Esquiros, HENRI ALPHONSE, a French poet and politician, was born at Paris, 24th May 1814. At twenty he made his début with a volume of poems, which was followed by two romances, Le Magicien (1837) and Charlotte Corday (1840). His Évangile du Peuple (1840), a democratic commentary on the life of Jesus, cost him eight months' imprisonment and a fine of 500 francs, but gave him leisure and inspiration for his Chants d'un Prisonnier. His Vierges Folles, Vierges Martyrs, and Vierges Sages (1841-42) showed further his socialistic sympathies. After the revolution of February 1848, Esquiros was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly, but the coup d'état of 1851 drove him to England, where he gathered the materials for his English at Home, Cornwall and its Coasts, and Religious Life in England. Permitted by the amnesty of Napoleon III. to return to France, he was appointed supreme administrator of Bouches-du-Rhône by the government of the National Defence in 1870, next year was returned to the National Assembly, and in January 1875 was made a member of the senate, but died at Marseilles, 12th May 1876.
'Essays and Reviews,' the title of a remarkable volume published in 1860, containing the following seven papers: (1) 'The Education of the World,' by Dr Temple; (2) 'Bunsen's Biblical Researches,' by Dr Rowland Williams; (3) 'On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity,' by Professor Baden Powell; (4) 'The National Church,' by H. B. Wilson; (5) 'The Mosaic Cosmogony,' by C. W. Goodwin; (6) 'Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750,' by Mark Pattison; (7) 'The Interpretation of Scripture,' by Professor B. Jowett. All the writers, except Mr Goodwin, were clergymen of the Church of England, and their work, which was censured for its heterodox views by nearly all the bishops, and formally condemned by convocation in 1864, caused much excitement and controversy. Dr Williams and Mr Wilson were sentenced by the ecclesiastical courts to suspension for a year, but on appeal the sentence was reversed by the Privy-council; and Dr Temple's election to the see of Exeter in 1869 was also ineffectually opposed. The most important replies to the Essays and Reviews were those edited by Bishop Thomson (afterwards Archbishop of York) and by Bishop Wilberforce.