Chapter LXXVII: Part 77

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.