shortly after the opening of his new church in Regent Square in 1827, he found that "fashion had taken its departure," and the church, "though always well filled," was "no longer crowded." By this desertion his self-esteem, one of his strongest passions, though curiously united with singular sincerity and humility, was doubtless hurt to the quick; but the wound inflicted was of a deeper and deadlier kind, for it confirmed him finally in his despair of the world's gradual amelioration, and established his tendency towards supernaturalism.

For years the subject of prophecy had occupied much of his thoughts, and his belief in the near approach of the second advent had received such wonderful corroboration by the perusal of the work of a Jesuit priest, writing under the assumed Jewish name of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, that in 1827 he published a translation of it, accompanied with an eloquent preface. Probably the religious opinions of Irving, originally in some respects more catholic and truer to human nature than generally prevailed in ecclesiastical circles, had gained breadth and comprehensiveness from his intercourse with Coleridge, but gradually his chief interest in Coleridge's philosophy centred round that which was mystical and obscure, and to it in all likelihood may be traced his initiation into the doctrine of millenarianism. The first stage of his later development, which resulted in the establishment of the "Irvingite" or "Holy Catholic Apostolic Church," in 1832, was associated with conferences at his friend Henry Drummond's seat at Albury concerning unfulfilled prophecy, followed by an almost exclusive study of the prophetical books and especially of the Apocalypse, and by several series of sermons on prophecy both in London and the provinces, his apocalyptic lectures in 1828 more than crowding the largest churches of Edinburgh in the early summer mornings. In 1830, however, there was opened up to his ardent imagination a new vista into spiritual things, a new hope for the age in which he lived, by the seeming actual revival in a remote corner of Scotland of those apostolic gifts of prophecy and healing which he had already in 1828 persuaded himself had only been kept in abeyance by the absence of faith. At once he welcomed the new "power" with an unquestioning evidence which could be shaken by neither the remonstrances or desertion of his dearest friends, the recantation of some of the principal agents of the "gifts," his own declension into a comparatively subordinate position, the meagre and barren results of the manifestations, nor their general rejection both by the church and the world. His excommunication by the presbytery of London, in 1830, for publishing his doctrines regarding the humanity of Jesus Christ, and the condemnation of these opinions by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the following year, were secondary episodes which only affected the main issue of his career in so far as they tended still further to isolate him from the sympathy of the church; but the "irregularities" connected with the manifestation of the "gifts" gradually estranged the majority of his own congregation, and on the complaint of the trustees to the presbytery of London, whose authority they had formerly rejected, he was declared unfit to remain the minister of the National Scotch Church of Regent Square. After he and those who adhered to him (describing themselves as of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church) had in 1832 removed to a new building in Newman Street, he was in March 1833 deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland by the presbytery of Annan on the original charge of heresy. With the sanction of the "power" he was now after some delay reordained "chief pastor of the church assembled in Newman Street," but unremitting labours and ceaseless spiritual excitement soon completely exhausted the springs of his vital energy. He died, worn out and wasted with labour and absorbing care, while still in the prime of life, on the 7th of December 1834.

The writings of Edward Irving published during his lifetime were _For the Oracles of God, Four Orations_ (1823); _For Judgment to come_ (1823); _Babylon and Infidelity foredoomed_ (1826); _Sermons_, &c. (3 vols., 1828); _Exposition of the Book of Revelation_ (1831); an introduction to a translation of Ben-Ezra; and an introduction to Horne's _Commentary on the Psalms_. His collected works were published in 5 volumes, edited by Gavin Carlyle. See also the article CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

The _Life of Edward Irving_, by Mrs Oliphant, appeared in 1862 in 2 vols. Among a large number of biographies published previously, that by Washington Wilks (1854) has some merit. See also Hazlitt's _Spirit of the Age_; Coleridge's _Notes on English Divines_; Carlyle's _Miscellanies_, and Carlyle's _Reminiscences_, vol. i. (1881).

IRVING, SIR HENRY (1838-1905), English actor, whose original name was John Brodribb, was born at Keinton-Mandeville, Somerset, on the 6th of February 1838. After a few years' schooling he became a clerk to a firm of East India merchants in London, but he soon gave up a commercial career and started as an actor. On the 29th of September 1856 he made his first appearance at Sunderland as Gaston, duke of Orleans, in Bulwer Lytton's _Richelieu_, billed as Henry Irving. This name he eventually assumed by royal licence. For ten years he went through an arduous training in various provincial stock companies, acting in more than five hundred parts. By degrees his ability gained recognition, and in 1866 he obtained an engagement at the St James's Theatre, London, to play Doricourt in _The Belle's Stratagem_. A year later he joined the company of the newly-opened Queen's Theatre, where he acted with Charles Wyndham, J. L. Toole, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, Mr and Mrs Alfred Wigan, Ellen Terry and Nelly Farren. This was followed by short engagements at the Haymarket, Drury Lane and Gaiety. At last he made his first conspicuous success as Digby Grant in James Albery's _The Two Roses_, which was produced at the Vaudeville on the 4th of June 1870 and ran for 300 nights. In 1871 he began his association with the Lyceum Theatre by an engagement under Bateman's management. The fortunes of the house were at a low ebb when the tide was turned by Irving's immediate success as Mathias in _The Bells_, a version of Erckmann-Chatrian's _Le Juif Polonais_ by Leopold Lewis. The play ran for 150 nights. With Miss Bateman, Irving was seen in W. G. Wills's _Charles I._ and _Eugene Aram_, in _Richelieu_, and in 1874 in _Hamlet_. The unconventionality of this last performance, during a run of 200 nights, aroused keen discussion, and singled him out as the most interesting English actor of his day. In 1875, still with Miss Bateman, he was seen as Macbeth; in 1876 as Othello, and as Philip in Tennyson's _Queen Mary_; in 1877 in _Richard III._ and _The Lyons Mail_.

In 1878 Irving opened the Lyceum under his own management. With Ellen Terry as Ophelia and Portia, he revived _Hamlet_ and produced _The Merchant of Venice_ (1879). His Shylock was as much discussed as his Hamlet had been, the dignity with which he invested the Jew marking a departure from the traditional interpretation of the role, and pleasing some as much as it offended others. After the production of Tennyson's _The Cup_, a revival of _Othello_ (in which Irving played Iago to the Othello of Edwin Booth) and of _Romeo and Juliet_, there began a period at the Lyceum which had a potent effect on the English stage. The Lyceum stage management, and the brilliancy of its productions in scenery, dressing and accessories, were revelations in the art of _mise-en-scene_. _Much Ado about Nothing_ (1882) was followed by _Twelfth Night_ (1884), _Olivia_--an adaptation of Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ by W. G. Wills (1885); _Faust_ (1886); _Macbeth_ (1888): _The Dead Heart_, by Watts Phillips (1889); and _Ravenswood_--Herman Merivale's dramatic version of Scott's _Bride of Lammermoor_ (1890). Fine assumptions in 1892 of the characters of Wolsey in _Henry VIII._ and of King Lear were followed in 1893 by a striking and dignified performance of Becket in Tennyson's play of that name. During these years too, Irving, with the whole Lyceum company, paid several visits to America, which met with conspicuous success, and were repeated in succeeding years. The chief remaining novelties at the Lyceum during Irving's sole managership (the theatre passed, at the beginning of 1899, into the hands of a limited liability company) were Comyns Carr's _King Arthur_ in 1895; _Cymbeline_, in which Irving played Iachimo, in 1896; Sardou's _Madame Sans-Gene_ in 1897; _Peter the Great_, a play by Laurence Irving, the actor's second son, in 1898; and Conan Doyle's _Waterloo_ (1894). The new _regime_ at the Lyceum was signalized by the production of Sardou's _Robespierre_ in 1899, in which Irving reappeared after a serious illness, and in 1901 by an elaborate revival of _Coriolanus_. Irving's only subsequent production in London was Sardou's _Dante_ (1903), a vast spectacular drama, staged at Drury Lane. He died "on tour" at Bradford on the 13th of October 1905, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Both on and off the stage Irving always maintained a high ideal of his profession, and in 1895 he received the honour of knighthood, the first ever accorded an actor. He was also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Dublin, Cambridge and Glasgow. His acting, apart from his genius as a presenter of plays, divided criticism, opinions differing as to the extent to which his mannerisms of voice and deportment interfered with or assisted the expression of his ideas. So strongly marked a personality as his could not help giving its own colouring to whatever part he might assume, but the richness and originality of this colouring at its best cannot be denied, any more than the spirit and intellect which characterized his renderings. At the least, extraordinary versatility must be conceded to an actor who could satisfy exacting audiences in roles so widely different as Digby Grant and Louis XI., Richard III. and Becket, Benedick and Shylock, Mathias and Dr Primrose.

Sir Henry Irving had two sons, Harry Brodribb (b. 1870) and Laurence (b. 1872). They were educated for other walks of life, the former for the bar, and the latter for the diplomatic service; but both turned to the stage, and the elder, who had already established himself as the most prominent of the younger English actors at the time of his father's death, went into management on his own account.

IRVING, WASHINGTON (1783-1859), American man of letters, was born at New York on the 3rd of April 1783. Both his parents were immigrants from Great Britain, his father, originally an officer in the merchant service, but at the time of Irving's birth a considerable merchant, having come from the Orkneys, and his mother from Falmouth. Irving was intended for the legal profession, but his studies were interrupted by an illness necessitating a voyage to Europe, in the course of which he proceeded as far as Rome, and made the acquaintance of Washington Allston. He was called to the bar upon his return, but made little effort to practise, preferring to amuse himself with literary ventures. The first of these of any importance, a satirical miscellany entitled _Salmagundi, or the Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff and others_, written in conjunction with his brother William and J. K. Paulding, gave ample proof of his talents as a humorist. These were still more conspicuously displayed in his next attempt, _A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty_, by "Diedrich Knickerbocker" (2 vols., New York, 1809). The satire of _Salmagundi_ had been principally local, and the original design of "Knickerbocker's" _History_ was only to burlesque a pretentious disquisition on the history of the city in a guidebook by Dr Samuel Mitchell. The idea expanded as Irving proceeded, and he ended by not merely satirizing the pedantry of local antiquaries, but by creating a distinct literary type out of the solid Dutch burgher whose phlegm had long been an object of ridicule to the mercurial Americans. Though far from the most finished of Irving's productions, "Knickerbocker" manifests the most original power, and is the most genuinely national in its quaintness and drollery. The very tardiness and prolixity of the story are skilfully made to heighten the humorous effect.

Upon the death of his father, Irving had become a sleeping partner in his brother's commercial house, a branch of which was established at Liverpool. This, combined with the restoration of peace, induced him to visit England in 1815, when he found the stability of the firm seriously compromised. After some years of ineffectual struggle it became bankrupt. This misfortune compelled Irving to resume his pen as a means of subsistence. His reputation had preceded him to England, and the curiosity naturally excited by the then unwonted apparition of a successful American author procured him admission into the highest literary circles, where his popularity was ensured by his amiable temper and polished manners. As an American, moreover, he stood aloof from the political and literary disputes which then divided England. Campbell, Jeffrey, Moore, Scott, were counted among his friends, and the last-named zealously recommended him to the publisher Murray, who, after at first refusing, consented (1820) to bring out _The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent._ (7 pts., New York, 1819-1820). The most interesting part of this work is the description of an English Christmas, which displays a delicate humour not unworthy of the writer's evident model Addison. Some stories and sketches on American themes contribute to give it variety; of these Rip van Winkle is the most remarkable. It speedily obtained the greatest success on both sides of the Atlantic. _Bracebridge Hall, or the Humourists_ (2 vols., New York), a work purely English in subject, followed in 1822, and showed to what account the American observer had turned his experience of English country life. The humour is, nevertheless, much more English than American. _Tales of a Traveller_ (4 pts.) appeared in 1824 at Philadelphia, and Irving, now in comfortable circumstances, determined to enlarge his sphere of observation by a journey on the continent. After a long course of travel he settled down at Madrid in the house of the American consul Rich. His intention at the time was to translate the _Coleccion de los Viajes y Descubrimientos_ (Madrid, 1825-1837) of Martin Fernandez de Navarrete; finding, however, that this was rather a collection of valuable materials than a systematic biography, he determined to compose a biography of his own by its assistance, supplemented by independent researches in the Spanish archives. His _History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus_ (London, 4 vols.) appeared in 1828, and obtained a merited success. _The Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus_ (Philadelphia, 1831) followed; and a prolonged residence in the south of Spain gave Irving materials for two highly picturesque books, _A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada from the MSS. of_ [an imaginary] _Fray Antonio Agapida_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1829), and _The Alhambra: a series of tales and sketches of the Moors and Spaniards_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1832). Previous to their appearance he had been appointed secretary to the embassy at London, an office as purely complimentary to his literary ability as the legal degree which he about the same time received from the university of Oxford.

Returning to the United States in 1832, after seventeen years' absence, he found his name a household word, and himself universally honoured as the first American who had won for his country recognition on equal terms in the literary republic. After the rush of fetes and public compliments had subsided, he undertook a tour in the western prairies, and returning to the neighbourhood of New York built for himself a delightful retreat on the Hudson, to which he gave the name of "Sunnyside." His acquaintance with the New York millionaire John Jacob Astor prompted his next important work--_Astoria_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1836), a history of the fur-trading settlement founded by Astor in Oregon, deduced with singular literary ability from dry commercial records, and, without laboured attempts at word-painting, evincing a remarkable faculty for bringing scenes and incidents vividly before the eye. _The Adventures of Captain Bonneville_ (London and Philadelphia, 1837), based upon the unpublished memoirs of a veteran explorer, was another work of the same class. In 1842 Irving was appointed ambassador to Spain. He spent four years in the country, without this time turning his residence to literary account; and it was not until two years after his return that Forster's life of Goldsmith, by reminding him of a slight essay of his own which he now thought too imperfect by comparison to be included among his collected writings, stimulated him to the production of his _Life of Oliver Goldsmith, with Selections from his Writings_ (2 vols., New York, 1849). Without pretensions to original research, the book displays an admirable talent for employing existing material to the best effect. The same may be said of _The Lives of Mahomet and his Successors_ (New York, 2 vols., 1849-1850). Here as elsewhere Irving correctly discriminated the biographer's province from the historian's, and leaving the philosophical investigation of cause and effect to writers of Gibbon's calibre, applied himself to represent the picturesque features of the age as embodied in the actions and utterances of its most characteristic representatives. His last days were devoted to his _Life of George Washington_ (5 vols., 1855-1859, New York and London), undertaken in an enthusiastic spirit, but which the author found exhausting and his readers tame. His genius required a more poetical theme, and indeed the biographer of Washington must be at least a potential soldier and statesman. Irving just lived to complete this work, dying of heart disease at Sunnyside, on the 28th of November 1859.

Although one of the chief ornaments of American literature, Irving is not characteristically American. But he is one of the few authors of his period who really manifest traces of a vein of national peculiarity which might under other circumstances have been productive. "Knickerbocker's" _History of New York_, although the air of mock solemnity which constitutes the staple of its humour is peculiar to no literature, manifests nevertheless a power of reproducing a distinct national type. Had circumstances taken Irving to the West, and placed him amid a society teeming with quaint and genial eccentricity, he might possibly have been the first Western humorist, and his humour might have gained in depth and richness. In England, on the other hand, everything encouraged his natural fastidiousness; he became a refined writer, but by no means a robust one. His biographies bear the stamp of genuine artistic intelligence, equally remote from compilation and disquisition. In execution they are almost faultless; the narrative is easy, the style pellucid, and the writer's judgment nearly always in accordance with the general verdict of history. Without ostentation or affectation, he was exquisite in all things, a mirror of loyalty, courtesy and good taste in all his literary connexions, and exemplary in all the relations of domestic life. He never married, remaining true to the memory of an early attachment blighted by death.

The principal edition of Irving's works is the "Geoffrey Crayon," published at New York in 1880 in 26 vols. His _Life and Letters_ was published by his nephew Pierre M. Irving (London, 1862-1864, 4 vols.; German abridgment by Adolf Laun, Berlin, 1870, 2 vols.) There is a good deal of miscellaneous information in a compilation entitled _Irvingiana_ (New York, 1860); and W. C. Bryant's memorial oration, though somewhat too uniformly laudatory, may be consulted with advantage. It was republished in _Studies of Irving_ (1880) along with C. Dudley Warner's introduction to the "Geoffrey Crayon" edition, and Mr G. P. Putnam's personal reminiscences of Irving, which originally appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_. See also _Washington Irving_ (1881), by C. D. Warner, in the "American Men of Letters" series; H. R. Haweis, _American Humourists_ (London, 1883). (R. G.)

IRVINGTON, a town of Essex county, New Jersey, U.S.A., bordering on the S.W. side of Newark. Pop. (1900) 5255, of whom 993 were foreign-born; (1905) 7180; (1910) 11,877. Irvington is served by the Lehigh Valley railroad and by electric railway to Newark. It is principally a residential suburb of Newark, but it has a small smelter (for gold and silver), and various manufactures, including textile working machinery, measuring rules and artisans' tools. There are large strawberry farms here. Irvington was settled near the close of the 17th century, and was called Camptown until 1852, when the present name was adopted in honour of Washington Irving. It was incorporated as a village in 1874, and as a town in 1898.

ISAAC (Hebrew for "he laughs," on explanatory references to the name, see ABRAHAM), the only child of Abraham and Sarah, was born when his parents were respectively a hundred and ninety years of age (Gen. xvii. 17). Like his father, Isaac lived a nomadic pastoral life, but within much narrower local limits, south of Beersheba (Gen. xxvi., on the incidents here recorded, see ABIMELECH). After the death of his mother, when he was forty years old, he married Rebekah the Aramaean, by whom after twenty years of married life he became the father of Esau and Jacob. He died at the age of one hundred and eighty.[1] "Isaac" is used as a synonym for "Israel" by Amos (vii. 9, 16), who also bears witness to the importance of Beersheba as a sanctuary. It was in this district, at the well Beer-Lahai-roi, that Isaac dwelt (Gen. xxiv. 62, xxv. 11), and the place was famous for an incident in the life of Hagar (xvi. 14). This was perhaps the original scene of the striking episode "in the land of Moriah," when at the last moment he was by angelic interposition released from the altar on which he was about to be sacrificed by his father in obedience to a divine command (Gen. xxii).[2] The narrative (which must be judged with due regard to the conditions of the age) shows that the sacrifice of the first-born, though not inconsistent with Yahweh's claims (Ex. xxii. 29), was neither required nor tolerated (cp. Micah vi. 6-8). See MOLOCH.

Isaac is by general consent of the Christian church taken as a representative of the unobtrusive, restful, piously contemplative type of human character. By later Judaism, which fixed its attention chiefly on the altar scene, he was regarded as the pattern and prototype of all martyrs. The Mahommedan legends regarding him are curious, but trifling.

The resemblance between incidents in the lives of Isaac and Abraham is noteworthy; in each case Isaac appears to be the more original. See further ISHMAEL, and note that the pair Isaac and Ishmael correspond to Abraham and Lot, Jacob and Esau. On general questions, see E. Meyer, _Israeliten_ (_Index_, s.v.). For attempts to find a mythological interpretation of Isaac's life, see Goldziher, _Mythology of the Hebrews_; Winckler, _Gesch. Israels_ (vol. ii.).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The stories, including the delightful history of the courting of Rebekah by proxy, are due to the oldest narrators. The jarring chronological notices belong to the post-exilic framework of the book (see GENESIS).

[2] The name is hopelessly obscure, and the identification with the mountain of the temple in Jerusalem rests upon a late view (2 Chron. iii. 1). It is otherwise called "Yahweh-yir'eh" ("Y. sees") which is analogous to "El-ro'i" ("a God of Seeing") in xvi. 13. See further the commentaries.

ISAAC I. (COMNENUS), emperor of the East (1057-1059), was the son of an officer of Basil II. named Manuel Comnenus, who on his deathbed commended his two sons Isaac and John to the emperor's care. Basil had them carefully educated at the monastery of Studion, and afterwards advanced them to high official positions. During the disturbed reigns of Basil's seven immediate successors, Isaac by his prudent conduct won the confidence of the army; in 1057 he joined with the nobles of the capital in a conspiracy against Michael VI., and after the latter's deposition was invested with the crown, thus founding the new dynasty of the Comneni. The first care of the new emperor was to reward his noble partisans with appointments that removed them from Constantinople, and his next was to repair the beggared finances of the empire. He revoked numerous pensions and grants conferred by his predecessors upon idle courtiers, and, meeting the reproach of sacrilege made by the patriarch of Constantinople by a decree of exile, resumed a proportion of the revenues of the wealthy monasteries. Isaac's only military expedition was against the Hungarians and Petchenegs, who began to ravage the northern frontiers in 1059. Shortly after this successful campaign he was seized with an illness, and believing it mortal appointed as his successor Constantine Ducas, to the exclusion of his own brother John. Although he recovered Isaac did not resume the purple, but retired to the monastery of Studion and spent the remaining two years of his life as a monk, alternating menial offices with literary studies. His _Scholia_ to the _Iliad_ and other works on the Homeric poems are still extant in MS. He died in the year 1061. Isaac's great aim was to restore the former strict organization of the government, and his reforms, though unpopular with the aristocracy and the clergy, and not understood by the people, certainly contributed to stave off for a while the final ruin of the Byzantine empire.

See E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (ed. J. Bury, London, 1896, vol. v.); G. Finlay, _History of Greece_ (ed. 1877, Oxford, vols. ii. and iii.).

ISAAC II. (ANGELUS), emperor of the East 1185-1195, and again 1203-1204, was the successor of Andronicus I. He inaugurated his reign by a decisive victory over the Normans in Sicily, but elsewhere his policy was less successful. He failed in an attempt to recover Cyprus from a rebellious noble, and by the oppressiveness of his taxes drove the Bulgarians and Vlachs to revolt (1186). In 1187 Alexis Branas, the general sent against the rebels, treacherously turned his arms against his master, and attempted to seize Constantinople, but was defeated and slain. The emperor's attention was next demanded in the east, where several claimants to the throne successively rose and fell. In 1189 Frederick Barbarossa of Germany sought and obtained leave to lead his troops on the third crusade through the Byzantine territory; but he had no sooner crossed the border than Isaac, who had meanwhile sought an alliance with Saladin, threw every impediment in his way, and was only compelled by force of arms to fulfil his engagements. The next five years were disturbed by fresh rebellions of the Vlachs, against whom Isaac led several expeditions in person. During one of these, in 1195, Alexius, the emperor's brother, taking advantage of the latter's absence from camp on a hunting expedition, proclaimed himself emperor, and was readily recognised by the soldiers. Isaac was blinded and imprisoned in Constantinople. After eight years he was raised for six months from his dungeon to his throne once more (see CRUSADES). But both mind and body had been enfeebled by captivity, and his son Alexius IV. was the actual monarch. Isaac died in 1204, shortly after the usurpation of his general, Mourzouphles. He was one of the weakest and most vicious princes that occupied the Byzantine throne. Surrounded by a crowd of slaves, mistresses and flatterers, he permitted his empire to be administered by unworthy favourites, while he squandered the money wrung from his provinces on costly buildings and expensive gifts to the churches of his metropolis.

See Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_ (ed. J. Bury, London, 1896, vol. vi.); G. Finlay, _History of Greece_ (ed. 1877, Oxford, vols. iii. and iv.).

ISAAC OF ANTIOCH, "one of the stars of Syriac literature,"[1] the reputed author of a large number of metrical homilies,[2] many of which are distinguished by an originality and acumen rare among Syriac writers. As to the identity and history of the author considerable difficulty has arisen. The statements of ancient writers, Eastern and Western, were collected by Assemani (_B.O._ i. 207-214). According to these accounts Isaac flourished under Theodosius II. (408-450),[3] and was a native either of Amid (Diarbekr) or of Edessa. Several writers identify him with Isaac, the disciple of S. Ephraim, who is mentioned in the anonymous _Life_ of that father; but according to the patriarch Bar Shushan (d. 1073), who made a collection of his homilies, his master was Ephraim's disciple Zenobius. He is supposed to have migrated to Antioch, and to have become abbot of one of the convents in its neighbourhood. According to Zacharias Rhetor he visited Rome and other cities, and the chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre informs us that he composed poems on the secular games of 404, and wrote on the destruction of Rome by Alaric in 410. He also commemorated the destruction of Antioch by an earthquake in 459, so that he must have lived till about 460. Unfortunately these poems have perished. He is of course to be distinguished from Isaac of Nineveh, a Nestorian writer on the ascetic life who belongs to the second half of the 7th century.[4]

When we examine the collection of homilies attributed to Isaac, a difficulty arises on two grounds. (1) The author of some of the poems is fervently orthodox or Catholic (see especially Nos. 1-3 in Bickell's edition = 62-64 in Bedjan), in other and more important homilies (such as Bickell 6, 8 = Bedjan 59, 61, and especially Bedjan 60) the doctrine is monophysite, even though Eutyches and Nestorius are equally condemned. (2) One of the monophysite homilies, the famous poem of 2136 lines on the parrot which uttered the Trisagion in the streets of Antioch (Bickell, 8 = Bedjan 61), appears to have been written at Antioch after Peter the Fuller (patriarch 471-488) raised the dispute about the addition to the doxology of the words _qui crucifixus es pro nobis_. It is therefore scarcely possible that the author of this homily should be the same who composed the lost poems on the secular games in 404 and on the sack of Rome.

Moreover, Lamy (_S. Ephraemi hymni et sermones_, iv. 361-364) and Bedjan (_Homiliae S. Isaaci_, i. pp. iv-ix) have recently called attention to statements made by Jacob of Edessa (708) in a letter to John the Stylite. He says there were three Isaacs who wrote in Syriac:--two orthodox (i.e. monophysite), and one a Chalcedonian heretic (i.e. orthodox or Catholic). (a) The first, he says, a native of Amid, and pupil of S. Ephraim, visited Rome in the time of Arcadius (395-408), on his return journey suffered imprisonment at Byzantium, and afterwards became a priest in the church of Amid. (b) The second was a priest of Edessa, and flourished in the reign of Zeno (474-491). He went up to Antioch in the time of Peter the Fuller. Jacob then tells the story of the parrot (see above). (c) The third was also an Edessene. At first in the days of Bishop Paul (510-522) he was orthodox (monophysite): but afterwards in the time of the Chalcedonian (Catholic) bishop Asclepius he became Nestorian (Catholic) and wrote poems setting forth Nestorian doctrine.

With such conflicting evidence it is impossible to arrive at a certain result. But Jacob is an early witness: and on the whole it seems safe to conclude with Bedjan (p. ix) that works by at least two authors have been included in the collection attributed to Isaac of Antioch. Still the majority of the poems are the work of one hand--the 5th-century monophysite who wrote the poem on the parrot.[5] A full list[6] of the 191 poems existing in European MSS. is given by Bickell, who copied out 181 with a view to publishing them all: the other 10 had been previously copied by Zingerle. But the two volumes published by Bickell in his lifetime (Giessen, 1873 and 1877) contain only 37 homilies. Bedjan's edition, of which the first volume has alone appeared (Paris, 1903) contains 67 poems, viz. 24 previously published (18 by Bickell), and 43 that are new, though their titles are all included in Bickell's list.

The writer's main interest lies in the application of religion to the practical duties of life, whether in the church or in the world. He has a great command of forcible language and considerable skill in apt illustration. The zeal with which he denounces the abuses prevalent in the church of his day, and particularly in the monastic orders, is not unlike that of the Protestant reformers. He shows acquaintance with many phases of life. He describes the corruption of judges, the prevalence of usury and avarice, the unchastity which especially characterized the upper classes, and the general hypocrisy of so-called Christians. His doctrinal discussions are apt to be diffuse; but he seldom loses sight of the bearing of doctrine on practical life. He judges with extreme severity those who argue about religion while neglecting its practice, and those who though stupid and ignorant dare to pry into mysteries which are sealed to the angels. "Not newly have we found Him, that we should search and pry into God. As He was He is: He changeth not with the times.... Confess that He formed thee of dust: search not the mode of His being: Worship Him that He redeemed thee by His only Son: inquire not the manner of His birth."[7]

Some of Isaac's works have an interest for the historian of the 5th century. In two poems (Bickell 11, 12 = Bedjan 48, 49), written probably at Edessa, he commemorates the capture of Beth-Hur (a city near Nisibis) by the Arabs. Although the historical allusions are far from clear, we gather that Beth-Hur, which in zealous paganism had been a successor to Haran, had been in earlier days devastated by the Persians:[8] but for the last 34 years the Persians had themselves suffered subjection.[9] And now had come a flood of Arab invaders, "sons of Hagar," who had swept away the city and carried all its inhabitants captive. From these two poems, and from the 2nd homily on Fasting (Bickell 14 = Bedjan 17) we gain a vivid picture of the miseries borne by the inhabitants of that frontier region during the wars between Persia and the Romano-Greek empire. There are also instructive references to the heathen practices and the worship of pagan deities (such as Baalti, Uzzi, Gedlath and the planet Venus) prevalent in Mesopotamia. Two other poems (Bickell 35, 36 = Bedjan 66, 67), written probably at Antioch,[10] describe the prevalence of sorcery and the extraordinary influence possessed by "Chaldeans" and enchanters over women who were nominally Christians.

The metre of all the published homilies is heptasyllabic. (N. M.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] W. Wright, _Short Hist. of Syr. Lit._ p. 51.

[2] The fullest list, by G. Bickell, contains 191 which are extant in MSS.

[3] The trustworthy _Chronicle of Edessa_ gives his date as 451-452 (Hallier, No. lxvii.); and the recently published _Chronicle_ of Michael the Syrian makes him contemporary with Nonus, who became the 31st bishop of Edessa in 449.

[4] The date of Isaac of Nineveh is now known from the _Liber fundatorum_ of Isho'-denah, an 8th-century writer; see Bedjan's edition, and Chabot, _Livre de la chastete_, p. 63. Assemani (_B.O._ i. 445) had placed him late in the 6th century, and Chabot (_De S. Isaaci Ninivitae vita_, &c.) in the second half of the 5th.

[5] Lamy (_op. cit._ iv. 364-366) has pointed out that several of the poems are in certain MSS. attributed to Ephraim. Possibly the author of the orthodox poems was not named Isaac at all.

[6] Assemani's list of 104 poems (_B.O._ i. 214-234) is completely covered by Bickell's.

[7] From a really noble poem (Bedjan 60) on the problem whether _God_ suffered and died on the cross.

[8] Possibly in the war at the beginning of the reign of Bahram V.: but on the uncertainty see Noldeke, _Gesch. d. Perser und Araber_, 117.

[9] Probably at the hands of the Hephthalites or White Huns of Kushan: cf. Isaac's mention of the Huns in 1. 420 of the 1st poem.

[10] The author refers to the weeping for Tammuz (1. 125 of the 1st poem), and speaks of his city as illustrious throughout the world (ib. 1. 132).

ISABELLA (1451-1504), surnamed _la Catolica_, "the Catholic," queen of Castile, was the second child and only daughter of John II. of Castile by his second wife Isabella, granddaughter of John I. of Portugal (thus being through both parents a descendant of John of Gaunt), and was born at Madrigal on the 22nd of April 1451. On the death of her father, who was succeeded by her brother Henry IV. (1454), she was withdrawn by her mother to Arevalo, where her early education was conducted in the deepest seclusion; in 1462, however, along with her uterine brother Alphonso, she was removed by Henry to the court, where she showed a remarkable example of staidness and sobriety. Already more than one suitor had made application for her hand, Ferdinand of Aragon, who ultimately became her husband, being among the number; for some little time she was engaged to his elder brother Charles, who died in 1461. In her thirteenth year her brother promised her in marriage to Alphonso of Portugal, but she firmly refused to consent; her resistance seemed less likely to be effectual in the case of Pedro Giron, grand master of the order of Calatrava and brother of the marquis of Villena, to whom she was next affianced, when she was delivered from her fears by the sudden death of the bridegroom while on his way to the nuptials in 1466. After an offer of the crown of Castile, made by the revolutionary leaders in the civil war, had been declined by her, she was in 1468 formally recognized by her brother as lawful heir, after himself, to the united crowns of Castile and Leon. New candidates for her hand now appeared in the persons of a brother of Edward IV. of England (probably Richard, duke of Gloucester), and the duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI., and heir presumptive of the French monarchy. Finally however, in face of very great difficulties, she was married to Ferdinand of Aragon at Valladolid on the 19th of October 1469. Thence forward the fortunes of Ferdinand and Isabella were inseparably blended. For some time they held a humble court at Duenas, and afterwards they resided at Segovia, where, on the death of Henry, she was proclaimed queen of Castile and Leon (December 13, 1474). Spain undoubtedly owed to Isabella's clear intellect, resolute energy and unselfish patriotism much of that greatness which for the first time it acquired under "the Catholic sovereigns." The moral influence of the queen's personal character over the Castilian court was incalculably great; from the debasement and degradation of the preceding reign she raised it to being "the nursery of virtue and of generous ambition." She did much for letters in Spain by founding the palace school and by her protection of Peter Martyr d'Anghiera. The very sincerity of her piety and strength of her religious convictions led her more than once, however, into great errors of state policy, and into more than one act which offends the moral sense of a more refined age: her efforts for the introduction of the Inquisition into Castile, and for the proscription of the Jews, are outstanding evidences of what can only be called her bigotry. But not even the briefest sketch of her life can omit to notice that happy instinct or intuition which led her, when all others had heard with incredulity the scheme of Columbus, to recall the wanderer to her presence with the words, "I will assume the undertaking for my own crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray the expenses of it, if the funds in the treasury should be found inadequate." She died at Medina del Campo on the 24th of November 1504, and was succeeded by her daughter Joanna "la loca" (the "Crazy") and her husband, Philip of Habsburg.

See W. H. Prescott, _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_ (1837), where the original authorities are exhaustively enumerated; and for later researches, Baron de Nervo, _Isabella the Catholic_, translated by Lieut.-Col. Temple-West (1897).

ISABELLA II. (1830-1904), queen of Spain, was born in Madrid on the 10th of October 1830. She was the eldest daughter of Ferdinand VII., king of Spain, and of his fourth wife, Maria Christina, a Neapolitan Bourbon, who became queen-regent on 29th September 1833, when her daughter, at the age of three years, was proclaimed on the death of the king. Queen Isabella succeeded to the throne because Ferdinand VII. induced the Cortes to assist him in setting aside the Salic law, which the Bourbons had introduced since the beginning of the 18th century, and to re-establish the older succession law of Spain. The brother of Ferdinand, Don Carlos, the first pretender, fought seven years, during the minority of Isabella, to dispute her title, and her rights were only maintained through the gallant support of the army, the Cortes and the Liberals and Progressists, who at the same time established constitutional and parliamentary government, dissolved the religious orders, confiscated the property of the orders and of the Jesuits, disestablished the Church property, and attempted to restore order in finances. After the Carlist war the queen-regent, Christina, resigned to make way for Espartero, the most successful and most popular general of the Isabelline armies, who only remained regent two years. He was turned out in 1843 by a military and political _pronunciamiento_, led by Generals O'Donnell and Narvaez, who formed a cabinet, presided over by Joaquin Maria Lopez, and this government induced the Cortes to declare Isabella of age at thirteen. Three years later the Moderado party or Castilian Conservatives made their queen marry, at sixteen, her cousin, Prince Francisco de Assisi de Bourbon (1822-1902), on the same day (10th October 1846) on which her younger sister married the duke of Montpensier. These marriages suited the views of France and Louis Philippe, who nearly quarrelled in consequence with Great Britain; but both matches were anything but happy. Queen Isabella reigned from 1843 to 1868, and that period was one long succession of palace intrigues, back-stairs and ante-chamber influences, barrack conspiracies, military _pronunciamientos_ to further the ends of the political parties--Moderados, who ruled from 1846 to 1854, Progressists from 1854 to 1856, Union Liberal from 1856 to 1863; Moderados and Union Liberal quickly succeeding each other and keeping out the Progressists so steadily that the seeds were sown which budded into the revolution of 1868. Queen Isabella II. often interfered in politics in a wayward, unscrupulous manner that made her very unpopular. She showed most favour to her reactionary generals and statesmen, to the Church and religious orders, and was constantly the tool of corrupt and profligate courtiers and favourites who gave her court a deservedly bad name. She went into exile at the end of September 1868, after her Moderado generals had made a slight show of resistance that was crushed at the battle of Alcolea by Marshals Serrano and Prim. The only redeeming traits of Queen Isabella's reign were a war against Morocco, which ended in an advantageous treaty and some cession of territory; some progress in public works, especially railways; a slight improvement in commerce and finance. Isabella was induced to abdicate in Paris on 25th June 1870 in favour of her son, Alphonso XII., and the cause of the restoration was thus much furthered. She had separated from her husband in the previous March. She continued to live in France after the restoration in 1874. On the occasion of one of her visits to Madrid during Alphonso XII.'s reign she began to intrigue with the politicians of the capital, and was peremptorily requested to go abroad again. She died on the 10th of April 1904.

ISABELLA, ISABEAU, or ELIZABETH OF BAVARIA (1370-1435), wife of Charles VI. of France, was the daughter of Stephen II., duke of Bavaria. She was born in 1370, was married to Charles VI. on the 17th of July 1385, and crowned at Paris on the 22nd of August 1389. After some years of happy married life she fell under the influence of the dissolute court in which she lived, and the king having become insane (August 1392) she consorted chiefly with Louis of Orleans. Frivolous, selfish, avaricious and fond of luxury, she used her influence, during the different periods when she was invested with the regency, not for the public welfare, but mainly in her own personal interest. After the assassination of the duke of Orleans (November 23, 1407) she attached herself sometimes to the Armagnacs, sometimes to the Burgundians, and led a scandalous life. Louis de Bosredon, the captain of her guards, was executed for complicity in her excesses; and Isabella herself was imprisoned at Blois and afterwards at Tours (1417). Having been set free towards the end of that year by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, whom she had called to her assistance, she went to Troyes and established her government there, returning afterwards to Paris when that city had capitulated to the Burgundians in July 1418. Once more in power, she now took up arms against her son, the dauphin Charles; and after the murder of John the Fearless she went over to the side of the English, into whose hands she surrendered France by the treaty of Troyes (May 21, 1420), at the same time giving her daughter Catherine in marriage to the king of England, Henry V. After her triumphal entry into Paris with the latter she soon became an object of loathing to the whole French nation. She survived her husband, her son-in-law, and eight out of her twelve children, and she passed the last miserable years of her life in poverty, solitude and ill-health. She died at the end of September 1435, and was interred without funeral honours in the abbey of St Denis, by the side of her husband, Charles VI.

See Vallet de Viriville, _Isabeau de Baviere_ (1859); Marcel Thibault, _Isabeau de Baviere, Reine de France, La Jeunesse, 1370-1405_ (1903). (J. V.*)

ISABELLA OF HAINAUT (1170-1190), queen of France, was the daughter of Baldwin V., count of Hainaut, and Margaret, sister of Philip of Alsace, and was born in 1170 at Lille. She was married to Philip Augustus, and brought to him as her dowry the province of Artois. She was crowned at St Denis on the 29th of May 1180. As Baldwin V. claimed to be a descendant of Charlemagne, the chroniclers of the time saw in this marriage a union of the Carolingian and Capetian dynasties. Though she received extravagant praise from certain annalists, she failed to win the affections of Philip, who, in 1184, waging war against Flanders, was angered at seeing Baldwin support his enemies, and called a council at Sens for the purpose of repudiating her. Robert, the king's uncle, successfully interposed. She died in childbirth in 1190, and was buried in the church of Notre Dame in Paris. Her son became Louis VIII. of France.

See Cartellieri, "L'Avenement de Phil. Aug." in _Rev. hist._ liii. 262 et seq.

ISABEY, JEAN BAPTISTE (1767-1855), French painter, was born at Nancy on the 11th of April 1767. At nineteen, after some lessons from Dumont, miniature painter to Marie Antoinette, he became a pupil of David. Employed at Versailles on portraits of the dukes of Angouleme and Berry, he was given a commission by the queen, which opens the long list of those which he received, up to the date of his death in 1855, from the successive rulers of France. Patronized by Josephine and Napoleon, he arranged the ceremonies of their coronation and prepared drawings for the publication intended as its official commemoration, a work for which he was paid by Louis XVIII., whose portrait (engraved, Debucourt) he executed in 1814. Although Isabey did homage to Napoleon on his return from Elba, he continued to enjoy the favour of the Restoration, and took part in arrangements for the coronation of Charles X. The monarchy of July conferred on him an important post in connexion with the royal collections, and Napoleon III. granted him a pension, and the cross of commander of the Legion of Honour. "Review of Troops by the First Consul" was one of his most important compositions, and "Isabey's Boat,"--a charming drawing of himself and family--produced at a time when he was much occupied with lithography--had an immense success at the Salon of 1820 (engraved, Landon, _Annales_, i. 125). His portrait of "Napoleon at Malmaison" is held to be the best ever executed, and even his tiny head of the king of Rome, painted for a breast-pin, is distinguished by a decision and breadth which evidence the hand of a master.

A biography of Isabey was published by M. E. Taigny in 1859, and M. C. Lenormant's article, written for Michaud's _Biog. univ._, is founded on facts furnished by Isabey's family.