ELLISTON, ROBERT WILLIAM (1774-1831), English actor, was born in London
on the 7th of April 1774, the son of a watchmaker. He was educated at St
Paul's school, but ran away from home and made his first appearance on
the stage as Tressel in _Richard III._ at Bath in 1791. Here he was
later seen as Romeo, and in other leading parts, both comic and tragic,
and he repeated his successes in London from 1796. He acted at Drury
Lane from 1804 to 1809, and again from 1812; and from 1819 he was the
lessee of the house, presenting Kean, Mme Vestris and Macready.
Ill-health and misfortune culminated in his bankruptcy in 1826, when he
made his last appearance at Drury Lane as Falstaff. But as lessee of the
Surrey theatre he acted almost up to his death, which was hastened by
intemperance. Leigh Hunt compared him favourably with Garrick; Byron
thought him inimitable in high comedy; Macready praised his versatility.
Elliston was the author of _The Venetian Outlaw_ (1805), and, with
Francis Godolphin Waldron, of _No Prelude_ (1803), in both of which
plays he appeared.
ELLORA, a village of India in the native state of Hyderabad, near the
city of Daulatabad, famous for its rock temples, which are among the
finest in India. They are first mentioned by Ma'sudi, the Arabic
geographer of the 10th century, but merely as a celebrated place of
pilgrimage. The caves differ from those of Ajanta in consequence of
their being excavated in the sloping sides of a hill and not in a nearly
perpendicular cliff. They extend along the face of the hill for a mile
and a quarter, and are divided into three distinct series, the Buddhist,
the Brahmanical and the Jain, and are arranged almost chronologically.
The most splendid of the whole series is the Kailas, a perfect Dravidian
temple, complete in all its parts, characterized by Fergusson as one of
the most wonderful and interesting monuments of architectural art in
India. It is not a mere interior chamber cut in the rock, but is a model
of a complete temple such as might have been erected on the plain. In
other words, the rock has been cut away externally as well as
internally. First the great sunken court measuring 276 ft. by 154 ft.
was hewn out of the solid trap-rock of the hillside, leaving the rock
mass of the temple wholly detached in a cloistered court like a colossal
boulder, save that a rock bridge once connected the upper storey of the
temple with the upper row of galleried chambers surrounding three sides
of the court. Colossal elephants and obelisks stand on either side of
the open mandapam, or pavilion, containing the sacred bull; and beyond
rises the monolithic Dravidian temple to Siva, 90 ft. in height,
hollowed into vestibule, chamber and image-cells, all lavishly carved.
Time and earthquakes have weathered and broken away bits of the great
monument, and Moslem zealots strove to destroy the carved figures, but
these defects are hardly noticed. The temple was built by Krishna I.,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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