ELEGIT (Lat. for "he has chosen"), in English law, a judicial writ of execution, given by the Statute of Westminster II. (1285), and so called from the words of the writ, that the plaintiff has chosen (_elegit_) this mode of satisfaction. Previously to the Statute of Westminster II., a judgment creditor could only have the profits of lands of a debtor in satisfaction of his judgment, but not the possession of the lands themselves. But this statute provided that henceforth it should be _in the election_ of the party having recovered judgment to have a writ of _fieri facias_ (q.v.) unto the sheriff on lands and goods or else all the chattels of the debtor and the one half of his lands until the judgment be satisfied. Since the Bankruptcy Act 1883 the writ of _elegit_ has extended to lands and hereditaments only. (See further EXECUTION.) ELEGY, a short poem of lamentation or regret, called forth by the decease of a beloved or revered person, or by a general sense of the pathos of mortality. The Greek word _[Greek: elegeia]_ is of doubtful signification; it is usually interpreted as meaning a mournful or funeral song. But there seems to be no proof that this idea of regret for death entered into the original meaning of _[Greek: elegeia]_. The earliest Greek elegies which have come down to us are not funereal, although it is possible that the primitive _[Greek: elegeia]_ may have been a set of words liturgically used, with music, at a burial. When the elegy appears in surviving Greek literature, we find it dedicated, not to death, but to war and love. Callinus of Ephesus, who flourished in the 7th century, is the earliest elegist of whom we possess fragments. A little later Tyrtaeus was composing his famous elegies in Sparta. Both of these writers were, so far as we know, exclusively warlike and patriotic. On the other hand, the passion of love inspires Mimnermus, whose elegies are the prototypes not only of the later Greek pieces, and of the Latin poems of the school of Tibullus and Propertius, but of a great deal of the formal erotic poetry of modern Europe. In the 6th century B.C., the elegies of Solon were admired; they are mainly lost. But we possess more of the work of Theognis of Megara than of any other archaic elegist, and in it we can observe the characteristics of Greek elegy best. Here the Dorian spirit of chivalry reaches its highest expression, and war is combined with manly love.