SLOP, DOCTOR, a choleric physician in "Tristram Shandy."

SLOUGH OF DESPOND, a deep bog in the "Pilgrim's Progress," into

which Christian sinks under the weight of his sins and his sense of their

guilt.

SLOVAKS, a Slavonic peasant people numbering some 2,000,000, subject

to the crown of Hungary since the 11th century, and occupying the

highlands of North-West Hungary; speak a dialect of Czech.

SLOVENIANS, a Slavonic people akin to the Servians and Croatians in

Austro-Hungary, dwelling chiefly in Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola.

SLY, CHRISTOPHER, a drunken sot of a tinker in the "Induction" to

"Taming of the Shrew."

SMART, CHRISTOPHER, English poet, born in Kent; was a Fellow of

Cambridge and a friend of Johnson's; author of the "Song to David," now

famous, much overrated, think some; he was subject to insanity, and it

was written during lucid intervals; he was the author of a prose

translation of Horace (1722-1771).

SMEATON, JOHN, civil engineer, born near Leeds; began life as a

mathematical instrument-maker; made improvements in mill-work, and gained

the Copley Medal in 1758; visited the principal engineering works in

Holland and Belgium; was entrusted with the rebuilding of EDDYSTONE

LIGHTHOUSE (q. v.) after it was in 1755 burnt down, which he

finished in 1759; did other engineering work in the construction of

canals, harbours, and mills, rising to the summit of his profession

(1724-1792).

SMECTYMNUUS, a pamphlet written in 1641, the title of which is made

up of the initial letters of the names of the authors.

SMELFUNGUS, a name given by Sterne to Smollett as author of volume

of "Travels through France and Italy," for the snarling abuse he heaps on

the institutions and customs of the countries he visited; a name Carlyle

assumes when he has any seriously severe criticisms to offer on things

particularly that have gone or are going to the bad.

SMILES, SAMUEL, author of "Self-Help," born in Haddington; was bred

to medicine, and professed it for a time, but abandoned it for literary

and other work; wrote the "Life of George Stephenson" in 1857, followed

by "Self-Help" two years after; _b_. 1812.

SMITH, ADAM, political economist, born in Kirkcaldy, Fife; studied

at Glasgow and Oxford, went to Edinburgh and became acquainted with David

Hume and his confrères; was appointed to the chair of Logic in Glasgow in

1751, and the year after of Moral Philosophy; produced in 1759 his

"Theory of Moral Sentiments," visited Paris with the young Duke of

Buccleuch, got acquainted with Quesnay, D'Alembert, and Necker, and

returning in 1766, settled in his native place under a pension from the

Duke of Buccleuch, where in 1776 he produced his "Inquiry into the Nature

and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," a work to which he devoted 10 years

of his life, and which has had a world-wide influence, and that has

rendered his name world-famous; in 1778 he settled in Edinburgh as

Commissioner of Customs for Scotland, and in 1787 was elected Lord Rector

of Glasgow University (1723-1790).

SMITH, ALEXANDER, poet, born in Kilmarnock; began life as a

pattern-designer, contributed to the _Glasgow Citizen_, wrote a volume of

poems, "A Life Drama," and produced other works in a style characterised

as "spasmodic," and which, according to Tennyson, "showed fancy, but not

imagination" (1880-1807).

SMITH, GEORGE, Assyriologist, born at London; trained as a bank-note

engraver, but attracted the attention of Sir Henry Rawlinson by his

interest in cuneiform inscriptions, and in 1867 received an appointment

in the British Museum; acquired great skill as an interpreter of Assyrian

inscriptions, published "Annals of Assurbanipal," and in 1872 discovered

a tablet with the "Chaldean Account of the Deluge"; carried through

important expeditions (1871-3-6) in search of antiquities in Nineveh and

other parts of Assyria, accounts of which he published; wrote also

histories of Babylonia, Assyria, Sennacherib, &c. (1840-1876).

SMITH, GOLDWIN, English man of letters, born in Berks; was at one

time intimately associated with Oxford University, went to America and

became professor of English History in Cornell University, and since 1871

has settled in Canada, and believes that Canada will be annexed to the

United States; has written a number of books and pamphlets, one on the

"Relations between England and America" and another on "The Political

Destiny of Canada"; he is an ultra-Liberal; _b_. 1823.

SMITH, JAMES AND HORACE, authors of the famous parodies "The

Rejected Addresses," born at London: James, in business as a solicitor,

and Horace, a wealthy stockbroker; both were occasional contributors to

the periodical press before the public offer of a prize for the best

poetical address to be spoken at the re-opening of Drury Lane Theatre

prompted them to issue a series of "Rejected Addresses," parodying the

popular writers of the day--Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Scott, Byron,

&c.; intensely clever, these parodies have never been surpassed in their

kind; Horace was also a busy writer of novels now forgotten, and also

published two vols. of poetry; James subsequently wrote a number of

Charles Mathews' "Entertainments" (James, 1775-1839; Horace, 1779-1849).

SMITH, JOHN, Cambridge Platonist, born in Northamptonshire; left

"Select Discourses," giving signs both of spiritual insight and vigour of

thinking (1616-1652).

SMITH, JOHN, sailor, born in Lincolnshire; had a life of adventure

and peril, and became leader of the English colonists of Virginia;

established friendly relations with the Indians, returned to this country

twice over, and introduced POCAHONTAS (q. v.) to the Queen; died

at Gravesend (1580-1631).

SMITH, SYDNEY, political writer and wit, born at Woodford, Essex, of

partly English and partly Huguenot blood; educated at Westminster and

Oxford, bred for the Church; after a brief curacy in Wiltshire settled in

Edinburgh from 1798 to 1803, where, while officiating as a clergyman, he

became one of the famous editors of the _Edinburgh Review_, and a

contributor; settled for a time afterwards in London, where he delivered

a series of admirable lectures on ethics, till he was appointed to a

small living in Yorkshire, and afterwards to a richer living in Somerset,

and finally a canonry in St. Paul's; his writings deal with abuses of the

period, and are, except his lectures perhaps, all out of date now

(1771-1845).

SMITH, SIR WILLIAM, classical and biblical scholar, born in London;

distinguished himself at the university there and took a course of law at

Gray's Inn, but followed his bent for scholarship, and in 1840-42 issued

his great "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," following it up

with the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology" and the

"Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography"; did eminent service to the

cause of education by a series of popular editions of Greek and Latin

texts, school grammars, dictionaries, &c.; not less valuable are his

"Dictionary of the Bible," &c.; was editor of the _Quarterly Review_ from

1867, and in 1892 received a knighthood (1813-1893).

SMITH, WILLIAM ROBERTSON, biblical scholar and critic, born at Keig,

Aberdeenshire; educated for the Scottish Free Church, became professor of

Hebrew in the connection at Aberdeen; was prosecuted for heresy in the

matter of the origin of the books of the Old Testament, and finally

removed from the chair; became joint-editor of the "Encyclopædia

Britannica," and finally professor of Arabic at Cambridge; he was a man

of versatile ability, extensive scholarship, keen critical acumen, and he

contributed not a little to vindicate the claims of the scholar in regard

to the Bible (1846-1894).

SMITH, SIR WILLIAM SIDNEY, British admiral, born at Westminster;

entered the navy at 12, became a captain after many gallant services at

18, was naval adviser to the king of Sweden and knighted, joined Lord

Hood off Toulon and helped to burn the French fleet; was taken prisoner

by the French in 1796, and after two years made his escape; forced

Napoleon to raise the siege of Acre, and was wounded at Aboukir; was

rewarded with a pension of £1000, and raised in the end to the rank of

admiral (1764-1840).

SMITHFIELD or SMOOTHFIELD, an open space of ground in London,

N. of Newgate, long famous for its live-stock markets; in olden times lay

outside the city walls, and was used as a place of recreation and of

executions; the scene of William Wallace's execution and the death of Wat

Tyler; gradually surrounded by the encroaching city, the cattle-market

became a nuisance, and was abolished in 1855; is partly laid out as a

garden.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, a celebrated American institution "for the

increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," in Washington; founded

and endowed by James Macie Smithson, a natural son of the Duke of

Northumberland, a zealous chemist and mineralogist, after having had a

paper rejected by the Royal Society, of which he was a Fellow. The

building is one of the finest in the capital; is under government

control, and the President of the United States is _ex officio_ the head

of the institution; encourages scientific research, administers various

funds, and directs expeditions for scientific purposes.

SMOKY CITY, Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania, from the effect produced by

the bituminous coal used in the manufactories.

SMOLENSK (34), an ancient town of Russia, and capital of a

government (1,412) of the same name, on the Dnieper, 244 m. SW. of

Moscow; is surrounded by walls; has a fine cathedral, and is strongly

fortified; carries on a good grain trade; here in 1812 Napoleon defeated

the Russians under Barclay de Tolly and Bagration on his march to Moscow

in August 1812.

SMOLLETT, TOBIAS GEORGE, novelist, born at Dalquhurn,

Dumbartonshire, of good family; bred to medicine, but drifted to

literature, in prosecution of which he set out to London at the age of

18; his first effort was a failure; he took an appointment as a surgeon's

mate on board a war-ship in 1746, which landed him for a time in the West

Indies; on his return to England in 1748 achieved his first success in

"Roderick Random," which was followed by "Peregrine Pickle" in 1751,

"Count Fathom" in 1755, and "Humphrey Clinker" in 1771, added to which he

wrote a "History of England," and a political lampoon, "The Adventures

of an Atom"; his novels have no plot, but "in inventive tale-telling and

in cynical characterisation he is not easily equalled" (1721-1771).

SMRITI, in the Hindu religion the name given to traditional usage,

as opposed to Sruti, or revelation, and from which proceeded, at a later

date, the body of laws, such as that of Manu, in which the morality

prescribed is, "sound, solid, and practical."

SMYRNA (210), a town of great antiquity, since ancient times the

chief port of Asia Minor; is situated amid surrounding hills at the head

of the Gulf of Smyrna, an arm of the Ægean Sea; has no imposing

structures, and is, especially in the Turkish quarter, ill-drained and

crowded; is the seat of the Turkish Governor-General of the province, of

archbishops, Roman Catholic, Greek, and Armenian; manufactures embrace

carpets, pottery, cottons and woollens; a splendid harbour favours a

large import and export trade; for long a possession of Greece and then

of Rome, it finally fell into the hands of the Turks in 1424.

SMYRNA, GULF OF, an inlet of the Ægean Sea, 40 m. in length by 20 m.

in breadth, with an excellent anchorage.

SNAKE RIVER, chief tributary of the Columbia; rises in Wyoming amid

the Rockies; flows S. and NW. through Idaho, forming the Shoshone Falls,

rivalling Niagara, which they exceed in height; through Southern

Washington it flows W. under the name of the Lewis River or Fork, and

discharges into the Columbia after a course of 1050 m.

SNAKE-STONES, stones popularly believed to cure the bites of snakes,

probably due to a porosity in their substance drawing off the poison.

SNIDER, JACOB, American mechanical genius; invented a method of

converting muzzle-loading rifles into breech-loading; died unrewarded in

1866.

SNODGRASS, AUGUSTUS, a member of the Pickwick Club in the "Pickwick

Papers."

SNORRI STURLASON, Icelandic historian and poet; published the

collection of sagas entitled "Heimskringla," among which were many songs

of his own composition; was a man of position and influence in Iceland,

but having provoked the ill-will of Haco was at his instigation

assassinated in 1241. See EDDA.

SNOWDON, a mountain range in Carnarvon, North Wales, extending from

the coast to near Conway; it has five distinct summits, of which

Moel-y-Wyddfa (the conspicuous peak) is the highest, being 3560 ft.; the

easiest ascent is from Llanberis on the N., and is the route usually

taken by tourists, for whose behoof there is a house on the summit.

SOANE, SIR JOHN, English architect, who left his house in Lincoln's

Inn Fields with art collection to the nation at his death in 1837.

SOBIESKI, surname of the great patriot king of Poland, John III., in

the 17th century; born at Olesko, in Galicia; was elected king of Poland

in 1674, having, by repeated victories over the Turks and Russians, shown

himself the greatest soldier of his country; proved a wise and brave

ruler, a true leader of his people, and with unbroken success defied the

utmost efforts of the infidel Turks (1624-1696).

SOBRAON (4), a town in the Punjab, India, on the Sutlej, in the

vicinity of which Sir Henry Gough won the decisive victory over the

Sikhs, 10th February 1846.

SOCAGE, name given to a feudal tenure by a certain and determinate

service other than knight service.

SOCIAL WAR, name given to an Insurrection of the allied States in

Italy against the domination of Rome, and which lasted from 90 to 88 B.C.,

in consequence of their exclusion from the rights of citizenship and

the privileges attached; they formed a league to assert their rights,

which ended in defeat.

SOCIALISM, a social system which, in opposition to the competitive

system that prevails at present, seeks to reorganise society on the

basis, in the main, of a certain secularism in religion, of community of

interest, and co-operation in labour for the common good, agreeably to

the democratic spirit of the time and the changes required by the rise of

individualism and the decay of feudalism.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, a society founded in 1698

which during the last 200 years has originated and supported a number of

agencies, both in this country and abroad, for propagating Christian

knowledge; distributed into a number of separate departments.

SOCIETY ISLANDS (24), an archipelago in the South Pacific,

consisting of 13 principal islands and numerous islets, the chief being

Tahiti; they are mountainous, and engirdled by belts of flat land as well

as coral reefs; have a fertile soil and luxuriant vegetation, while the

climate is healthy though enervating; the inhabitants are intelligent but

indolent, and the land is worked by immigrant races.

SOCIETY OF JESUS, the Jesuit order founded by IGNATIUS LOYOLA

(q. v.).

SOCINIANS, a sect of the Unitarian body who, in the 16th century,

take their name from FAUSTUS SOCINUS (q. v.), who, besides

denying the doctrine of the Trinity, deny the divinity of Christ and the

divine inspiration of Scripture; they arose into importance originally in

Poland, and in the 17th century spread by degrees in Prussia, the

Netherlands, and England.

SOCINUS, FAUSTUS, a theologian, born in Italy; had for his views to

exile himself for years, and was much persecuted for his opinions; in

Cracow, where he dwelt for a time, he was by a mob dragged from a

sick-bed half-naked along the street, had his house robbed and his papers

burned (1530-1601).

SOCIOLOGY, the science which treats of the nature and the

developments of society and of social institutions; a science to which

Herbert Spencer, in succession to Comte, has contributed more than any

other scientist, deducing, as he does, a series of generalisations by

comparison of individual organisms with social.

SOCOTRA (10), an island off the E. coast of Africa, 148 m. NE. of

Cape Guardafui, over 70 m. long and 20 m. broad; it is mountainous,

surrounded by a margin of plain land from 2 to 4 m. broad; is

comparatively barren; is inhabited by Mohammedans, who rear sheep, goats,

and cattle; exports aloes, hides, and pearls; the sultan is a feudatory

of Britain.

SOCRATES, Athenian philosopher, pronounced by the Delphic oracle the

wisest of men; was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and Phænarete, a

midwife; was brought up to his father's profession, in which it would

seem he gave promise of success; he lived all his days in Athens, and

gathered about him as his pupils all the ingenuous youth of the city; he

wrote no book, propounded no system, and founded no school, but was ever

abroad in the thoroughfares in all weather talking to whoso would listen,

and instilling into all and sundry a love of justice and truth; of quacks

and pretenders he was the sworn foe, and he cared not what enmity he

provoked if he could persuade one and another to think and do what was

right; "he was so pious," says Xenophon in his "Memorabilia," "that he

did nothing without the sanction of the gods; so just, that he never

wronged any one, even in the least degree; so much master of himself,

that he never preferred the agreeable to the good; so wise, that in

deciding on the better and the worse he never faltered; in short, he was

the best and happiest man that could possibly exist;" he failed not to

incur enmity, and his enemies persecuted him to death; he was charged

with not believing in the State religion, with introducing new gods, and

corrupting the youth, convicted by a majority of his judges and condemned

to die; thirty days elapsed between the passing of the sentence and its

execution, during which period he held converse with his friends and

talked of the immortality of the soul; to an offer of escape he turned a

deaf ear, drank the hemlock potion prepared for him with perfect

composure, and died; "the difference between Socrates and Jesus Christ,"

notes Carlyle in his "Journal," "the great Conscious, the immeasurably

great Unconscious; the one cunningly manufactured, the other created,

living and life-giving; the epitome this of a grand and fundamental

diversity among men; but did _any_ truly great man ever," he asks, "go

through the world without _offence_, all rounded in, so that the current

moral systems could find no fault in him? most likely never"

(469-399 B.C.).

SOCRATES, APOLOGY OF, a work of Plato's, being a speech put into the

mouth of Socrates before the AREOPAGUS (q. v.) in his defence in

answer to the charge brought against him, and which Plato wrote after his

death.

SOCRATES, Church historian of the 4th century, born at Byzantium;

bred to the bar; his "Ecclesiastical History" embraces a period from 306

to 439, a work of no great merit.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH, two ancient cities which, for their wickedness

were, as the Bible relates, consumed with fire from heaven; they are

supposed to have stood near the S. border of the Dead Sea, though they

were not, as was at one time supposed, submerged in the waters of it.

SOFALA, a Portuguese maritime district of South-East Africa,

stretching from the Zambesi S. to Delagoa Bay, and forming the S. portion

of the colony of Mozambique. Sofala (1), chief port on a bay of the same

name, is a place of little importance.

SOFIA (50), capital since 1878 of Bulgaria; is a fortified town,

situated in the broad valley of the Isker, a tributary of the Danube, 75

m. NW. of Philippopolis; has recently largely undergone reconstruction,

and with hotels, banks, a government palace, &c., presents a fine modern

appearance; has a national university; is an important trade emporium,

and is on the Constantinople and Belgrade railway; manufactures cloth,

silks, leather, &c., and has long been famed for its hot mineral springs.

SOFRONIA, a Christian maiden of Jerusalem, who, to avert a general

massacre of the Christians by the Mohammedan king, accused herself of the

crime for which they were all to suffer, and whose story with the issue

is touchingly related in Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered."

SOISSONS (11), a fortified town of North France, dep. Aisne, on the

Aisne, 65 m. NE. of Paris; has a 12th-century cathedral and ruins of a

famous abbey; chief industries are brewing and the manufacture of various

textiles; was a place of much importance in early times, and figures in

the wars of Clovis and Pepin, frequently in the Hundred Years' War, and

in 1870 was captured by the Germans; is considered the key to Paris from

the Netherlands side.

SOKOTO (11,000), a native kingdom of West Central Africa, within

territories administered now by the British Government; lies between the

Soudan (N.) and the river Benuë (S.), the main affluent of the Niger; the

dominant people are the Fulahs, exercising sway over various native

tribes; is a country capable of much agricultural development, and has

large deposits of iron. Wurno (15), the capital, is on the Gandi, 18 m.

E. of the town of Sokoto.

SOLANO, name given to a hot oppressive wind in the Mediterranean.

SOLAR CYCLE, a period of 28 years, within which the first day of the

year passes successively through the same sequence of week-days.

SOLAR MYTH, a myth, the subject of which is a deified

personification of the sun or phenomena connected with it.

SOLAR YEAR, the period of 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 52 seconds

which the earth takes to complete a revolution of the sun.

SOLDAN, a corruption of Sultan, and denoting in mediæval romance the

Saracen king.

SOLECISM, the name given to a violation of the syntax or idiom of a

language, as well as to an incarnate absurdity of any kind, whether in

mind or morals.

SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. See COVENANT.

SOLENT, the western portion, SPITHEAD (q. v.) being the

eastern, of the strait which separates the Isle of Wight from the

mainland of Hants, 17 m. long, with an average breadth of 3 m., but at

its W. entrance, opposite Hurst Castle, contracts to ¾ m.

SOLEURE (86), a canton of North-West Switzerland, between Bern (W.

and S.) and Aargau (E); is hilly, but fertile and well cultivated,

especially in the valley of the Aar; inhabitants are mainly Catholics and

German-speaking. Soleure, the capital (8), situated on the Aar, 18 m. NE.

of Berne, has a fine cathedral, and manufactures of cottons, clocks, and

cement.

SOLFATA`RA, a fissure or crevice in the earth which emits sulphurous

and other vapours, and in regions where volcanoes have ceased to be

active; they are met with in South Italy, the Antilles, Mexico, and Java.

SOLFERINO, a village in North Italy, 20 m. NW. of Mantua, where the

Austrians were defeated by the French and Piedmontese in 1859.

SOLIDARITY, community of interest or responsibility; also that

community of being which binds humanity into one whole, so that each

affects and is affected by all.

SOLIDUS, a Roman gold coin adopted by the Franks, and first coined

by them in gold, but subsequently in silver, when it was equivalent to

one-twentieth of the libra, or pound; as the "sol" or "sou" it

depreciated greatly in value; was minted in copper, and on the

introduction of the decimal system its place was taken by a five-centime

piece; the "soldo" in Italy, and the Solidus L.S.D. owe their origin to

this coin.

SOLINGEN (37), a manufacturing town of Prussia, situated near the

Wupper, 13 m. E. of Düsseldorf; has long been famed for its steel and

iron works and cutlery manufactures.

SOLOMON, king of Israel from 1015 to 977 B.C., second son of David

and Bathsheba, and David's successor; in high repute far and wide for his

love of wisdom and the glory of his reign; he had a truly Oriental

passion for magnificence, and the buildings he erected in Jerusalem,

including the Temple and a palace on Mount Zion, he raised regardless of

an expense which the nation resented after he was gone; the burden of

which it would seem had fallen upon them, for when his successor,

following in his courses, ascended the throne, ten of the tribes

revolted, to the final rupture of the community, and the fall of first

the one section and then the other under alien sway.

SOLOMON OF ENGLAND, an appellation conferred on Henry VII., and also

satirically on James I., characterised by Sully as "the wisest fool in

Christendom."

SOLOMON OF FRANCE, a title bestowed on Louis IX.

SOLOMON ISLANDS (167), a large group of islands in the West Pacific,

500 m. E. of New Guinea, the N. islands of which belong to Germany, and

the S. to Britain; are volcanic in origin, mountainous, wooded, and

thickly populated by Melanesian savages, who are totem worshippers, and

still practise cannibalism.

SOLOMON'S RING, a ring worn by Solomon, in which was a stone from

which, according to the Rabbins, he learned whatever he wished to know.

SOLON, the great Athenian law-giver, and one of the seven sages of

GREECE (q. v.), born in Athens, was of royal degree, and kinsman

of Pisistratus; began life as a trader, and in that capacity acquired a

large experience of the world, and he soon turned his attention to

political affairs, and showed such wisdom in the direction of them that

he was elected archon in 594 B.C., and in that office was invested with

full power to ordain whatever he might deem of advantage for the benefit

of the State; he accordingly set about the framing of a constitution in

which property, not birth, was made the basis of the organisation, and

the title to honour and office in the community; he divided the citizens

into four classes, gave additional power to the assemblies of the people,

and made the archons and official dignitaries responsible to them in the

administration of affairs; when he had finished his work, he ordered the

laws he had framed to be engraved on tablets and set up in a public

place, then took oath of the people to observe them for ten years, after

which he left the country and set out on travel; at the end of the ten

years he returned, to find things lapsing into the old disorder, and

Pisistratus ready to seize the sovereignty of the State, whereupon he

withdrew into private life, and died the subject of a tyrant at the age

of eighty (640-559 B.C.).

SOLSTICE, summer and winter, the two recurring periods of the year

at which the sun is farthest distant N. or S. from the equator, which

mark midsummer and midwinter, the times being the 21st of June and 22nd

of December; also applied to the two points in the ECLIPTIC (q. v.),

which the sun appears to reach on these two dates.

SOLWAY FIRTH, an arm of the Irish Sea, and in its upper part forming

the estuary of the river Esk, separating Cumberland from the S. of

Scotland (Kirkcudbright and Dumfries); stretches inland from Balcarry

Point 36 m., and from 2 to 20 m. broad; receives the Annan, Dee, Nith,

Eden, and Derwent, and has valuable salmon-fishings; the spring tides ebb

and flow with remarkable rapidity, the "bore" often reaching a speed of

from 8 to 10 m. an hour; is spanned near Annan by a railway viaduct 1960

yards long.

SOLWAY MOSS, a moss, now drained and cultivated, in Cumberland, on

the Scottish border, that was the scene of the defeat of the Scotch army

in 1542, a disaster which broke the heart of James V.

SOLYMAN II., surnamed THE MAGNIFICENT, the tenth and greatest of

the Ottoman sultans, the son and successor of Selim I.; succeeded his

father at 24; set himself at once to reform abuses and place the internal

administration on a strict basis, and after making peace with Persia and

allaying tumult in Syria, turned his arms westwards, captured Belgrade,

and wrested the island of Rhodes from the Knights of St. John; he twice

over led his army into Hungary; in connection with the latter invasion

laid siege to Vienna, from which he was obliged to retire after the loss

of 40,000 men, after which he turned his arms to the east, adding to his

territory, and finally to the North of Africa, to the conquest of the

greater part of it; he died at Szigeth while opening a new campaign

against Hungary; _d_. 1566.

SOMA, the intoxicating juice of a plant offered in libation to a

Hindu god, especially to INDRA (q. v.), to strengthen him in his

war with the demons, and identified with the invigorating and inspiring

principle in nature which manifests itself at once in the valour of the

soldier and the inspiration of the poet; as a god Soma is the counterpart

of AGNI (q. v.).

SOMAI, BRAHMO. See BRAHMO-SOMAJ.

SOMALILAND, a broad plateau of East Africa, bounded by the Gulf of

Aden on the N. and the Indian Ocean on the SE.; inhabited by the Somalis,

a pastoral people, who rear camels, sheep, and oxen, and are of the

Mohammedan faith; are under chiefs, and jealous of strangers.

SOMERSET HOUSE, a handsome Government building in London, with a

double frontage on the Strand and the Victoria Embankment, built on the

site of the palace of the Protector Somerset, and opened in 1786;

accommodates various civil departments of the Government--the Inland

Revenue, Audit and Exchequer, Wills and Probate, Registry-General. The

east wing is occupied by King's College and School.

SOMERSETSHIRE (484), a maritime county of England, fronting the

Bristol Channel, between Devon (N.) and Gloucester (SW.), with Wilts and

Dorset on the E. and S.; diversified by the Mendips (NE.), Quantock

Hills, Exmoor (SW.), and other smaller elevations; is yet in the main

occupied by wide level plains largely given over to pastoral and dairy

farming; watered by the Bristol Avon, the Parret, and other lesser

streams; its orchards rank next to those of Devon; is prolific in Roman,

Saxon, and ancient British remains; Taunton is the county town, but Bath

the largest.

SOMERVILLE, MRS. MARY, a lady skilled in mathematics and physics,

born at Jedburgh; was brought up at Burntisland and Edinburgh;

contributed to the _Transactions of the Royal Society_; wrote a book

entitled the "Mechanism of the Heavens" on the suggestion of Lord

Brougham, as a popularisation of Laplace's "Mechanique Céleste," which

was followed by her "Connection of the Physical Sciences," "Physical

Geography," and "Molecular and Microscopic Science," the last published

in her ninetieth year; died at Naples (1770-1872).

SOMME, 1, a river of North France; rises in the department of Aisne,

near St. Quentin, and flows 150 m. SW. and NW. to the English Channel;

navigable as far as Abbeville. 2, A department (546) of North France,

fronting the English Channel, between Seine-Inférieure (S.) and

Pas-de-Calais (N.); one of the most prosperous agricultural and

manufacturing districts of France; AMIENS (q. v.) is the chief

town.

SOMNATH (7), an ancient maritime town of Oujarat, India, in the SW.

of the peninsula of Kathiawar; has interesting memorials of Krishna,

who, it is alleged, is hurled in the vicinity; close by is a famous

ruined Hindu temple, despoiled in the 11th century of its treasures,

sacred idol, and gates; in 1842 Lord Ellenborough brought hack from

Afghanistan gates which he thought to be the famous "Gates of Somnath,"

but doubt being cast on their authenticity, they were eventually placed

in the arsenal of Agra.

SOMNATH, IDOL OF, "a mere mass of coarse crockery," says Jepherson

Brick, an imaginary friend of Carlyle's, "not worth five shillings, sat

like a great staring god, with two diamonds for eyes, which one day a

commander of the Faithful took the liberty to smite once as he rode up

with grim battle-axe and heart full of Moslem fire, and which thereupon

shivered into a heap of ugly potsherds, yielding from its belly half a

waggon-load of gold coins; the gold coins, diamond eyes, and other

valuables were carefully picked up by the Faithful; confused jingle of

potsherds was left lying; and the idol of Somnath, once showing what it

_was_, had suddenly come to a conclusion."

SOMNUS, the god of Sleep, a brother of Death, and a son of Night,

represented, he and Death, as two youths sleeping or holding inverted

torches in their hands; near the dwelling of Somnus flowed the river of

Lethe, which crept along over pebbles, and invited to sleep; he was

attended by Morpheus, who inspired pleasing dreams.

SONATA, a musical composition chiefly designed for solo instruments,

especially the pianoforte, and consisting generally of three or four

contrasted movements--the allegro, adagio, rondo, minuetto or scherzo;

reaches its noblest expression in the sonatas of Beethoven.

SONDERBUND, the name given to the union of the Catholic cantons

(Lucerne, Zug, Freiburg, and Valais) of Switzerland, which led to the

civil disturbances of 1845-1846, and the war of 1847.

SONNET, a form of poetical composition invented in the 13th century,

consisting of 14 decasyllabic or hendecasyllabic iambic lines, rhymed

according to two well-established schemes which bear the names of their

two most famous exponents, Shakespeare and Petrarch. The Shakespearian

sonnet consists of three four-lined stanzas of alternate rhymes clinched

by a concluding couplet; the Petrarchan of two parts, an octave, the

first eight lines rhymed abbaabba, and a sestet, the concluding six lines

arranged variously on a three-rhyme scheme.

SONS OF THE PROPHETS. See NEBIIM.

SONTAG, HENRIETTA, a German singer, born at Coblenz; made her

_début_ at 15; had a brilliant career twice over (1806-1854).

SOOCHOO (500), a large city in China, 50 m. NW. of Shanghai; is

intersected by canals, walled all round, and manufactures fine silk.

SOPHERIM, THE, the name by which the SCRIBES (q. v.) are

designated in Jewish literature.

SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER, youngest daughter of ELIZABETH,

QUEEN OF BOHEMIA (q. v.), and mother of George I. (1630-1714).

SOPHIA, ST., the personification of the Divine wisdom, to whom, as

to a saint, many churches have been dedicated, especially the Church of

Constantinople.

SOPHIE CHARLOTTE, wife of Friedrich I. of Prussia, born in Hanover,

daughter of Electress Sophia; famous in her day both as a lady and a

queen; was, with her mother, of a philosophic turn; "persuaded," says

Carlyle, "that there was some nobleness for man beyond what the tailor

imparts to him, and even very eager to discover it had she known how";

she had the philosopher Leibnitz often with her, "eagerly desirous to

draw water from that deep well--a wet rope with cobwebs sticking to it

often all she got--endless rope, and the bucket never coming to view"

(1668-1705).

SOPHISTS, a sect of thinkers that arose in Greece, and whose radical

principle it was that we have only a subjective knowledge of things, and

that we have no knowledge at all of objective reality, that things are as

they seem to us, and that we have no knowledge of what they are in

themselves; "on this field," says SCHWEGLER, "they disported,

enjoying with boyish exuberance the exercise of the power of

subjectivity, and destroying, by means of a subjective dialectic, all

that had been ever objectively established," such as "the laws of the

State, inherited custom, religious tradition, and popular belief.... They

form, in short, the German AUFKLÄRUNG (q. v.), the Greek

Illumination (q. v.). They acknowledged only _private_ judgment and

ignored the existence of a judgment that is not private, and has absolute

rights irrespective of the sentiments of the individual."

SOPHOCLES, Athenian tragic poet, born at Colonos, a suburb of

Athens; when but 16, such was his musical talent, he was selected to lead

the choir that sang the song of triumph over the victory of Salamis; his

first appearance as a dramatist was in 488 B.C., when he had Æschylus as

his rival and won the prize, though he was seven years afterwards

defeated by Euripides, but retrieved the defeat the year following by the

production of his "Antigone." That same year one of the 10 _strategi_ (or

generals) and he accompanied Pericles in his war against the aristocrats

of Samos. He wrote a number of dramas, over 100 it is alleged, but only 7

survive, and these in probable order are "Ajax," "Antigone," "Electra,"

"Oedipus Tyrannus," "Trachineæ," "Oedipus Coloneus," and "Philoctetes."

Thus are all his subjects drawn from Greek legend, and they are all alike

remarkable for the intense humanity and sublime passion that inspires

them and the humane and the high and holy resolves they stir up.

SORATA, a volcanic peak in the Bolivian Andes, 21,470 ft. in height.

SORBONNE, a celebrated college of Paris, taking its name from its

founder, Robert of Sorbon, chaplain to Saint Louis in the 13th century;

was exclusively devoted to theology, and through the rigour of its

discipline and learning of its professors soon exercised a predominant

influence on the theological thought of Europe, which it maintained until

the new learning of the Renaissance (16th century), together with its own

dogmatic conservatism, left it hopelessly stuck in the "Sorbonnian bog"

of derelict scholastic theology; became an object of satiric attacks by

Boileau, Voltaire, and others, and was suppressed in 1789 at the outburst

of the Revolution; was revived by Napoleon in 1808; is at present the

seat of the Académie Universitaire de Paris, with faculties of theology,

science, and literature.

SORDELLO, a Provençal poet whom Dante and Virgil met in Purgatory

sitting solitary and with a noble haughty mien, but who sprang up at

sight of Virgil and embraced him and accompanied him a part of his way;

Browning used his name, as the title of a poem showing the conflict a

minister experiences in perfecting his craft.

SOREL, AGNES, the mistress of Charles VII. of France, who had a

great influence over him; had been maid of honour to the queen

(1409-1450).

SORROW, SANCTUARY OF, Goethe's name for the fold of Christ, wherein,

according to His promise (Matt. v. 4) the "mourners" who might gather

together there would find relief and be comforted, the path of sorrow

leading up to the "porch" of the sanctuary.

SORROW, WORSHIP OF, Goethe's name for the Christian religion, "our

highest religion, for the Son of Man," Carlyle adds, interpreting this,

"there is no noble crown, well worn or even ill worn, but is a crown of

thorns."

SORROWS OF THE VIRGIN. See SEVEN DOLOURS.

SORROWS OF WERTHER, a work by Goethe and one of his earliest, the

production of which constituted a new era in the life of the poet, and

marks a new era in the literature of Europe, "as giving expression to a

class of feelings deeply important to modern minds, but for which our

older poetry offered no exponent, and perhaps could offer none, because

they are feelings that arise from Passion incapable of being converted

into Action, and belong to an ignorant, uncultivated, and unbelieving age

such as ours," feelings that Byronically, "in dark wayward" mood reflect

a mere sense of the miseries of human life.

SORTES VIRGILIANÆ, consulting the pages of Virgil to ascertain one's

fortune, by opening the book at random, putting the finger on a passage

and taking that for the oracle of fate one is in quest of.

SOSTRATUS, architect of the Pharos of Alexandria, lived in the 3rd

century B.C., and was patronised by Ptolemy Philadelphus.

SOTHERN, EDWARD ASKEW, comedian, born in Liverpool; at 23 went on

the stage, and for some time was a member of the stock company of the

Theatre Royal, Birmingham; afterwards acted in America, and made his mark

in Tom Taylor's "Our American Cousin" (1858) in the small part of Lord

Dundreary, which he gradually developed into an elaborate and

phenomenally successful caricature of an English peer, and in which he

appeared thousands of times in America and England; scored a great

success also as David Garrick in Robertson's well-known comedy

(1826-1881).

SOUBISE, DUC DE, French soldier; served first under Prince Maurice

of Orange, and commanded the Huguenots against Louis XIII., but after

some successes was compelled to take refuge in England; distinguished

himself at the defence of Rochelle, but was defeated again and had to

betake himself to England as before, where he died (1589-1641).

SOUBISE, PRINCE DE, marshal of France; was aide-de-camp to Louis XV.

in Flanders, was favoured by Pompadour, held an important command in the

Seven Years' War, but was defeated by Frederick the Great at Rossbach

(1713-1787).

SOUDAN or "THE LAND OF THE BLACKS," the cradle of the negro

race, a vast tract of territory stretching E. and W. across the African

continent from the Atlantic (W.) to the Red Sea and Highlands of

Abyssinia (E.), between the Sahara (W.) and the Gulf of Guinea and the

central equatorial provinces (S.); divided into (a) Upper Soudan,

embracing Senegambia, Sierra Leone, Ashanti, Dahomey, Liberia, and west

coast-lands; (6) Lower Soudan, including the Fulah States, Massina,

Gando, Sokoto, &c.; (c) Egyptian Soudan, which in 1882 was subdivided

into (1) West Soudan, including Dar-Fur, Kordofan, Bahr-el-Ghazal, and

Dongola; (2) Central Soudan, comprising Khartoum, Sennaar, Berber,

Fashoda, and the Equatorial Province, &c.; (3) Eastern Soudan, bordering

on the Red Sea, and embracing Taka, Suakim, and Massowah; (4) Harar,

stretching E. of Abyssinia. The extension of Egyptian rule into this

territory began in 1819 with the capture of Khartoum, which became the

base of military operations, ending in the gradual conquest of the

surrounding regions in 1874. A serious revolt, fanned by religious

fanaticism, broke out in 1882, and headed by the MAHDI (q. v.)

and his lieutenant Osman Digna, ended in the utter rout of the Egyptian

forces under Hicks Pasha and Baker Pasha; Gordon, after a vain attempt to

relieve him, perished in Khartoum; but Stanley was more successful in

relieving Emin Bey in the Equatorial Province. Anarchy and despotism

ensued until the victorious campaign of KITCHENER (q. v.) again

restored the lost provinces to Egypt.

SOUFFLOT, French architect of the Pantheon of Paris (1713-1780).

SOUL, the name given to the spiritual part of man, the SEAT OF

REASON (q. v.) and conscience, by which he relates and subordinates

himself to the higher spiritual world, inspiring him with a sense of

individual responsibility.

SOULT, NICOLAS-JEAN DE DIEU, duke of Dalmatia and marshal of France,

born at St. Amans-la-Bastide, department of Tarn; enlisted as a private

in 1785, and by 1794 was general of a brigade; gallant conduct in Swiss

and Italian campaigns under Masséna won him rapid promotion, and in 1804

he was created a marshal; served with the emperor in Germany, and led the

deciding charge at Austerlitz, and for his services in connection with

the Treaty of Tilsit received the title of Duc de Dalmatia; at the head

of the French army in Spain he outmanoeuvred the English in 1808,

conquered Portugal, and opposed to Wellington a skill and tenacity not

less than his own, but was thwarted in his efforts by the obstinate

incompetence of Joseph Bonaparte; turned Royalist after the abdication of

Napoleon, but on his return from Elba rallied to the emperor's standard,

and fought at Waterloo; was subsequently banished, but restored in 1819;

became active in the public service, and was honoured as ambassador in

England in 1838; retired in 1845 with the honorary title of

"Marshal-General of France" (1769-1851).

SOUND, THE, a strait, 50 m. long, between Sweden and Denmark, which

connects the Cattegat with the Baltic Sea; dues at one time levied on

ships passing through the channel were abolished in 1857, and over three

millions paid in compensation, Britain contributing one-third and

undertaking to superintend the navigation and maintain the lighthouses.

SOUTH, ROBERT, an English divine, born at Hackney; obtained several

preferments in the Church, but refused a bishopric; was distinguished for

his hostility to the Dissenters, and was never tired of heaping ridicule

on them and their principles; wrote a book in defence of the Trinity in a

somewhat rationalistic view of it, which involved him in a furious

controversy with Dr. Sherlock; was a man of great wit and good sense as

well as refinement; his chief writings consist of "Sermons" (1633-1716).

SOUTH AFRICAN COMPANY. See RHODESIA.

SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC. See TRANSVAAL.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA (320), second largest of the five colonies of

Australia, stretches N. and S. in a broad band, 1850 in. long, through

the heart of the continent from the Southern Ocean to the Gulf of

Carpentaria and the Arafura Sea, having Queensland, New South Wales, and

Victoria on the E., and Western Australia on the W.; ten times the size

of Great Britain, but the greater portion comprises the Northern

Territory, which consists, save a low alluvial coastal strip, of parched

and uninhabited tableland. South Australia proper begins about 26° S.

latitude, and is traversed southwards by the Finke River as far as Eyre

Lake (3706 sq. m.), by the Flinders Range, and the lower Murray River in

the E., and diversified here and there by low ranges and Lake Amadeus

(NW.), Torrens and Gairdner (S.); the S. coast is penetrated by the great

gulfs of Spencer and St. Vincent, round and to the N. and E. of which the

bulk of the population is gathered in a region not much larger than

Scotland; is the chief wheat-growing colony, and other important

industries are mining (chiefly copper), sheep-rearing, and wine-making;

chief exports, wool, wheat, and copper; the railway and telegraph systems

are well developed, the Overland Telegraph Line (1973 m.) stretching

across the continent from Adelaide to Port Darwin being a marvel of

engineering enterprise. Adelaide is the capital. The governor is

appointed by the crown, and there are a legislative council or upper

house, and an assembly or lower house. State education is free. Began to

be settled in 1836, and five years later became a Crown colony.

SOUTH SEA BUBBLE, the name given to the disastrous financial project

set on foot by HARLEY (q. v.) to relieve the national debt and

restore public credit, which produced an unparalleled rush of

speculation, ending in the ruin of thousands of people. Through the

efforts of Harley a company of merchants was induced in 1711 to buy up

the floating national debt of £10,000,000 on a government guarantee of 6

per cent. interest, and a right to a monopoly of trade in the South Seas.

The shares rose by leaps and bounds as tales of the fabulous wealth of

the far South Seas circulated, till, in 1720, £200 shares were quoted at

£1000; earlier in the same year the company had taken over the entire

national debt of upwards of 30 millions. In the craze for speculation

which had seized the public hundreds of wild schemes were floated. At

length the "Bubble" burst. The chairman and several directors of the

company sold out when shares had reached £1000; suspicion followed,

confidence vanished, stock fell, and in a few days thousands from end to

end of the country were bewailing their ruin. The private estates of the

fraudulent directors were confiscated for the relief of the sufferers. To

Sir Robert Walpole belongs the credit of extricating the finances of the

country from the muddle into which they had fallen.

SOUTHAMPTON (94), an important seaport of South Hampshire, 79 m. SW.

of London, situated on a small peninsula at the head of Southampton Water

(a fine inlet, 11 m. by 2), between the mouths of the Itchen (E.) and the

Test (W.); portions of the old town-walls and four gateways still remain;

is the head-quarters of the Ordnance Survey; has splendid docks, and is

an important steam-packet station for the West Indies, Brazil, and South

Africa; yacht and ship building and engine-making are flourishing

industries.

SOUTHCOTT, JOANNA, a prophetess, born in Devon, of humble parents;

became a Methodist; suffered under religious mania; gave herself out as

the woman referred to in Revelation xii.; imagined herself to be with

child, and predicted she would on a certain day give birth to the

promised Prince of Peace, for which occasion great preparations were

made, but all to no purpose; she died of dropsy two months after the time

predicted; she found numbers to believe in her even after her death; she

traded in passports to heaven, which she called "seals," and persuaded

numbers to purchase them (1750-1814).

SOUTHERN CROSS, a constellation of the southern heavens, the five

principal stars of which form a rough and somewhat irregular cross, the

shape of which is gradually changing; it corresponds in the southern

heavens to the Great Bear in the northern.

SOUTHEY, ROBERT, poet-laureate, born, the son of a linen-draper, at

Bristol; was expelled from Westminster School for a satirical article in

the school magazine directed against flogging; in the following year

(1793) entered Balliol College, where he only remained one year, leaving

it a Unitarian and a red-hot republican; was for a time enamoured of

Coleridge's wild pantisocratic scheme; married (1795) clandestinely Edith

Frickes, a penniless girl, sister to Mrs. Coleridge, and in disgrace with

his English relatives visited his uncle in Lisbon, where in six months he

laid the foundation of his knowledge of Spanish history and literature;

the Church and medicine had already, as possible careers, been abandoned,

and on his return to England he made a half-hearted effort to take up

law; still unsettled he again visited Portugal, and finally was relieved

of pecuniary difficulties by the settlement of a pension on him by an old

school friend, which he relinquished in 1807 on receiving a pension from

Government; meanwhile had settled at Keswick, where he prosecuted with

untiring energy the craft of authorship; "Joan of Arc," "Thalaba,"

"Madoc," and "The Curse of Kehama," won for him the laureateship in 1813,

and in the same year appeared his prose masterpiece "The Life of Nelson";

of numerous other works mention may be made of his Histories of Brazil

and the Peninsular War, Lives of Bunyan and Wesley, and "Colloquies on

Society"; declined a baronetcy offered by Peel; domestic affliction--the

death of children, and the insanity and death of his wife--saddened his

later years, which were brightened in the last by his second marriage

(1839) with the poetess and his twenty years' friend, Caroline Bowles; as

a poet Southey has few readers nowadays; full of miscellaneous interest,

vigour of narrative, and spirited rhythm, his poems yet lack the finer

spirit of poetry; but in prose he ranks with the masters of English prose

style "of a kind at once simple and scholarly" (1774-1843).

SOUTHPORT (41), a watering-place of Lancashire, situated on the

southern shore of the Ribble estuary, 18 m. N. of Liverpool; is a town of

quite modern growth and increasing popularity; has a fine sea-shore,

esplanade, park, theatre, public library, art gallery, etc.

SOUTHWARK (339), or the BOROUGH, a division of London, on the

Surrey side of the Thames, opposite the City, and annexed to it in 1827;

it sends three members to Parliament, and among its principal buildings

are St. Saviour's Church and Guys Hospital.

SOUTHWELL, ROBERT, poet, born in Norfolk; studied at Douay, and

became a Jesuit priest; came to England as a missionary, was thrown into

prison, tortured ten times by the rack, and at length executed at Tyburn

as a traitor for disseminating Catholic doctrine; his poems are religious

chiefly, and excellent, and were finally collected under the title "St.

Peter's Complaint," "Mary Magdalen's Tears, and Other Works"; "The

Burning Babe" is characterised by Professor Saintsbury as a "splendid

poem" (1560-1595).

SOUVESTRE, ÉMILE, French novelist and playwright, born at Morlaix;

at 30 he established himself in Paris as a journalist, and became noted

as a writer of plays and of charming sketches of Breton life, essays, and

fiction; "Les Derniers Bretons" and "Foyer Breton" are considered his

best work (1806-1854).

SOUZA, MADAME DE (maiden name Adelaide Filleul), French novelist,

born in Paris, and educated in a convent, on her leaving which she was

married to the Comte de Flahaut, a man much older than herself, and with

whom she lived unhappily; fled to Germany and then to England on the

outbreak of the Revolution; afterwards returned to Paris, and as the wife

of the Marquis de Souza-Botelho presided over one of the most charming of

_salons_, in which the chief attraction was her own bright and gifted

personality; her novels, "Eugène de Rothelin," "Eugénie et Mathilde,"

etc., breathe the spirit of the old régime, and are full of natural and

vivacious pictures of French life (1761-1836).

SOWERBY BRIDGE (10), manufacturing town in West Riding of Yorkshire,

3 m. SW. of Halifax; cotton-spinning, woollen manufactures, and dyeing

are the chief; it was the birthplace of Tillotson.

SOY, a sauce or condiment used in Japan and China; prepared from a

bean which is extensively cultivated in those countries.

SOYER, ALEXIS, a famous cook, born at Meaux; turned aside from a

tempting career as a vocalist and took up gastronomy as a profession;

during the 1830 Revolution he narrowly escaped with his life to London,

which he henceforth made his head-quarters, rising to the position of

cook to the Reform Club; rendered important services as a culinary expert

in Ireland during the 1847 famine, and at the Crimea (1855); was the

author of various highly popular works on the art of cooking, "The Modern

Housewife," "Shilling Cookery Book," etc. (1809-1858).

SPA (7), a watering-place in Belgium, 20 m. SE. of Liège; a

favourite health and fashionable resort on account of its springs and its

picturesque surroundings, the number of visitors during the season

amounting to 12,000.

SPAHI, an Algerine cavalry soldier serving in the French army.

SPAIN (17,800), a kingdom of South-West Europe, which with Portugal

(less than one-fifth the size of Spain) occupies the entire Iberian

Peninsula, and is divided from France on the N. by the Pyrenees

Mountains, and on the E. and S. is washed by the Mediterranean; the NW.

corner fronts the Bay of Biscay (N.) and the Atlantic (W.), while

Portugal completes the western boundary; its area, three and one-third

times the size of England and Wales, is, along with the Canaries and the

Balearic Isles, divided into 49 provinces, although the more familiar

names of the 14 old kingdoms, states, and provinces (New and Old Castile,

Galicia, Aragon, etc.) are still in use; forms a compact square, with a

regular, in parts precipitous, coast-line, which is short compared with

its area; is in the main a highland country, a vast plateau (2000 to 3000

ft. high) occupying the centre, buttressed and crossed by ranges (Sierra

Nevada in the S., Sierra de Guadarrama, Sierra Morena, etc.), and

diversified by the long valleys of the Ebro, Douro, Tagus, Guadalquivir,

and other lesser rivers, all of which are rapid, and only a few

navigable; climate varies considerably according as one proceeds to the

central plains, where extremes of heat and cold are experienced, but over

all is the driest in Europe; agriculture, although less than a half of

the land is under cultivation, is by far the most important industry, and

Valencia and Catalonia the provinces where it is most successfully

carried out, wheat and other cereals, the olive and the vine, being the

chief products; other important industries are mining, the Peninsula

being extremely rich in the useful minerals; Merino sheep farming,

anchovy and sardine fisheries, wine-making, and the manufacture of

cotton, silk, leather, and paper; chief exports are wine, fruits, mineral

ores, oil and cork; Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, and Malaga are

the chief towns; the widest variety of character exists among the natives

of the various provinces, from the hard-working, thrifty Catalan to the

lazy, improvident Murcian, but all possess the southern love "of song,

dance, and colour," and have an inherent grace and dignity of manner;

Roman Catholicism is the national religion; and although systems of

elementary and secondary schools are in vogue, education over all is in a

deplorably backward condition; the Government is a hereditary and

constitutional monarchy; the Cortes consists of the Senate and the

Chamber of Deputies; universal suffrage and trial by jury are recent

innovations. The outstanding fact in the history of Spain, after the

downfall of the Roman Empire, of which she had long formed a part, is the

national struggle with the Moors, who overran the peninsula in the 8th

century, firmly established themselves, and were not finally overthrown

till Granada, their last possession, was taken in 1492; sixteen years

later the country became a united kingdom, and for a brief period, with

its vast American colonies and wide European possessions, became in the

16th century the dominant power of Europe; since then she has lagged more

and more in the race of nations, and her once vast colonial empire has

gradually crumbled away till now, since the unsuccessful war with America

in 1898, only an island or two remains to her.

SPALATO (15), a historic and flourishing town of Dalmatia, finely

situated on a promontory on the E. side of the Adriatic, 160 m. SE. of

Fiume; a place of considerable antiquity, and one of the great cities of

the Roman world; is chiefly famed for the vast palace built by

Diocletian, and which became his residence after his abdication;

subsidiary buildings and grounds were enclosed by walls, within which now

a considerable part of the town stands; the noblest portions of the

palace are still extant; the modern town carries on an active trade in

grain, wine, cattle, etc.; is noted for its liqueurs.

SPALDING, a market-town in Lincolnshire, 34 m. SE. of Lincoln, in

the heart of the Fens; is a very ancient place; has a trade in

agricultural produce, and is a railway centre.

SPALLANZANI, LAZARO, a noted Italian scientist, born at Scandiano,

in Modena; held chairs of Philosophy and Greek in the Universities of

Reggio and Modena, but more attracted to natural science he in 1768

became professor of Natural History at Pavia; wrote elaborate accounts of

expeditions to Sicily and elsewhere; overturned Button's theory of

spontaneous generation, and in important works made some valuable

contributions to physiological science (1729-1799).

SPANDAU (45), an important town and fortress of Prussia, in

Brandenburg, at the confluence of the Spree and Havel, 8 m. W. by N. of

Berlin; fortifications are of the strongest and most modern kind, and in

the "Julius Tower" of the powerful citadel the German war-chest of

£6,000,000 is preserved; there is an arsenal and large Government

cannon-foundries, powder-factories, etc.

SPANHEIM, FRIEDRICH, a theological professor at Geneva (1631), and

afterwards at Leyden (1641); author of the work on "Universal Grace"

(1600-1648). His son, EZECHIEL SPANHEIM (1629-1710) became professor

of Eloquence in his native town, Geneva, and after acting as tutor to

the sons of the Elector Palatine was employed on several important

diplomatic missions to Italy, England, and France; meanwhile devoted his

leisure to ancient law and numismatics, publishing learned works on these

subjects. FRIEDRICH SPANHEIM, brother of preceding, was a learned

Calvinistic professor of Theology at Heidelberg (1685), and afterwards at

Leyden (1632-1701).

SPANISH MAIN (i. e. mainland), a name given at one time to the

Central American provinces of Spain bordering on the Caribbean Sea, and

also to the Caribbean Sea itself.

SPARKS, JAMES, president of Harvard University, born in Connecticut;

bred a carpenter, took to study, attended Harvard, where he graduated,

studied theology, and became Unitarian, becoming a minister in that body,

but retired from the ministry and settled in Boston; edited the _North

American Review_; wrote and edited biographies of eminent Americans, and

edited the writings of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington

(1789-1866).

SPARTA or LACEDEMON, the capital of ancient Laconia, in the

Peloponnesus, on the right bank of the Eurotas, 20 m. from the sea; was 6

m. in circumference, consisted of several distinct quarters, originally

separate villages, never united into a regular town; was never surrounded

by walls, its walls being the bravery of its citizens; its mythical

founder was Lacedemon, who called the city Sparta from the name of his

wife; one of its early kings was Menelaus, the husband of Helen;

LYCURGUS (q. v.) was its law-giver; its policy was aggressive,

and its sway gradually extended over the whole Peloponnesus, to the

extinction at the end of the Peloponnesian War of the rival power of

Athens, which for a time rose to the ascendency, and its unquestioned

supremacy thereafter for 30 years, when all Greece was overborne by the

Macedonian power.

SPARTACUS, leader of the revolt of the slaves at Rome, which broke

out about 73 B.C.; was a Thracian by birth, a man of powerful physique,

in succession a shepherd, a soldier, and a captain of banditti; was in

one of his predatory expeditions taken prisoner and sold to a trainer of

gladiators, and became one of his slaves; persuaded his fellow-slaves to

attempt their freedom, and became their chief and that of other runaways

who joined them; for two years they defied and defeated one Roman army

after another sent to crush them, and laid Italy waste, till at the end

of that time Licinius Crassus, taking up arms in earnest, overpowered

them in a decisive battle at the river Silarus, in which Spartacus was

slain.

SPASMODIC SCHOOL, name given to a small group of minor poets about

the middle of the 19th century, represented by Philips, James Bailey,

Sydney Dobell, and Alexander Smith, from their strenuous, overstrained,

and unnatural style.

SPECIFIC GRAVITY, the weight of a body compared with another of

equal bulk taken as a standard, such as the weight of a cubic inch of

water.

SPECTRUM, the name given to coloured and other rays of pure light

separated by refraction in its transmission through a prism, as exhibited

on a screen in a darkened chamber.

SPECTRUM ANALYSIS, name given to the method of determining the

composition of a body by means of the spectrum of light which it gives

forth or passes through it, founded on the principle that a substance

powerfully absorbs exactly the rays it radiates, and every substance has

its own absorbing powers; or it may be defined the method of

distinguishing different kinds of matter by their properties in relation

to light.

SPECULATIVE, THE, that which we think and which as such goes no

deeper than the intellect, which is but the eye of the soul, not the

heart of it. See SPIRITUAL, THE.

SPEDDING, JAMES, editor of Bacon, born at Mirehouse, near Keswick,

son of a Cumberland squire; scholar and honorary Fellow of Cambridge;

became in 1847 Under-Secretary of State with £2000 a year; devoted his

life to the study of Bacon, the fruit of which the "Letters and the Life

of Francis Bacon, including all his Occasional Works, newly selected and

set forth with a Commentary, Biographical and Historical," in 7 vols.; a

truly noble man, and much esteemed by his contemporaries in literature

(1808-1881).

SPEKE, JOHN BANNING, African explorer, born in Somersetshire; became

a soldier, and served in the Punjab; joined Burton in 1854 in an

expedition into Somaliland, and three years after in an attempt to

discover the sources of the Nile, and setting out alone discovered

Victoria Nyanza, which he maintained was the source of the river, but

which Burton questioned; on his return he published in 1863 an account of

his discovery, which he was about to defend in the British Association

when he was shot by the accidental discharge of his gun while he was out

hunting (1827-1864).

SPENCE, JOSEPH, a miscellaneous writer, born in Hants; educated at

and a Fellow of Oxford; his principal work, "Polymetis; or, an Inquiry

into the Agreement between the Works of the Roman Poets and the Remains

of Ancient Artists"; his "Anecdotes" are valuable from his acquaintance

with the literary class of the time, and have preserved his name

(1699-1768).

SPENCER, HERBERT, systematiser and unifier of scientific knowledge

up to date, born at Derby, son of a teacher, who early inoculated him

with an interest in natural objects, though he adopted at first the

profession of a railway engineer, which in about eight years he abandoned

for the work of his life by way of literature, his first effort being a

series of "Letters on the Proper Sphere of Government" in the

_Nonconformist_ in 1842, and his first work "Social Statics," published

in 1851, followed by "Principles of Psychology" four years after; in 1861

he published a work on "Education," and his "First Principles" the

following year, after which he began to construct his system of

"Synthetic Philosophy," which fills a dozen large volumes, and has

established his fame as the foremost scientific philosopher of the time.

Following in the lines of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, he takes a

wider sweep than either of them, fills the field he occupies with fuller

and riper detail, resolves the whole of science into still more ultimate

principles, and works the whole up into a more compact and comprehensive

system. He is valiant before all for science, and relegates everything

and every interest to Agnosticism that cannot give proof of its

scientific rights. "What a thing is in itself," he says, "cannot be

known, because to know it we must strip it of all that it becomes, of all

that has come to adhere to it." The ultimate thus arrived at he finds to

be, and calls, Energy, and that therefore, he says, we don't and can't

know. That a thing _is_ what it becomes seems never to occur to him, and

yet only the knowledge of that is the knowledge of the ultimate of being,

which is the thing he says we cannot know. To trace life to its roots he

goes back to the cell, whereas common-sense would seem to require us, in

order to know what the cell is, to inquire at the fruit. This is the

doctrine of St. John, "The Word was God." In addition to agnosticism

another doctrine of Spencer's is Evolution, but in maintaining this he

fails to see he is arguing for an empty conception barren of all thought,

which thought is the alpha and omega of the whole process, and is as much

an ultimate as and still more so than the energy in which he absorbs God.

Indeed, his philosophy is what is called the AUFKLÄRUNG (q. v.)

in full bloom, and in which he strips us of all our spiritual content or

_Inhalt_, and under which he would lead us out of "HOUNDSDITCH"

(q. v.), not _with_, but _without_, all that properly belongs to us;

_b_. 1820.

SPENCER GULF, a deep inlet on the coast of South Australia, 180 m.

by 90 m.

SPENER, PHILIP JACOB, German Protestant theologian, founder of the

PIETISTS (q. v.), born in Alsace, studied in Strasburg; in 1670

held a series of meetings which he called "Collegia Pietatis," whence the

name of his sect; established himself in Dresden and in Berlin, but Halle

was the centre of the movement; he was an earnest and universally

esteemed man (1636-1705).

SPENSER, EDMUND, author of the "Faërie Queene," and one of England's

greatest poets; details of his life are scanty and often hypothetical;

born at London of poor but well-connected parents; entered Pembroke Hall,

Cambridge, as a "sizar" in 1569, and during his seven years' residence

there became an excellent scholar; took a master's degree, and formed an

important friendship with Gabriel Harvey; three years of unsettled life

followed, but were fruitful in the production of the "Shepheards'

Calendar" (1579), which at once placed him at the head of the English

poets of his day; had already taken his place in the best London literary

and political circles as the friend of Sir Philip Sidney and Leicester,

and in 1580 was appointed private secretary to Lord Grey, then proceeding

to Ireland as the Lord Deputy, and although his master soon returned to

England Spencer continued to make his home in Ireland, where he obtained

some civil appointments, and in 1591 entered into possession of a

considerable portion of the forfeited estates of the Earl of Desmond,

adjacent to his house, Kilcolman Castle, co. Cork; seems to have been a

pretty stern landlord, and, as expounded in his admirable tract, "A View

of the Present State of Ireland," the advocate of a policy of

"suppression and repression"; consequently was little loved by the Irish,

and on the outbreak of Tyrone's rebellion in 1598 his house was sacked

and burned, and he himself forced to flee to London, where he died a few

weeks later "a ruined and heart-broken man"; the rich promise of the

"Shepheards' Calendar" had been amply fulfilled in the "Complaints,"

"Amoretti," "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," the "Epithalamium" the

finest bridal song in any language, and above all in the six published

books of "The Faërie Queene" (1589 and 1596), in which all his gifts and

graces as a poet are at their best; "He may be read," says Professor

Saintsbury, "in childhood, chiefly for his adventure; in later youth, for

his display of voluptuous beauty; in manhood, for his historical and

ethical weight; in age, for all combined" (1552-1599).

SPERMACETI, a white waxy matter obtained in an oily state from the

head of the sperm-whale inhabiting the Pacific and Indian Oceans; candles

made of it yield a particularly steady and bright light.

SPEY, a river in the N. of Scotland which, rising in Badenoch, flows

NE. through Inverness, Elgin, and Banffshire, falls into the Moray Firth

after a course of 107 miles; the salmon-fisheries are valuable; it is the

swiftest of the rivers of Great Britain.

SPEZIA (20), the chief naval station, "the Portsmouth," of Italy;

occupies a strongly fortified site at the head of a bay on the W. side of

Italy, 56 m. SE. of Genoa; here are the naval shipbuilding yards,

national arsenal, navy store-houses, besides schools of navigation,

manufactures of cables, sail-cloth, &c.

SPHINX, a fabled animal, an invention of the ancient Egyptians, with

the body and claws of a lioness, and the head of a woman, or of a ram, or

of a goat, all types or representations of the king, effigies of which

are frequently placed before temples on each side of the approach; the

most famous of the sphinxes was the one which waylaid travellers and

tormented them with a riddle, which if they could not answer she devoured

them, but which Oedipus answered, whereupon she threw herself into the

sea. "Such a sphinx," as we are told in "Past and Present," "is this life

of ours, to all men and nations. Nature, like the Sphinx, is of womanly

celestial loveliness and tenderness, the face and bosom of a goddess, but

ending in the claws and the body of a lioness ... is a heavenly bride and

conquest to the wise and brave, to them who can discern her behests and

do them; a destroying fiend to them who cannot. Answer her

riddle--Knowest thou the meaning of to-day?--it is well with thee. Answer

it not; the solution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws."

SPICE ISLANDS. See MOLUCCAS.

SPINELLO, ARETINO, a celebrated Italian fresco-painter, born at

Arezzo, where, with visits to Florence, his life was chiefly spent; was

in his day the rival of Giotto, but few of his frescoes are preserved,

and such of his paintings as are to be found in various galleries of

Europe are inferior to his frescoes (1330-1410).

SPINOLA, AMBROSIO, MARQUIS OF, great Spanish general under Philip

II. of Spain, born at Genoa, with a following of 9000, maintained at his

own expense, took Ostend after a resistance of 3 years, in consequence of

which feat he was appointed commander-in-chief, in which capacity

maintained and again maintained a long struggle with Prince Maurice of

Nassau, terminated only with the death of the latter; his services on

behalf of Spain, in the interest of which he spent his fortune, were

never acknowledged, and he died with poignant grief (1571-1630).

SPINOZA, BENEDICT, great modern philosopher, born in Amsterdam, of

Jews of Portuguese extraction in well-to-do circumstances, and had been

trained as a scholar; began with the study of the Bible and the Talmud,

but soon exchanged the study of theology in these for that of physics and

the works of Descartes, in which study he drifted farther and farther

from the Jewish creed, and at length openly abandoned it; this exposed

him to a persecution which threatened his life, so that he left Amsterdam

and finally settled at The Hague, where, absorbed in philosophic study,

he lived in seclusion, earning a livelihood by polishing optical glasses,

which his friends disposed of for him; his days were short; he suffered

from ill-health, and died of consumption when he was only 44; he was a

man of tranquil temper, moderate desires, purity of motive, and kindly in

heart; his great work, his "Ethica," was published a year after his

death; he had held it back during his lifetime because he foresaw it

would procure him the name of atheist, which he shrank from with horror;

Spinoza's doctrine is summed up by Dr. Stirling thus, "Whatever is, is;

and that is extension and thought. These two are all that is; and

besides these there is nought. But these two are one; they are attributes

of the single substance (that which, for its existence, stands in need of

nothing else), very God, in whom, then, all individual things and all

individual ideas (modes of extension those, of thought these) are

comprehended and take place"; thus we see Spinoza includes under the term

extension all individual objects, and under thought all individual ideas,

and these two he includes in God, as He in whom they live and move and

have their being,--a great conception and a pregnant, being the

speculative ground of the being of all that lives and is; not without

good reason does Novalis call him "Der Gott-getrunkene Mensch," the

God-intoxicated man (1632-1677).

SPINOZISM, the pantheism of SPINOZA (q. v.), which regards

God as the one self-subsistent substance, and both matter and thought

attributes of Him.

SPIRES or SPEYER, an old German town on the left bank of the

Rhine, in the Palatinate, 14 m. SW. of Heidelberg, the seat of a bishop

and with a cathedral, of its kind one of the finest in Europe, and the

remains of the Retscher, or imperial palace, where in 1529 the Diet of

the Empire was held at which the Reformers first got the name of

Protestants, because of their protestation against the imperial decree

issued at Worms prohibiting any further innovations in religion.

SPIRIT (lit. breath of life), in philosophy and theology is the

Divine mind incarnating itself in the life of a man, and breathing in all

he thinks and does, and so is as the life-principle of it; employed also

to denote any active dominating and pervading principle of life inspired

from any quarter whatever and coming to light in the conduct.

SPIRIT, THE HOLY, the Divine Spirit manifested in Christ which

descended upon His disciples in all its fulness when, shortly after His

decease, their eyes were opened to see the meaning of His life and their

hearts to feel the power of it.

SPIRITUAL, THE, the fruit of the quickening and abiding action of a

higher principle at the centre of the being, operating so as to suffuse

the whole of it, pervade the whole of it, to its utmost limits, which,

seating itself in the heart of the thoughts and affections, works and

weaves itself into all the life tissues and becomes part and parcel of

the very flesh and blood. No idea, however true, however elevated or

elevating one may feel it, is spiritual till it centralises in the heart

and affects all the issues thereof.

SPIRITUALISM, a term that has two very different meanings, denoting

at one time the doctrine that the only real is the SPIRITUAL (q. v.),

and at another time a belief in the existence of spirits whom we,

by means of certain media, can hold correspondence with, and who, whether

we are conscious of it or not, exercise in some cases an influence over

human destiny, more particularly of the spirits of dead men with whom in

their disembodied state we can by means of certain mediums hold

correspondence, and who, from their continued interest in the world, do

in that state keep watch and ward over its affairs as well as mingle in

them, forming a world of spirits gone from hence, yet more or less active

in the sense world.

SPITHEAD, the eastern portion of the strait which separates the Isle

of Wight from the Hampshire coast, 14 m. long, with an average breadth of

4 m.; is a sheltered and safe riding for ships, and as such is much used

by the British navy; receives its name from a long "spit" of sandbank

jutting out from the mainland. See the _SOLENT_.

SPITZBERGEN, the name of an Arctic archipelago lying 400 m. N. of

Norway, embracing West Spitzbergen (15,260 sq. m.), North-East Land,

Stans Foreland, King Charles land or Wiche Island, Barents Land, Prince

Charles Foreland, besides numerous smaller islands; practically lies

under great fields of ice, enormous glaciers, and drifts of snow, pierced

here and there by mountain peaks, hence the name Spitzbergen; the home of

vast flocks of sea-birds, of polar bears, and Arctic foxes, while herds

of reindeer are attracted to certain parts by a scanty summer vegetation;

there are no permanent inhabitants, but the fiord-cut shores are

frequented in summer by Norwegian seal and walrus hunters.

SPLÜGEN, an Alpine pass in the Swiss canton of the Grisons; the

roadway 24 m. long, opened in 1822, crosses the Rhætian Alps from Chur,

the capital of Grisons, to Chiavenna, in Lombardy, and reaches a height

of 6595 ft.

SPOHR, LUDWIG, musical composer and violinist, born in Brunswick;

produced both operas and oratorios, "Faust" among the former, the "Last

Judgment" and the "Fall of Babylon" among the latter; his violin-playing

was admirable, producing from the tones of the instrument the effects of

the human voice; wrote a handbook for violinists (1784-1859).

SPOLETO (8), an ancient city of Central Italy, built on the rocky

slopes of a hill, in the province of Umbria, 75 m. NE. of Rome; is

protected by an ancient citadel, and has an interesting old cathedral

with frescoes by Lippo Lippi, and an imposing 7th-century aqueduct; was

capital of a Lombard duchy, and in 1220 was joined to the Papal States.

SPONTINI, GASPARO, Italian operatic composer, born at Majolati;

settled in Paris in 1803, and a year later made his mark with the little

opera "Milton," and subsequently established his fame with the three

grand operas, "La Vestale," "Ferdinand Cortez," and "Olympia"; from 1820

to 1842 was stationed at Berlin under court patronage, and in the face of

public and press opposition continued to write in a strain of elevated

and melodious music various operas, including his greatest work "Agnes

von Hohenstaufen" (1774-1851).

SPORADES, a group of islands in the Ægean Sea, of which the largest

is the Mitylene.

SPOTTISWOODE, JOHN, archbishop of St. Andrews; accompanied James VI.

to London, was zealous for the establishment of Episcopacy in Scotland;

was archbishop of Glasgow before he was translated to St. Andrews;

officiated at coronation of Charles I. at Holyrood in 1633, and was two

years after made Chancellor of Scotland; wrote a "History of the Church

of Scotland"; was buried in Westminster (1565-1639).

SPOTTISWOODE, WILLIAM, mathematician and physician, born in London;

was Queen's printer, as his father had been before him; published

numerous important papers on scientific subjects, his greatest work "The

Polarization of Light," a subject on which he was a great authority

(1825-1883).

SPREE, a river of Prussia, rises in East Saxony close to the

Bohemian border, follows a winding and generally N. and NW. course of 227

m. till its Junction with the Havel at Spandau; chief towns on its banks

are Bautzen, Kottbus, Lübben, and Berlin; is connected with the Oder by

the Frederick William Canal.

SPRENGEL, CARL, physician and botanist, born in Pomerania; held

professorship in Halle; wrote on the history of both medicine and botany

(1766-1833).

SPRENGER, ALOYS, eminent Orientalist, born in the Tyrol; studied in

Vienna; went to India in 1843, where he diligently occupied his mind in

study, and on his return in 1857 was appointed professor of Oriental

Languages at Bern, from which he was translated to Heidelberg; edited

Persian and Arabic works, and wrote the "Life and Doctrine of Mohammed";

_b_. 1813.

SPRINGFIELD, 1, capital (34) of Illinois, situated in a flourishing

coal district, 185 m. SW. of Chicago; has an arsenal, two colleges, and a

handsome marble capitol; coal-mining, foundries, and flour, cotton, and

paper mills are the chief industries; the burial-place of Abraham

Lincoln. 2, A nicely laid out and flourishing city (62) of Massachusetts,

capital of Hampden County, on the Connecticut River (spanned here by five

bridges), 99 m. W. by S. of Boston; settled in 1635; has important

manufactories of cottons, woollens, paper, and a variety of other

articles, besides the United States armoury. 3, Capital (22) of Greene

County, Missouri, 232 m. WSW. of St. Louis; has rapidly increasing

manufactories of cottons, woollens, machinery, &c.; in the vicinity was

fought the battle of Wilson's Creek, 10th August 1861. 4, Capital (38) of

Clark County, Ohio, on Lagonda Creek and Mad River, 80 m. NE. of

Cincinnati; is an important railway centre, and possesses numerous

factories of machinery, bicycles, paper, &c.

SPURGEON, CHARLES HADDON, a great preacher, born at Kelvedon, Essex;

had no college training; connected himself with the Baptists; commenced

as an evangelist at Cambridge when he was but a boy, and was only 17 when

he was appointed to a pastorate; by-and-by on invitation he settled in

Southwark, and held meetings which were always requiring larger and

larger accommodation; at length in 1861 the Metropolitan Tabernacle,

capable of accommodating 6000, was opened, where he drew about him large

congregations, and round which he, in course of time, established a

number of institutions in the interest at once of humanity and religion;

his pulpit addresses were listened to by thousands every Sunday, and were

one and all printed the week following, and circulated all over the land

and beyond it till they filled volumes; no preacher of the time had such

an audience, and none such a wide popularity; he preached the old Puritan

gospel, but it was presented in such a form and in such simple, idiomatic

phrase, as to commend it as no less a gospel to his own generation:

besides his sermons as published, other works were also widely

circulated; special mention may be made of "John Ploughman's Talk"

(1834-1892).

SPURZHEIM, JOHANN CASPAR, phrenologist, born in Trèves; went to

study medicine at Vienna; attended the lectures of Gall and became a

disciple, accompanying him on a lecturing tour through Central Europe,

and settling with him in 1807 in Paris; in 1813 he separated from Gall,

and went to lecture in England with much acceptance; in 1832 he proceeded

to America with the same object, but he had hardly started on his mission

when he died at Boston; he wrote numerous works bearing on phrenology,

education, &c. (1776-1832).

SRUTI, the name given to sacred and revealed tradition, or

revelation generally, among the Hindus.

STAAL, JEAN, a French lady of humble circumstances, of metaphysical

turn; skilled in the philosophies of Descartes and Malebranche; was in

the Bastille for two years for political offences; was a charming woman,

and captivated the Baron de Staal; left Memoirs and Letters (1693-1750).

STABAT MATER, A Latin hymn on the dolours of the Virgin, beginning

with these words, and composed in the 13th century by Jacopone da Todi, a

Franciscan monk, and set to music by several composers, the most popular

being Rossini's.

STADIUM, the course on which were celebrated the great games

(foot-racing, wrestling, &c.) of ancient Greece, held at Olympia, Athens,

and other places; the most famous was that laid out at Olympia; length

600 Greek feet, which was adopted as the Greek standard of measure, and

equalled 606½ English feet.

STADTHOLDER, an anglicised form of the Dutch "stadhouder" (i. e.

stead-holder), a title conferred on the governors of provinces in the Low

Countries, but chiefly associated with the rulers of Holland, Zealand,

and Utrecht; in 1544 the title was held by William the Silent, and

continued to be the designation of the head of the new republic of the

United Provinces of the Netherlands until 1802, when William V. was

compelled to resign his stadtholdership to France, the country afterwards

assuming a monarchical government.

STAËL, MADAME DE, distinguished French lady, born in Paris, daughter

of Necker, and only child; a woman of eminent ability, and an admirer of

Rousseau; wrote "Letters" on his character and works; married a man ten

years older than herself, the Baron de Staël-Holstein, the Swedish

ambassador in Paris, where she lived all through the events of the

Revolution in sympathy with the royal family; wrote an appeal in defence

of the queen, and quitted the city during the Reign of Terror; on her

return in 1795 her _salon_ became the centre of the literary and

political activity of the time; the ambition of Napoleon excited her

distrust, and forced her into opposition so expressed that in 1801 she

was ordered to leave Paris within 24 hours, and not to come within 40

leagues of it; in 1802 she was left a widow, and soon after she went

first to Weimar, where she met Goethe and Schiller, and then to Berlin;

by-and-by she returned to France, but on the publication of her

"Corinne," was ordered out of the country; after this appeared her great

epoch-making work on Germany, "L'Allemagne," which was seized by the

French censors; after this she quitted for good the soil of France, to

which she had returned; settled in Switzerland, at Coppet, where she died

(1766-1817).

STAFFA ("pillar Island"), an uninhabited islet of basaltic formation

off the W. coast of Scotland, 54 m. W. of Oban; 1½ m. in circumference,

and girt with precipitous cliffs, except on the sheltered NE., where

there is a shelving shore; is remarkable for its caves, of which Fingal's

Cave is the most famous, having an entrance 42 ft. wide and 66 ft. high,

and penetrating 227 ft.

STAFFORD (20), county town of Staffordshire, on the Sow, 29 m. NNW.

of Birmingham; has two fine old churches, St. Mary's and St. Chad's,

interesting architecturally, King Edward's grammar school, and Stafford

Castle finely situated on the outskirts; is an important railway centre,

and noted for its boot and shoe manufactures.

STAFFORDSHIRE (1,083), a midland mining and manufacturing county of

England, wedged in on the N. between Cheshire (W.) and Derby (N.), and

extending southward to Worcester, with Shropshire on the W., and

Leicester and Warwick on the E.; with the exception of the wild and hilly

"moorland" in the N. consists of an undulating plain crossed by the

Trent, and intersected in all directions by canals and railways; embraces

two rich coal-fields, one in the "Black Country" of the S., where rich

deposits of iron-stone are also worked, and one in the N., embracing the

district of the "Potteries"; famous breweries exist at Burton;

Wolverhampton is the largest town.

STAGIRITE, THE, ARISTOTLE (q. v.), so called from his

native place Stagira.

STAHL, FRIEDRICH JULIUS, writer of jurisprudence, born at Münich, of

Jewish parents; embraced Christianity; wrote "The Philosophy of Law";

became professor thereof at Berlin; was a staunch Lutheran, and a

Conservative in politics (1802-1861).

STAHL, GEORG ERNEST, a German chemist, born at Anspach; was

professor of Medicine at Halle; author of the theory of PHLOGISTON

(q. v.) and of ANIMISM (q. v.) (1650-1735).

STAINES (5), a pretty little town of Middlesex, on the Thames

(spanned here by a fine granite bridge), 6 m. SE. of Windsor; St. Mary's

church has a tower designed by Inigo Jones; has breweries, mustard-mills,

and other factories; in the neighbourhood are RUNNYMEDE and

COOPER'S HILL (q. v.).

STAIR, JOHN DALRYMPLE, 1ST EARL OF, eldest son of James Dalrymple

(1619-1695) of Stair (a distinguished lawyer in his day, who rose to be

President of the Court of Session; wrote a well-known work, "Institutes

of the Law of Scotland"; as a Protestant supported the Prince of Orange,

and by him was raised to the peerage as viscount in 1690); adopted law as

a profession, and was called to the bar in 1672; got into trouble with

Claverhouse, and was fined and imprisoned, but in 1687 was received into

royal favour, became Lord Advocate, a Lord Ordinary in the Court of

Session, and subsequently as Secretary of State for Scotland was mainly

responsible for the MASSACRE OF GLENCOE (q. v.); was created an

earl in 1703, and later was active in support of the union of the English

and Scottish Parliaments (1648-1707).

STAIR, JOHN DALRYMPLE, 2ND EARL OF, second son of preceding; entered

the army at 19, and fought with his regiment, the Cameronians, at

Steinkirk; studied law for some time at Leyden, but went back to the

army, and by 1701 was a lieutenant-colonel in the Scots Foot Guards, and

in 1706 colonel of the Cameronians; fought with distinction under

Marlborough at Venlo, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and, as commander of a

brigade, at the siege of Lille and at Malplaquet; was active in support

of the Hanoverian succession, and subsequently in the reigns of George I.

and II. filled important diplomatic and military posts (1673-1747).

STALACTITE, a cone of carbonate of lime attached like an icicle to

the roof of a cavern, and formed by the dripping of water charged with

the carbonate from the rock above; Stalagmite being the name given to the

cone formed on the floor by the dripping from a stalactite above.

STALYBRIDGE (44), a manufacturing town of Cheshire and Lancashire,

on both banks of the Tame, 7½ m. E. by N. of Manchester; is of modern

growth, and noted for its large cotton-yarn and calico factories,

iron-foundries and machine-shops.

STAMFORD (8), an interesting old town, partly in Lincolnshire and

partly in Northamptonshire, on the Welland, 12 m. WNW. of Peterborough;

was one of the five Danish burghs, and is described in DOMESDAY

BOOK (q. v.); a massacre of Jews occurred here in 1140, and in

Plantagenet times it was a place of ecclesiastical, parliamentary, and

royal importance; figures in the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War of

Charles I.'s time; has three fine Early English churches, a corn

exchange, two handsome schools, Browne's Hospital, founded in Richard

III.'s reign, and Burghley House, a noble specimen of Renaissance

architecture; the _Stamford Mercury_ (1695) is the earliest provincial

newspaper; the district is mainly agricultural.

STAMFORD (16), a town of Connecticut, situated amid surrounding

hills in Long Island Sound, 33 m. NE. of New York; is a summer resort,

and has iron and bronze foundries, etc.

STAMFORD BRIDGE, a village of Yorkshire, on the Derwent, 9¼ m. NE.

of York; the scene of Harold's victory over the invading forces of Harold

Haarfager on September 25, 1066.

STAMP ACT, a measure passed by Grenville's Ministry in 1765 enacting

that all legal documents used in the colonies should bear Government

stamps. The Americans resisted on the ground that taxation without

representation in Parliament was unjust. Riots broke out, and the stamped

paper was carefully avoided. In 1766 Pitt championed the cause of the

colonists, and largely through his eloquence Government in that year was

induced to repeal the Act.

STANDING STONES, rude unhewn stones standing singly or in groups in

various parts of the world, and erected at remote periods, presumably in

memory of some great achievement or misfortune, or as having some

monumental reference.

STANDISH, MILES, one of the Puritan fathers, of Lancashire birth,

and a cadet of a family of knightly rank in the county; served in the

Netherlands as a soldier, and went to America in the Mayflower in 1620,

and was helpful to the colony in its relations both with the Indians and

the mother-country; is the hero of a poem of Longfellow's.

STANFIELD, CLARKSON, English landscape-painter, born in Sunderland,

of Irish descent; began as a scene-painter; his first picture,

"Market-boats on the Scheldt," proving a success, he devoted himself to

easel-painting, and his principal works were "Wreckers off Fort Rouge,"

"A Calm at Sea," "The Abandoned," "The Bass Rock"; his frequent visits to

the Continent supplied him with fresh subjects; and Ruskin says of one of

his pictures, "it shows as much concentrated knowledge of the sea and sky

as, diluted, would have lasted any of the old masters for life"

(1793-1866).

STANHOPE, LADY HESTER LUCY, born at Chevening, Kent, the eldest

daughter of the third Earl of Stanhope, and niece of William Pitt; a

woman of unusual force of character and attractiveness; from 1803 to 1806

was, as the confidant and housekeeper of her uncle William Pitt, a leader

of society; retired with a Government pension after Pitt's death, but

impelled by her restless nature, led an unsettled life in Southern

Europe, and finally settled in Syria in 1814, making her home in the old

convent of Mar Elias, near Mount Lebanon, where, cut off from Western

civilisation, for 25 years she exercised a remarkable influence over the

rude tribes of the district; assumed the dress of a Mohammedan chief, and

something of the religion of Islam, and in the end came to look upon

herself as a sort of prophetess; interesting accounts of her strange life

and character have been published by her English physician, Dr. Madden,

and others (1776-1839).

STANHOPE, PHILIP HENRY, EARL, historian, born at Walmer, only son of

the fourth Earl of Stan hope; graduated at Oxford in 1827, and three

years later entered Parliament as a Conservative; held office as

Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Peel's Ministry of 1834-35, and as

Secretary to the Indian Board of Control during 1845-46; succeeded his

father in 1855, before which he was known by the courtesy title of Lord

Mahon; literature was his chief interest, and as a historian and

biographer he has a deservedly high reputation for industry and

impartial judgment; a "History of England from 1713 to 1783," a "History

of Spain under Charles II.," "Historical and Critical Essays," and Lives

of Pitt, Condé, and Belisarius, are his most important works (1805-1875).

STANISLAS I., LECZINSKI, king of Poland, born in Lemberg; afterwards

sovereign of the Duchies of Bar and Lorraine; became the father-in-law of

Louis XV. (1677-1766).

STANLEY. ARTHUR PENRHYN, widely known as Dean Stanley, having been

dean of Westminster, born at Alderley, in Cheshire, son of the rector,

who became bishop of Norwich; was educated at Rugby under Dr. Arnold, and

afterwards at Balliol College, Oxford; took orders, and was for 12 years

tutor in his college; published his "Life of Dr. Arnold" in 1844, his

"Sinai and Palestine" in 1855, after a visit to the East; held a

professorship of Ecclesiastical History in Oxford for a time, and

published lectures on the Eastern Church, the Jewish Church, the

Athanasian Creed, and the Church of Scotland; accompanied the Prince of

Wales to the East in 1862, and became dean of Westminster next year in

succession to Trench; wrote "Historical Monuments of Westminster Abbey"

and "Christian Institutions"; he had been married to Lady Augusta Bruce,

and her death deeply affected him and accelerated his own; he was buried

beside her in Henry VII.'s chapel; he was an amiable man, an interesting

writer, and a broad churchman of very pronounced views (1815-1881).

STANLEY, HENRY MORTON, African explorer, born in Denbigh, Wales, in

humble circumstances, his parental name being Rowlands, he having assumed

the name of Stanley after that of his adopted father, Mr. Stanley, New

Orleans; served in the Confederate army; became a newspaper foreign

correspondent, to the _New York Herald_ at length; was summoned to go and

"find Livingstone"; after many an impediment found Livingstone on 10th

November 1871, and after staying with him, and accompanying him in

explorations, returned to England in August next year; in 1874 he set out

again at the head of an expedition, solved several problems, and returned

home; published "Congo and its Free State," "In Darkest Africa," &c.;

represents Lambeth, North, in Parliament, having been elected in 1895;

_b_. 1840.

STANNARY, a general term used to cover the tin mines of a specified

district, the miners themselves, and such customs and privileges as

appertain to the workers and the mines. In England the term is specially

associated with the stannaries of Devon and Cornwall, which by an Act of

Edward III. were conferred in perpetuity upon the Prince of Wales as Duke

of Cornwall, who holds the title of Lord Warden of the Stannaries.

Special Stannary Courts for the administration of justice amongst those

connected with the mines are held in the two counties, and are each

presided over by a warden and a vice-warden. Up to 1752 representative

assemblies of the miners, called Stannary Parliaments, were held. Appeals

from the Stannary Courts may be made now to the higher courts of England.

STAR-CHAMBER, a court which originated in the reign of Edward III.,

and consisted practically of the king's ordinary council, meeting in the

Starred Chamber, and dealing with such cases as fell outside the

jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery; was revived and remodelled by

Henry VII., and in an age when the ordinary courts were often intimidated

by powerful offenders, rendered excellent service to the cause of

justice; was further developed and strengthened during the chancellorship

of Wolsey, and in the reign of James I. had acquired jurisdiction as a

criminal court over a great variety of misdemeanours--perjury, riots,

conspiracy, high-treason, &c. Already tending to an exercise of

unconstitutional powers, it in the reign of Charles I. became an

instrument of the grossest tyranny, supporting the king in his absolutist

claims, and in 1641 was among the first of the many abuses swept away by

the Long Parliament.

STARS, THE, are mostly suns, but being, the nearest of them, at a

distance from us more than 500,000 times our distance from the sun, are

of a size we cannot estimate, but are believed to be 300 times larger

than the earth; they are of unequal brightness, and are, according to

this standard, classified as of the first, second, down to the sixteenth

magnitude; those visible to the naked eye include stars from the first to

the sixth magnitude, and number 3000, while 20,000,000 are visible by the

telescope; of these in the MILKY WAY (q. v.) alone there are

18,000,000; they are distinguished by their colours as well as their

brightness, being white, orange, red, green, and blue according to their

temperature and composition; they have from ancient date been grouped

into constellations of the northern and the southern hemispheres and of

the ZODIAC (q. v.), the stars in each of which being noted by

the Greek letters, as [Greek: alpha], [Greek: beta], according to their

brightness; they all move more or less, and some go round each other, and

are called double according as there are two or more of them so

revolving; besides stars singly visible there are others called

CLUSTERS OR NEBULÆ (q. v.).

STARS AND STRIPES, the flag of the United States, the stripes

representing the original States of the Union, and stars those annexed

since.

STATEN ISLAND, 1, belonging to New York State (52), and comprising

the county of Richmond; is a picturesque island (14 m. long), 5 m. SW. of

New York, separated from Long Island by the Narrows and from New Jersey

by the Kill van Kull and Staten Island Sound; pretty watering-villages

skirt its shores, and Forts Richmond and Wadsworth guard the entrance to

the Narrows. 2, A lofty, precipitous, and rugged island, snow-clad most

of the year, belonging to Argentina, lying to the SE. of Tierra del

Fuego, from which it is separated by Le Maire Strait (40 m.).

STATES-GENERAL, name given to an assembly of the representatives of

the three estates of nobles, clergy, and bourgeoisie, or the _Tiers État_

as it was called, in France prior to the Revolution of 1789, and which

was first convoked in 1302 by Philip IV.; they dealt chiefly with

taxation, and had no legislative power; they were convoked by Louis XIII.

in 1614, and dismissed for looking into finance, and not convoked again

till the last time in 1789, for the history of which see Carlyle's

"French Revolution."

STATES-RIGHTS, doctrine of the contention of the Democrats in the

United States that the several States of the Union have all the rights,

powers, and privileges not expressly made over to the central government,

and by extremists even the right of secession.

STATIONERS' HALL, the hall of the old Company of London Stationers,

incorporated in 1557, who enjoyed till the Copyright Act of 1842 the sole

right of having registered at their offices every pamphlet, book, and

ballad published in the kingdom. Although no longer compulsory, the

practice of entering books at Stationers' Hall is still found useful for

copyright purposes. The register-rolls of books entered at Stationers'

Hall have been carefully preserved, and are of the highest value to the

literary historian.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS, steps in the passage of Jesus from the

judgment-hall to Calvary, or representations of these, before each one of

which the faithful are required to kneel and offer up a prayer.

STATIUS, PUBLIUS PAPINIUS, a Latin poet, born in Naples; lived at

Rome, flourished at court, particularly that of Domitian, whom he

flattered, but retired to his native place after defeat in a competition;

his chief work is the "Thebaïs," an epic in 12 books, embodying the

legends connected with the war against Thebes; he ranks first among the

poets of the silver age; a collection of short pieces of his named

"Silvæ" have been often reprinted (61-96).

STAUBBACH (dust stream), a famous waterfall in Bern, near

Lauterbrunnen, 8 m. S. of Interlaken, with a sheer descent of 980 ft.; in

the sunlight it has the appearance of a rainbow-hued transparent veil,

and before it reaches the ground it is dissipated in silvery spray.

STAUNTON, HOWARD, a famous chess-player; was an Oxford man, and led

a busy life as a journalist and miscellaneous writer in London; won the

chess championship in 1843, and did much to extend the scientific study

of the game by various publications, "The Chess-Player's Handbook," &c.;

was also held in high repute as a Shakespearian scholar; published

well-annotated editions of Shakespeare's works and a facsimile of the

first folio (1810-1874).

STAVANGER (24), a flourishing port of Norway, on a fiord on the SW.

coast, 100 m. S. of Bergen; is of modern aspect, having been largely

rebuilt; has two excellent harbours, a fine 11th-century Gothic

cathedral, and is the centre of important coast fisheries.

STAVROPOL (657), a Russian government on the Caspian Sea, the

inhabitants of which are chiefly nomads and breed horses, with a capital

of the same name (36) on a hill, a modern town and a prosperous, both in

manufacture and trade.

STEEL, SIR JOHN, sculptor, born at Aberdeen; studied at Edinburgh

and Rome; made his mark in 1832 by a model of a statue, "Alexander and

Bucephalus," and soon took rank with the foremost and busiest sculptors

of his day; his works are mostly to be found in Edinburgh, and include

the equestrian statue of Wellington, statues of Sir Walter Scott (in the

Scott Monument), Professor Wilson, Dr. Chalmers, Allan Ramsay, etc.; the

splendid figure of Queen Victoria over the Royal Institution gained him

the appointment (1844) of sculptor to Her Majesty in Scotland, and on the

unveiling of his fine equestrian statue of Prince Albert in 1876 he was

created a knight (1804-1891).

STEELE, SIR RICHARD, a famous English essayist, born, the son of an

attorney, in Dublin; educated as a foundationer at the Charterhouse and

at Oxford; enamoured of a soldier's life, enlisted (1694) as a cadet in

the Life Guards; in the following year received an ensigncy in the

Coldstream Guards, and continued in the army till 1706, by which time he

had attained the rank of a captain; a good deal of literary work was done

during his soldiering, notably "The Christian Hero" and several comedies;

appointed Gazetteer (1707), and for some two years was in the private

service of the Prince Consort, George of Denmark; began in 1709 to issue

the famous tri-weekly paper the _Tatler_, in which, with little

assistance, he played the part of social and literary censor about town,

couching his remarks in light and graceful essays, which constituted a

fresh departure in literature; largely aided by Addison, his old school

companion, he developed this new form of essay in the _Spectator_ and

_Guardian_; sat in Parliament as a zealous Whig, and in George I.'s reign

was knighted and received various minor court appointments; continued a

busy writer of pamphlets, &c., but withal mismanaged his affairs, and

died in Wales, secured from actual penury by the property of his second

wife; as a writer shares with Addison the glory of the Queen Anne Essay,

which in their hands did much to purify, elevate, and refine the mind and

manners of the time (1671-1729).

STEEN, JAN, Dutch painter, born in Leyden; was a _genre_ painter of

the style of Rembrandt, and his paintings display severity with sympathy

and a playful humour; he is said to have led a dissipated life, and to

have left his wife and a large family in extreme destitution (1626-1679).

STEEVENS, GEORGE, commentator on Shakespeare, born at Stepney; in

1736 edited 20 of Shakespeare's plays carefully reprinted from the

original quartos, and in 1731 his notes with those of Johnson in another

edition; a further edition, with a number of gratuitous alterations of

the text, was issued by him in 1793, and that was the accepted one till

the publication of Knight's in 1838 (1736-1800).

STEIN, BARON VON, Prussian statesman, born at Nassau; rose rapidly

in the service of the State, and became Prussian Prime Minister under

William III. in 1807, in which capacity he effected important changes in

the constitution of the country to its lasting benefit, till Napoleon

procured his dismissal, and he withdrew to Austria, and at length to St.

Petersburg, where he was instrumental in turning the general tide against

Napoleon (1757-1831).

STEIN, CHARLOTTE VON, a lady friend of Goethe's, born at Weimar;

Goethe's affection for her cooled on his return from Italy to see her so

changed; she never forgave him for marrying a woman beneath him; letters

by Goethe to her were published in successive editions, but hers to him

were destroyed by her (1742-1827).

STEINMETZ, CARL FRIEDRICH VON, Prussian general, born at Eisenach;

distinguished himself in the war of 1813-1814, and inflicted crushing

defeats on the Austrians in 1866; fell below his reputation in the

Franco-German War, and was deprived of his command after the battle of

Gravelotte, but was elected Governor-General of Posen and Silesia

(1796-1877).

STEINTHAL, HEYMANN, German philologist, born at Gröbzig, in Anhalt;

studied at Berlin, where in 1863 he became professor of Comparative

Philology, and in 1872 lecturer at the Jewish High School on Old

Testament Criticism and Theology; author of various learned and acute

works on the science of language; _b_. 1823.

STELLA, the name under which Swift has immortalised Hester Johnson,

the story of whose life is inseparably entwined with that of the great

Dean; was the daughter of a lady-companion of Lady Gifford, the sister of

Sir William Temple, who, it is conjectured, was her father. Swift first

met her, a child of seven, when he assumed the duties of amanuensis to

Sir William Temple in 1688, and during his subsequent residence with Sir

William (1696-1699) stood to her in the progressive relationship of

tutor, friend, and lover; but for some unaccountable reason it would seem

they never married, although their mutual affection and intimacy endured

till her death; to her was addressed, without thought of publication, the

immortal "Journal to Stella," "the most faithful and fascinating diary

the world has ever seen," which throws an invaluable flood of light on

the character of Swift, revealing unsuspected tendernesses and affections

in the great satirist (1681-1728).

STENCILLING, a cheap and simple process of printing on various

surfaces letters or designs; the characters are cut out in thin plates of

metal or card-board, which are then laid on the surface to be imprinted,

and the colour, by means of a brush, rubbed through the cut spaces.

STENO, NICHOLAS, a noted anatomist, born at Copenhagen, where he

studied medicine and kindred sciences with great enthusiasm; became

widely known in European medical circles by his important investigations

into the natural functions of glands (salivary and parotid), the heart,

brain, &c.; in 1667 became physician to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany,

residing at Florence, where he renounced Lutheranism for Catholicism;

made valuable geological investigations, but finally gave himself up to a

religious life; was created a bishop, and in 1677 Vicar-Apostolic of

North Germany; chiefly remembered for his contributions to anatomical

science (1638-1687).

STENTOR, a Grecian herald who accompanied the Greeks in the Trojan

War, and whom Homer describes as "the great-hearted, brazen-voiced

Stentor, whose shout was as loud as that of fifty other men," hence the

epithet stentorian.

STEPHEN, king of England from 1135 to 1154, nephew of Henry I., his

mother being Adela, daughter of William I.; acquired French possessions

through the favour of his uncle and by his marriage; in 1127 swore fealty

to his cousin Matilda, daughter of Henry I., as his future sovereign, but

on the death of his uncle usurped the throne, an action leading to a

violent civil war, which brought the country into a state of anarchy; the

Scots invaded on behalf of Matilda, but were beaten back at Northallerton

(the Battle of the Standard, 1138); foreign mercenaries introduced by the

king only served to embitter the struggle; the clergy, despoiled by the

king, turned against him, and in the absence of a strong central

authority the barons oppressed the people and fought with one another;

"Adulterine Castles" sprang up over the country, and "men said openly

that Christ and His saints were asleep"; in 1141 Matilda won the battle

of Lincoln and for a few months ruled the country, but "as much too harsh

as Stephen was too lenient," she rapidly became unpopular, and Stephen

was soon again in the ascendant; the successes of Henry, son of Matilda,

led in 1153 to the treaty of Wallingford, by which it was arranged that

Stephen should retain the crown for life, while Henry should be his heir;

both joined in suppressing the turbulent barons and the "Adulterine

Castles"; more fortunately circumstanced, Stephen had many qualities

which might have made him a popular and successful king (1105-1154).

STEPHEN, the name of nine popes; S. I., Pope from 253 to 257,

signalised by his zeal against the heresies of his time; S. II.,

Pope from 752 to 757, in whose reign, under favour of Pepin le Bref,

began the temporal power of the Popes; S. III., Pope from 768 to

772, sanctioned the worship of saints and images; S. IV., Pope from

816 to 817; S. V., Pope from 885 to 891, distinguished for his

charity; S. VI., Pope from 896 to 897, strangled after a reign of 18

months; S. VII., Pope from 829 to 831, entirely under the control of

his mistresses; S. VIII., pope from 939 to 942; S. IX., Pope

from 1057 to 1058, vigorously opposed the sale of benefices and the

immorality of the clergy.

STEPHEN, GEORGE, archæologist, born in Liverpool; settled in Sweden,

and became professor of English in Copenhagen; his great work entitled

"Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England"; _b_. 1813.

STEPHEN, JAMES, slavery abolitionist, born in Dorsetshire; held a

post in the West Indies; wrote "Slavery in the British West Indies," an

able book; had sons more or less distinguished in law and law practice

(1759-1832).

STEPHEN, LESLIE, man of letters, born at Kensington, educated at

Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow; became

editor of the _Cornhill_ and of the first 26 volumes of the "Dictionary

of National Biography"; is the author of "Hours in a Library" and

"History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century," books that have

produced a deep impression; has also produced several biographies,

distinguished at once by accuracy, elegance, and critical acumen; _b_.

1832.

STEPHEN, ST., protomartyr of the Christian Church, who was (Acts

vii.) stoned to death in A.D. 33; his death is a frequent subject of the

old painters, the saint himself being less frequently depicted, but when

so he is represented usually in a deacon's dress, bearing a stone in one

hand and a palm-branch in the other, or both hands full of stones.

STEPHENS, JAMES, Fenian conspirator, born in Kilkenny; became "Head

Centre," and zealous in the Fenian cause both in Ireland and America; was

arrested in Dublin, but escaped; found his way to New York, but was

deposed, and has sunk out of sight; _b_. 1824.

STEPHEN'S, ST., the Parliament House of Westminister, distinguished

from St. James's, which denotes the Court, as Downing Street does the

Government.

STEPHENSON, GEORGE, inventor of the locomotive, born, the son of a

poor colliery engineman, at Wylam, near Newcastle; was early set to work,

first as a cowherd and then as a turnip-hoer, and by 15 was earning 12s.

a week as fireman at Throckley Bridge Colliery, diligently the while

acquiring the elements of education; married at 21, and supplemented his

wage as brakesman at Killingworth Colliery by mending watches and shoes;

in 1815 invented a safety-lamp for miners, which brought him a public

testimonial of £1000; while at Killingworth turned his attention to the

application of steam to machinery, and thus constructed his first

locomotive in 1814 for the colliery tram-road; railway and locomotive

construction now became the business of his life; superintended the

construction of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (1821-25), the

Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1826-29), over which he ran his

locomotive the "Rocket" at a maximum rate of 35 m. an hour; in the

outburst of railway enterprise which now ensued Stephenson's services

were in requisition all over the country; became principal engineer on

many of the new railways; bought the country-seat of Tapton, near

Chesterfield, to which he retired for much-needed rest; a man of

character, gentle and simple in his affections, strong and purposeful in

his labours, who, as he himself says, "fought for the locomotive

single-handed for nearly 20 years," and "put up with every rebuff,

determined not to be put down" (1781-1848).

STEPHENSON, ROBERT, son of preceding, born at Willington Quay, was

well educated at Newcastle, and for a session at Edinburgh University;

began in 1823 to assist his father, and from 1824 to 1827 fulfilled an

engineering engagement in Colombia, South America; rendered valuable

service in the construction of the "Rocket," and as joint-engineer with

his father of the London and Birmingham line, was mainly responsible for

its construction; turning his attention specially to bridge-building he

constructed the Britannia and Conway Tubular bridges, besides many

others, including those over the Nile, St. Lawrence, &c.; was returned to

the House of Commons in 1847; received the Grand Cross of the Legion of

Honour from the French emperor, and many other distinctions at home and

abroad; was buried in Westminster Abbey (1803-1859).

STEPNIAK, Russian Nihilist and apostle of freedom; exiled himself to

England; author of "Underground Russia" (1852-1895).

STEPPES, the name given to wide, treeless plains, barren except in

spring, of the SE. of Russia and SW. of Siberia.

STEREOSCOPE, a simple optical apparatus which, when two photographs

of an object taken from slightly different standpoints (so as to secure

the appearance it presents to either eye singly) are placed under its

twin magnifying lenses, presents to the eyes of the looker a single

picture of the object standing out in natural relief.

STERLING, JOHN, a friend of Carlyle's, born at Kames Castle, Bute,

son of Captain Sterling of the _Times_; studied at Glasgow and Cambridge;

a man of brilliant parts and a liberal-minded, but of feeble health; had

Julius Hare for tutor at Cambridge, and became Hare's curate at

Hurstmonceaux for eight months; wrote for reviews, and projected literary

enterprises, but achieved nothing; spent his later days moving from place

to place hoping to prolong life; formed an acquaintanceship with Carlyle

in 1832; became an intelligent disciple, and believed in him to the last;

Hare edited his papers, and wrote his life as a clergyman, and Carlyle,

dissatisfied, wrote another on broader lines, and by so doing

immortalised his memory (1806-1843).

STERN, DANIEL. See AGOULT.

STERNE, LAURENCE, English humourist, born at Clonmel, Ireland, son

of Roger Sterne, captain in the army; his mother an Irishwoman; was

educated at Halifax and Cambridge, by-and-by took orders, and received

livings in Sutton and Shillington, became a prebend at York, and finally

got a living at Coxwold; in 1759 appeared the first two volumes of

"Tristram Shandy," and in 1767 the last two; in 1768 his "Sentimental

Journey," and in the interim his "Sermons," equally characteristic of the

man as the two former productions. Stopford Brooke says, "They have no

plot, they can scarcely be said to have any story. The story of 'Tristram

Shandy' wanders like a man in a labyrinth, and the humour is as

labyrinthine as the story. It is carefully invented, and whimsically

subtle; and the sentiment is sometimes true, but mostly affected. But a

certain unity is given to the book by the admirable consistency of the

characters," his masterpieces, among which is "Uncle Toby"; the author

died in London of pulmonary consumption (1713-1763).

STERNHOLD, THOMAS, principal author of the first English metrical

version of the Psalms, originally attached to the Prayer-Book as

augmented by John Hopkins; continued in general use till Tate and Brady's

version of 1696 was substituted in 1717; was a Hampshire man, and held

the post of Groom of the Robes to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. (1500-1549).

STEROPES, one of the three CYCLOPS (q. v.).

STESICHORUS, a celebrated Greek lyric poet, born in Sicily;

contemporary of Sappho, Aleacus, and Pittacus; at his birth it is said a

nightingale alighted on his lips and sang a sweet strain (632-652 B.C.).

STETTIN (116), capital of Pomerania, and a flourishing river-port on

both banks of the Oder, 30 m. from its entrance into the Baltic, and 60

m. NE. of Berlin; lies contiguous to, and is continuous with, the smaller

towns of Bredow, Grabow, and Züllchow; principal buildings are the royal

palace (16th century), the Gothic church of St. Peter (12th century), and

St. James's (14th century); is a busy hive of industry, turning out

ships, cement, sugar, spirits, &c., and carrying on a large export and

import trade.