ELYSIUM, in Greek mythology, the Elysian fields, the abode of the righteous after their removal from earth. In Homer (_Od._ iv. 563) this region is a plain at the farthest end of the earth on the banks of the river Oceanus, where the fair-haired Rhadamanthys rules, and where the people are vexed by neither snow nor storm, heat nor cold, the air being always tempered by the zephyr wafted from the ocean. It is no dwelling of the dead nor part of the lower world, but distinguished heroes are translated thither without dying, to live a life of perfect happiness. In Hesiod (_W. and D._ 166) the same description is given of the Islands of the Blessed under the rule of Cronus, which yield three harvests yearly. Here, according to Pindar, Rhadamanthys sits by the side of his father Cronus and administers judgment (_Ol._ ii. 61, _Frag. 95_). All who have successfully gone through a triple probation on earth are admitted to share these blessings. In later accounts (_Aeneid_, vi. 541) Elysium was regarded as part of the underworld, the home of the righteous dead adjudged worthy of it by the tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus. Those who had lived evil lives were thrust down into Tartarus, where they suffered endless torments. ELZE, KARL (1821-1889), German scholar and Shakespearian critic, was born at Dessau on the 22nd of May 1821. Having studied (1839-1843) classical philology, and modern, but especially English, literature at the university of Leipzig, he was a master for a time in the Gymnasium (classical school) at Dessau, and in 1875 was appointed extraordinary, and in 1876 ordinary, professor of English philology at the university of Halle, in which city he died on the 21st of January 1889. Elze began his literary career with the _Englischer Liederschatz_ (1851), an anthology of English lyrics, edited for a while a critical periodical _Atlantis_, and in 1857 published an edition of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ with critical notes. He also edited Chapman's _Alphonsus_ (1867) and wrote biographies of Walter Scott, Byron and Shakespeare; _Abhandlungen zu Shakespeare_ (English translation by D. Schmitz, as _Essays on Shakespeare_, London, 1874), and the excellent treatise, _Notes on Elizabethan Dramatists with conjectural emendations of the text_ (3 vols., Halle, 1880-1886, new ed. 1889).