ELDER (Ang.-Sax. ellarn; Ger. Holunder; Fr. sureaii), the popular designation of the deciduous shrubs and trees constituting the genus Samhucus of the natural order Caprifoliacea;. The Black-berried or Common Elder, S. nifjra, the bourtree of Scotland, is found in Europe, the north of Africa, Western Asia, the Caucasus, and Southern Siberia ; in sheltered spots it attains a height of over 20 feet. The bark is smooth ; the shoots are stout and angular, and the leaves glabrous, pinnate, and generally oval or elliptical. The flowers, which form corymbose cymes, with five main branches, have a cream-coloured, gamopetalous, five-lobed corolla, five stamens, and three sessile stigmas; the berries are purplish-black, globular, and three- or four- seeded, and ripen about September. The elder thrives best in moist, well-drained situations, but can be grown in a great diversity of soils. It is propagated by young shoots, which after a year are fit for transplantation. It is found useful for making screen-fences in bleak, exposed situations, and also as a shelter for other shrubs in the outskirts of plantations. By clipping two or three times a year, it may be made close and compact in growth. The young trees furnish a brittle wood, containing much pith ; the wood of old trees is white, hard, and close-grained, and polishes well, and is employed for shoemakers pegs, combs, skewers, mathematical instruments, and turned articles. Young elder twigs deprived of pith have from very early times been in request for making whistles, popguns, and other toys.
The elder was known to the ancients for its medicinal properties, and in England the inner bark was formerly administered as a cathartic. The flowers (sambuci /lores) contain a volatile oil, and are reputed to be diaphoretic in properties; they serve for the preparation of an ointment (ungucntum sambuci), and for the distilla tion of elder-flower water (aqua sambuci), used in confectionery, perfumes, and lotions. The leaves of the elder are employed to impart a green colour to fat and oil (unyuentum sambuci foliorum and oleum viride), and the berries for making wine, a common adulterant of port. The leaves and bark emit a sickly odour, believed to be repugnant to insects. Christopher Gullet (Phil. Trans., 1772, Ixii. p. 343) recommends that cabbages, turnips, wheat, and fruit trees, to preserve them from caterpillars, flies, and blight, should be whipped with twigs of young elder. Accord ing to German folk-lore, the hat must be doffed in the presence of the elder-tree; and in certain of the English midland counties a belief was once prevalent that the cross of Christ was made from its wood, which should therefore never be used as fuel, or treated with disrespect (sec Quart. Rev., cxiv. 233). It was, however, a common mediaeval tradition, alluded to by Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, and other writers, that the elder was the tree on which Judas hanged himself ; and on this account, probably, to be crowned with elder was in olden times accounted a disgrace. In Cymbeline (act iv. s. 2) "the stinking elder " is mentioned as a symbol of grief. In Denmark the tree is supposed by the superstitious to be under the protection of the " Elder-mother : " its flowers may not be gathered without her leave ; its wood must not be employed for any household furn^ure ; a-id a child sleeping in an elder-wood cradle would certainly be strangled by the Elder-mother.
S. niyra viresccns is a variety of S. nirjra having white bark and green- coloured berries ; some ornamental varieties have blotched leaves. The Scarlet-berried Elder, S. racemosa, is the handsomest species of its genus. It is a native of various parts of Europe, growing in Britain to a height of over 15 feet, but often producing no fruit. The Dwarf Elder or Danewort, S. Ebulus, a common European species, reaches a height of about 6 feet. Its cyme is hairy, has three principal branches, and is smaller than that of S. nigra ; the flowers are of a dull purplish hue. All parts of the plant are cathartic and emetic.
ELDON, John Scott, Baron, and afterwards Earl of (1751-1838), lord high chancellor of England, was bora at Newcastle on the 4th June 1751. His grandfather, William Scott, of Sandgate, a suburb of Newcastle, was clerk to a " fitter " a sort of water-carrier and broker of coals. His father, whose name also was William, began life as an apprentice to a fitter, in which service lie obtained the freedom of Newcastle, becoming a member of the guild of Hoastmen ; later in life he became a principal in the busi ness, and attained a respectable position as a merchant iu Newcastle, accumulating property worth nearly 20,000 He was twice married ; his second wife, the mother of John Scott, says Lord Campbell (Lord Chancellors, vol. vii. p. 4), "was a woman of such superior understanding, that to her is traced the extraordinary talent which distinguished her two sons, William and John Lord Stowell and Lord Eldon." It may be mentioned that William and John had each of them a twin sister.
The boys were educated at the grammar school of their native town, where, however, they scarcely gave promise of the splendid careers which they were destined to run. John Scott was not remarkable at school for application to his studies, though his wonderful memory enabled him to make good progress in them; he frequently played truant, and was whipped for it, robbed orchards, and indulged in other questionable school-boy freaks ; nor did he always come out of his scrapes with honour and a character for truthfulness. When John had finished his education at the grammar school, his father thought of apprenticing him to his own business, to which an elder brother Henry had already devoted himself ; and it was only through the in terference of William, who had already obtained a fellow ship at University College, Oxford, that it was ultimately resolved that he should continue the prosecution of his studies. Accordingly, on the 15th May 17G6, John Scott entered University College as a commoner, with the view of entering the church, and obtaining a college living. In the year following he obtained a fellowship, graduated B.A. in 1770, and in 1771 won the prize for the English essay, the only university prize open in his time for general com petition. It does not appear, however, that he distinguished himself at college any more than he had done at school by any severe application to study. It was not till after his marriage that he first concentrated his energies on the con genial study of law.
His wife was the eldest daughter of Mr Aubone Surtees, a Newcastle banker. John Scott first met her at Sedgefield Church, in the county of Durham, and a strong attachment sprang up between them. The Surtees family objected to the match, and attempted to prevent it ; but the fire once kindled was not to be put out. On the ISth November 1772, Scott, with the aid of a ladder and an old friend, carried off the lady from her father s house in the Sandhill, across the border to Blackshiels, in Scot land, where they were married. The father of the bridegroom objected not to his son s choice, but to the time he chose to marry; for it was a blight on his son s prospects, depriv ing him of his fellowship and his chance of church prefer ment. But while the bride s family refused to hold inter course with the pair, Mr Scott, like a prudent man and an affectionate father, set himself to make the best of a bad matter, and received them kindly, settling on his son .2000. John returned with his wife to Oxford, and continued to hold his fellowship for what is called the year of grace given after marriage, and added to his income by acting as a private tutor. After a time Mr Surtees was reconciled with his daughter, and made a liberal settlement on her. John Scott s year of grace closed without any college living falling vacant ; and with his fellowship he gave up the church, and turned to the study of law. He became a student at the Middle Temple in January 1773, and in February took his degree of M.A. at Oxford. In 177G he was called to the bar, intending at first to establish himself as an advocate in his native town, a scheme which his early success led him to abandon, and he soon settled to the practice of his profession in London, and on the Northern Circuit. Thus, at last, had he started on the high road to the chancellorship, having narrowly escaped becoming a coal-fitter, a country parson, a provincial barrister, and, i according to one account, a retailer of figs and raisins.
