Julius Cæsar, that he might have time to apply to philosophy. It appears that he wished to establish a school at Rome, and that his tenets, though chiefly drawn from the doctrines of Pythagoras, in some particulars resembled those of the Stoics. His laws were tinctured with great severity; and, in an early period of his establishment, he found his mind so harassed, and the harshness of the doctrines which he wished to establish so repulsive to his feelings, that he nearly worked himself up to such a height of desperation, as to put a period to his existence. Of the school of Sextius were Fabianus, Sotion, Flavianus, Crassitius, and Celsus. Of his works only a few fragments remain; and whether any of them formed a part of the work which Seneca admired so much cannot now be determined. Some of his maxims are valuable. He recommended an examination of the actions of the day to his scholars when they retired to rest; he taught that the road to heaven (ad astra) was by frugality, temperance, and fortitude. He used to recommend holding a looking-glass before persons disordered with passion. He enjoined his scholars to abstain from animal food.

SEXTON, n. s. Corrupted from sacristan. An under officer of the church, whose business is to dig graves.

A stool and cushion for the sexton. Shakspeare. When any dies then, by tolling a bell or bespeaking a grave of the sexton, the same is known to the searchers corresponding with the said sexton.

Graunt.

They may get a dispensation to hold the clerkship and sextonship of their own parish in commendam. Swift. SEXTON is thus called by corruption of the Latin sacrista, or Saxon segerstone, which denotes the same. His office is to take care of the vessels, vestments, &c., belonging to the church; and to attend the minister, churchwarden, &c., at church. He is usually chosen by the parson only. Sextons, as well as parishclerks, are regarded by the common law as persons who have freehold in their offices; and therefore, though they may be punished, yet they cannot be deprived, by ecclesiastical censures. The office of sexton in the pope's chapel is appropriated to the order of the hermits of St. Augustine. He is generally a bishop, though sometimes the pope only gives a bishopric in partibus to him on whom he confers the post. He takes the title of Prefect of the pope's Sacristy, and has the keeping of the vessels of gold and silver, the relics, &c. When the pope says mass, the sexton always tastes the bread and wine first. If it be in private he says mass, his holiness, of two wafers, gives him one to eat; and, if in public, the cardinal, who assists the pope in quality of deacon, of three wafers, gives him two to eat. When the pope is desperately sick, he administers to him the sacrament of extreme unction, &c., and enters the conclave in quality of first conclavist. The office of a sexton in Sweden is somewhat singular. During M. Outhier's stay at Stockholm, in 1736, he visited the church of St. Clara, and during divine service he observed a sexton going about with a long rod, waking those persons who had fallen asleep.

SEXTUPLE, adj. Lat. sextuplus. Six fold; six times told.

Man's length, being a perpendicular from the vertex unto the sole of the foot, is sextuple unto his breadth, or a right line drawn from the ribs of one Browne. side to another.

SEXTUPLE, in music, denotes a mixed sort of triple, which is beaten into double time.

SEXTUS, a Stoic philosopher, born at Charonæa in Bœotia, and said to be nephew of Plutarch. He was preceptor to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, a famous Pyrrhonian philosopher, who lived in the second century, under Antoninus. He was a physician of the sect of the Empirics, and is said to have been one of the preceptors of Antoninus the philosopher. There are still extant his Pyrrhonian Institutions, and a large work against the mathematicians, &c. The best edition of Sextus Empiricus is that of Fabricius in Greek and Latin, printed at Leipsic in 1718, folio.

SEXTUS POMPEIUS FESTUS. See FESTUS.

SEXTUS TARQUINIUS, one of the sons of Tarquin II, the last king of Rome;-whose unbridled lust occasioned the suicide of Lucretia, and the consequent revolution of Rome, by the abolition of the monarchy, and the erection of the Roman republic. See ROME.

SEXUAL SYSTEM, the beautiful system of botany discovered and arranged by Linnæus. See BOTANY, Index.

SEXUALISTE (Sexualists), among botanical writers, those who have established the classes of plants upon the differences of the sexes and parts of fructification in plants, according to the modern method; as Linnæus, &c.

SEYDLER SALT, or SEDLITZ SALT, names given to Epsom salt (see MINERAL WATERS); now named, with more propriety, sulphate of magnesia.

SEZAWUL [Hindoo], in Bengal, an officer employed occasionally to collect the revenue, and enforce payment.

SFORZA (James), the founder of the illustrious house of Sforza, which acted so conspicuous a part in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which gave six dukes to Milan, and contracted alliances with almost every sovereign in Europe. James Sforza was born on the 28th of May, 1369, at Catignola, a small town in Italy, between Imola and Faenza. His father was a day-laborer, or, according to Commines, a shoemaker. A company of soldiers happening one day to pass through Catignola, he was seized with the desire of accompanying them to the wars. 'I will go,' said he to himself, and dart my hatchet against that tree; and, if it stick fast in the wood, I will immediately become a soldier.' The hatchet accordingly stuck fast, and our adventurer enlisted; and because, says the abbè de Choisi, he had thrown the axe with all his force, he assumed the name of Sforza; for his true name was Giacomuzzo or James Attendulo. He rose rapidly in the army, and soon became commander of 7000 men. He defended the cause of Jane II. queen of Naples for many years, and was made constable of her kingdom. He was created

6

count of Catignola by pope John XXII. by way of paying a debt of 14,000 ducats, which the church of Rome owed him. His exploits became every day more illustrious; he obliged Alphonso king of Arragon to raise the siege of Naples; and reduced several places that had revolted in Abruzzo and Le Labour; but while in pursuit of his enemies he was unfortunately drowned in the river Aterno on the 3d of January, 1424, at the age of fifty-four years. In his youth he fell in love with a woman called Lucia Trezana, whom he married, after she had borne him several children. He married afterwards Antoinette Salembini, who brought him several excellent estates; she bore him Bosio Sforza, compte of Santa-Flor, a warrior and governor of Orvietta for pope Martin V. His third wife was Catharine Alopa, sister of Rodolpho, grand chamberlain to the sovereign of Naples. His last wife was Mary Marzana, daughter to the duke of Sessa. She bore him Charles Sforza, who was general of the order of Augustines, and archbishop of Milan.

SFORZA (Francis), the son of James Sforza, by Lucia Trezana, was born în 1401, and trained up by his father to the profession of arms. At the age of twenty-three he defeated the troops of Braccio, who disputed with him the passage of the Aterno. In this action his father was drowned, and Francis, though illegitimate, succeeded him. He fought successfully against the Spaniards, and contributed a great deal both towards raising the siege of Naples, and to the victory which was gained over the troops of Braccio near Aquila, in 1425, where that general was killed. After the death of queen Jane, in 1435, he espoused the interests of the duke of Anjou, to whom she had left her crown, and by his courage and abilities ably supported that unfortunate prince. He made himself master of several places in Ancona, from which he was driven by pope Eugenius IV., who defeated and excommunicated him; but he soon re-established his affairs by a victory. His reputation was now so great that the pope, the Venetians, and the Florentines, chose him for their general against the duke of Milan. Sforza had already conducted Venetian armies against that prince, though he had espoused his daughter. The duke dying, in 1447, the inhabitants of Milan invited Sforza, his son-in-law, to lead them against that duke. But, after some exertions in their favor, he turned his arms against themselves, laid siege to Milan, and obliged them to receive him as duke, notwithstanding the rights of Charles duke of Orleans, the son of Valentine of Milan. In 1464 Louis XI., who hated Orleans, gave up to Sforza the rights which the crown of France had over Genoa, and even put into his hands Savona, a town belonging to that republic. The duke of Milan soon after made himself master of Genoa. He died in 1466, with the reputation of a man who was willing to sell his blood to the best purchaser, and who was not too scrupulous an observer of his word. His second wife was Blanche Marie, natural daughter of Philip Marie duke of Milan. She bore him Galeas Marie, and Ludovic Marie, dukes of Milan, Philip Marie count of Pavia, Sforza Marie

duke of Bari, Ascanius Marie bishop of Pavia and Cremona, and a cardinal. He was taken prisoner by the troops of Louis XII., and confined for some time in the tower of Bourges. He was a cunning man, and deceived cardinal d'Amboise when that prelate aspired at the papacy. His daughters were Hyppolita, married to Alphonso of Arragon, afterwards king of Naples, and Elizabeth, married to William marquis of Montferrat. He had also several natural children. Belg. schaben. A word

SHAB'BY, adj.

SHAB BINESS, n. s. that has crept into conversation and low writing, but ought not to be admitted into the language, says Johnson. Mean; paltry: the noun substantive corresponding.

He exchanged his gay shabbiness of clothes, fit for a much younger man, to warm ones that would be decent for a much older one. Spectator.

The dean was so shabby, and looked like a ninny, That the captain supposed he was curate to Jenny. Swift.

SHACK, in ancient customs, a liberty of winter-pasturage. In the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk the lord of the manor has shack, i. e. a liberty of feeding his sheep at pleasure in his tenants' lands during the six winter months. In Norfolk, shack also extends to the common for hogs, in all men's grounds, from the end of harvest till seed-time. Whence to go a-shack, is to feed at large.

SHACKLE, v. a. & n. s. Belg. schaeckelen. To chain; to fetter; to bind: the noun substantive corresponding.

Himself he frees by secret means unseen, His shackles empty left, himself escaped clean. Faerie Queen.

It is great,

To do that thing that ends all other deeds;
Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change.
Shakspeare.

The forge in fetters only is employed;
Our iron mines exhausted and destroyed

In shackles.
Dryden's Juvenal.
You must not skackle and tie him up with rules
about indifferent matters.
Locke.

So the stretched cord the shackled dancer tries, As prone to fall as impotent to rise. Smith.

A servant commonly is less free in mind than in condition; his very will seems to be in bonds and shackles, and desire itself under durance and captivity. South.

No trivial price Should set him free, or small should be my praise Philips. To lead him shackled.

SHACKLES, aboard a ship, are those oblong iron rings, bigger at one end than at the other, with which the ports are shut fast, by thrusting the wooden bar of the port through them. There is also a sort of shackles to lift the hatches up with, of a like figure, but smaller. They are fastened at the corners of the hatches.

SHA'DE, n. s. & v. a. SHADOW, N. S. SHADOWY, adj. SHA'DY.

Sax. readu; Belg. schade; Teut. schatten. The darkness caused by an interception of light; obscurity; an obscure or retired place; coolness made by the interception of light; screen; shelter; the darker parts of a picture; a gradation of light; the dark outline of a body,

:

formed by its being placed between any surface and the light; the soul, considered as separate from the body: to shade is to cover from light or heat; shelter; protect; mark the gradations of light shadow is synonymous with shade in most of its senses, but is more commonly used for the representation of a body which intercepts the light; an imperfect or faint representation of any kind; an inseparable companion or follower; a typical or mystical representation: the verb and adjective strictly corresponding with shade, noun substantive: shady expressing an abundance

of shade.

Id.

Hence, terrible shadow!

An host so great as covered all the field;

And all their foreheads, like the knights before,

Unreal mockery hence!

Id.

Mislike me not for my complexion;

The shadowed livery of the burning sun,

To whom I am a neighbour.

God shall forgive you Cœur de Lion's death, The rather, that you give his offspring life, Shadowing their right under your wings of war. Id. This shadowy desart, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree For your good host.

Id.

Id. King Lear.

In the glorious lights of heaven we perceive a shadow of his divine countenance. Raleigh.

Antigonus, when told that the enemy had such vollies of arrows that hid the sun, said, That falls out well; for this is hot weather, and so we shall fight in the shade. Bacon. Cast it also that you may have rooms shady for summer, and warm for winter. Id.

A shadow is a diminution of the first and second light. The first light is that which proceeds immediately from a lightened body, as the beams of the

sun.

The second is an accidental light, spreading itself into the air, or medium, proceeding from the other. Shadows are threefold: the first is a single shadow, and the least of all: and is proper to the plain surface, where it is not wholly possessed of the light. The second is the double shadow, and it is used when the surface begins once to forsake your eye as in columns. The third shadow is made by crossing over your double shadow again, which darkeneth by a third part. It is used for the inmost shadow, and farthest from the light, as in gulfs, wells, Peacham.

and caves.

Turnsoil is made of old linen rags dried, and laid in a saucer of vinegar, and set over a chafing-dish of coals, till it boil; then wring it into a shell, and put VOL. XX.

To the secret shadows I retire, To pay my penance till my years expire. After great lights there must be great shadows.

Id

If the parts be too much distant, so that there be void spaces which are deeply shadowed, then place in those voids some fold, to make a joining of the parts. Id. Dufresnoy.

Augustus is shadowed in the person of Æneas. Dryden. White, red, yellow, blue, with their several degrees or shades and mixtures, as green, come in only by the eyes. Locke.

The body, though it moves, yet, not changing perceivable distance with some other bodies, the thing seems to stand still, as in the hands of clocks, and shadows of sun-dials.

sure.

With shadowy verdure flourished high,

A sudden youth the groves enjoy.

Id.

Fenton.

In Brazil are trees which kill those that sit under their shade in a few hours. Arbuthnot.

Tickel. Pope.

Id.

Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest, Since their foundation came a nobler guest; Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed A fairer spirit or more welcome shade. Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue. Sing, while beside the shaded tomb I mourn, And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn. Let the arched knife, Well sharpened, now assail the spreading shades Of vegetables, and their thirsty limbs dissever. Philips. SHADOW, in optics, is a privation or diminution of light by the interposition of an opaque body; or it is a plane where the light is either altogether obstructed, or greatly weakened, by the interposition of some opaque body between it and the luminary.

SHADOW, in painting, is an imitation of a real shadow, effected by gradually heightening and darkening the colors of such figures as by their dispositions cannot receive any direct rays from the luminary that is supposed to enlighten the piece.

SHADOW, in perspective, the appearance of an opaque body, and a luminous one, whose rays diverge (e. gr. a candle, lamp, &c.), being given, to find the just appearance of the shadow, according to the laws of perspective. The method is this: From the luminous body, which is here considered as a point, let fall a perpendicular to the perspective plane or table; i. e. find the appearance of a point upon which a perpendicular, drawn from the middle of the luminary, falls on the perspective plane; and from the several angles, or raised points of the body, let fall perpendiculars to the plane. These points, whereon the perpendiculars fall, connect by right lines with the point upon which the perpendicular let fall from the luminary falls; and continues the lines to the side opposite to the luminary. Lastly, through the raised points, draw lines through the centre of the luminary, intersecting the former; the points of intersection are the terms or bounds of the shadow.

SHADOWS, colored, a curious optical phenomenon, which was observed, a considerable number of years ago, by professor Scherffer of Vienna, and more lately by count Rumford. The count made the discovery when prosecuting his experiments upon light: of which the reader will find some account under PHOTOMETER. Desirous,' says he, 'of comparing the intensity of the light of a clear blue sky by day with that of a common wax-candle, I darkened my room, and letting the day-light from the north, coming through a hole near the top of the window-shutter, fall at an angle of about 70° upon a sheet of very fine white paper, I placed a burning waxcandle in such a position that its rays fell upon the same paper, and, as near as I could guess, in the line of reflection of the rays of day-light from without; when, interposing a cylinder of wood, about half an inch in diameter, before the centre of the paper, and at the distance of about

prised to find that the two shadows projected by the cylinder upon the paper, instead of being merely shades without color, as I expected; the one of them, that which, corresponding with the beam of day-light, was illuminated by the light of the most beautiful blue that is possible to imagine. This appearance, which was not only unexpected, but was really in itself in the highest degree striking and beautiful, I found upon repeated trials, and after varying the experiment in every way I could think of, to be so perfectly permanent, that it is absolutely impossible to produce two shadows at the same time, from the same body, the one answering to a beam of daylight, and the other to the light of a candle or lamp, without these shadows being colored, the one yellow, and the other blue. If the candle be brought nearer to the paper, the blue shadow will become of a deeper hue and the yellow shadow will gradually grow fainter; but, if it be removed farther off, the yellow shadow will become of a deeper color, and the blue shadow will become fainter; and, the candle remaining stationary in the same place, the same varieties in the strength of the tints of the colored shadows may be produced merely by opening the windowshutter a little more or less, and rendering the illumination of the paper, by the light from without, stronger or weaker. By either of these means, the colored shadows may be made to pass through all the gradations of shade, from the deepest to the lightest, and vice versa; and it is very amusing to see shadows thus glowing with all the brilliancy of the purest and most intense prismatic colors, then passing suddenly all the varieties of shade, preserving in all the most perfect purity of tint, growing stronger and fainter, and vanishing and returning, at command.'

SHADRACH, MESHACH, AND ABEDNEGO, names given by the prince of the Babylonian eunuchs to the three captive Jewish princes, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the companions of Daniel. Their temperance, wisdom, and promotion along with Daniel; their heroic refusal to worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden image; and their miraculous deliverance from the fiery furnace, with the appearance of the Messiah, the destruction of their enemies, and subsequent promotion over the province, are recorded in Daniel, ch. i. and iii.

SHADWELL (Thomas), an English poet, descended of an ancient family in Staffordshire, born in 1640, and educated at Caius College, Cambridge. He then was placed in the Middle Temple to study the law; where having spent some time, he travelled abroad. Upon his return home he became acquainted with the most celebrated persons of wit in that age. He applied himself chiefly to dramatic writing, in which he had great success; and upon the Revolution was made poet laureat and historiographer to William and Mary, in the room of Mr. Dryden. These employments he enjoyed till his death, in 1692. The chief of his poetical pieces are his congratulatory poem on the prince of Orange's coming to England; another on queen Mary; his translation of Juvenal's tenth satire, &c. Mr.

Dryden treats him with great contempt, in his satire called Mac-Fleckno. The best judges of that age, however, gave their testimony in favor of his comedies; which have in them fine strokes of humor; the characters are often original, strongly marked, and well sustained. An edition of his works, with his life prefixed, was published in 1720, in 4 vols. 8vo.

SHADWELL (Charles), the younger son of the poet, according to Chetwood, or his nephew, as Jacob has it, turned out a dramatic writer of considerable talents in Ireland. He wrote a good number of plays, but the piece he is most famed for is The Fair Quaker of Deal. He died in 1726.

SHAFT, n. s.
Sax. rceaft.
An arrow; a
missive weapon; a narrow, deep pit.
To pierce pursuing shield,

By parents trained, the Tartars wild are taught,
With shafts shot out from their back-turned bow.

Sidney.

They sink a shaft or pit of six foot in length.

SHAFT, in mining. In the tin-mines, after this is sunk about a fathom, they leave a little, long, square place, which is called a shamble. Shafts are sunk some ten, some twenty fathoms, deep into the earth, more or less. Of these shafts there is the landing or working shaft, where they bring up the work or ore to the surface; but, if it be worked by a horse engine or whim, it is called a whim shaft; and, where the water is drawn out of the mine, it is indifferently named an engine-shaft, or the rod shaft. See MINE.

SHAFT, in ornithology. See TROCHILUS. SHAFT OF A COLUMN, in building, is the body thereof between the base and capital; so called from its straightness. See ARCHITECTURE.

SHAFTESBURY, a borough and markettown, in Redland hundred, Sherborne division, Dorset, situate on a high hill, ten miles north from Blandford, and 101 W. S.W. from London. It is supposed by Camden to have been founded by Alfred; and is recorded to have been a populous city, and to have had twelve churches before the conquest: four only of which now remain; viz. St. Peter's, the Holy Trinity, St. James's, and St. Rumbold's, of which St. Peter's is the principal. The houses are tolerably well built, and many of them of free-stone. Here

are also meeting-houses, a free-school, and two alms-houses. In the corn market is a neat town-hall, in which the quarter sessions are held. Water is so scarce here that the inhabitants used to be supplied with it from Melcomb, an adjacent village. Latterly, two deep wells have been dug which afford plenty of good water. SHAG, n. s. Saxon rceacga. Rough SHAGGED, adj. woolly hair; rough; rugSHAGGY, adj. ged.

Where is your husband? He's a traitor.

-Thou lyest, thou shag-eared villain! Shakspeare. They plucked the seated hills with all their load, Rocks, waters, woods; and by the shaggy tops Uplifting, bore them in their hands.

Milton's Paradise Lost.

Ye grots and caverns shagged with horrid thorn!
Ye rugged rocks! which holy knees have worn;
Pope.

From the frosty north,
The early valiant Swede draws forth his wings
In battailous array, while Volga's stream
Sends opposite, in shaggy armour clad,
Her borderers, on mutual slaughter bent.
As yet black breeches were not; satin smooth,
Or velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile. Couper.
SHAG, n. s. Lat. phalacrocorax.

bird.

Philips.

A sea

Among the first sort we reckon shags, duck, and mallard."

Carew.

SHAGREEN, or CHAGREEN, in commerce, a kind of grained leather prepared of the skin of a species of squalus, much used in covering cases, books, &c. Shagreen is also made of the skin of the onager, or wild ass, as well as of horses; of the part that covers the rump. There are great manufactures of it at Astracan, and in all Persia.

Professor Pallas says that no accurate account of the method of preparing shagreen has ever been published in Europe previous to his own; of which we now give an abridgment:-' All kinds of horses or asses skin, which have been dressed so as to appear grained, are, by the Tartars, called sauwer, by the Persians sogre, and by the Turks sagri, from which the Europeans have made shagreen or chagrin. The Tartars who reside at Astracan, with a few of the Armenians of that city, are the only people in the Russian empire acquainted with the art of mak