Part 401 (1/2)
SHASTER, a book containing the inst.i.tutes of the Hindu religion or its legal requirements.
SHAWNEES, a tribe of American Indians located originally in the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies, but now removed to Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian Territory.
SHEBA, believed to be a region in South Arabia, along the sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea.
SHECHINAH, a glory as of the Divine presence over the mercy-seat in the Jewish Tabernacle, and reflected from the winged cherubim which overshadowed it, the reality of which it is the symbol being the Divine presence in man.
SHEEPSHANKS, JOHN, art collector, born at Leeds, son of a manufacturer; presented in 1856 a collection of works by British artists to the nation, now housed in South Kensington (1787-1863).
SHEERNESS (14), a fortified seaport and important garrison town with important naval dockyards in Kent, occupying the NW. corner of Sheppey Isle, where the Medway joins the Thames, 52 m. E. of London; is divided into Blue-town (within the garrison, and enclosing the 60 acres of docks), Mile-town, Banks-town, and Marina-town (noted for sea-bathing).
SHEFFIELD (324), a city of Yorks.h.i.+re, and chief centre of the English cutlery trade, built on hilly ground on the Don near its confluence with the Sheaf, whence its name, 41 m. E. of Manchester; is a fine, clean, well-built town, with notable churches, public halls, theatres, &c., and well equipped with libraries, hospitals, parks, colleges (e. g. Firth College), and various societies; does a vast trade in all forms of steel, iron, and bra.s.s goods, as well as plated and britannia-metal articles; has of late years greatly developed its manufactures of armour-plate, rails, and other heavier goods; its importance as a centre of cutlery dates from very early times, and the Cutlers' Company was founded in 1624; has been from Saxon times the capital of the manor district of Hallams.h.i.+re; it is divided into five parliamentary districts, each of which sends a member to Parliament.
SHEFFIELD, JOHN, Duke of Buckinghams.h.i.+re, son of the Earl of Mulgrave, whose t.i.tle he succeeded to in 1658; served in the navy during the Dutch wars of Charles II.; held office under James II., and was by William III. created Marquis of Normanby; a staunch Tory in Anne's reign, he was rewarded with a dukedom, lost office through opposing Marlborough, but was reinstated after 1710, and in George I.'s reign worked in the Stuart interest; wrote an ”Essay on Poetry,” &c. (1649-1721).
SHEIKH, the chief of an Arab tribe; used often as a t.i.tle of respect, Sheikh-ul-Islam being the ecclesiastical head of Mohammedans in Turkey.
SHEIL, RICHARD LALOR, Irish patriot, born in Tipperary; bred to the bar; gave himself for some time to literature, living by it; joined the Catholic a.s.sociation; was distinguished for his oratory and his devotion, alongside of O'Connell, to Catholic emanc.i.p.ation; supported the Whig Government, and held office under Melbourne and Lord John Russell (1791-1851).
SHEKEL, among the ancient Hebrews originally a weight, and eventually the name of a coin of gold or silver, or money of a certain weight, the silver = 5s. per oz., and the gold = 4.
SHELBURNE, WILLIAM PETTY, EARL OF, statesman, born in Dublin; succeeded to his father's t.i.tle in 1761, a few weeks after his election to the House of Commons; held office in the ministries of Grenville (1763), of Chatham (1766), and of Rockingham (1782); his acceptance of the Premiers.h.i.+p in 1782, after Rockingham's death, led to the resignation of Fox and the entry of William Pitt, at the age of 23, into the Cabinet; his short ministry (July 1782 to Feb. 1783) saw the close of the Continental and American wars, and the concession of independence to the colonies, collapsing shortly afterwards before the powerful coalition of Fox and North; in 1784, on his retirement from politics, was created Marquis of Lansdowne; was a Free-Trader, supporter of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, and otherwise liberal in his views, but rather tactless in steering his way amid the troublous politics of his time (1737-1805).
SHELDONIAN THEATRE, ”Senate House” of Oxford; so called from Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, who built it.
Sh.e.l.lEY, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, author of ”Frankenstein,” daughter of William G.o.dwin and Mary Wollstonecraft; became the wife of the poet Sh.e.l.ley in 1816 after a two years' illicit relations.h.i.+p; besides ”Frankenstein” (1828), wrote several romances, ”The Last Man,” ”Lodore,”
&c., also ”Rambles in Germany and Italy”; edited with valuable notes her husband's works (1797-1851).
Sh.e.l.lEY, PERCY BYSSHE, born at Field Place, near Horsham, Suss.e.x, eldest son of Sir Timothy Sh.e.l.ley, a wealthy landed proprietor; was educated at Eton, and in 1810 went to Oxford, where his impatience of control and violent heterodoxy of opinion, characteristic of him throughout, burst forth in a pamphlet ”The Necessity of Atheism,” which led to his expulsion in 1811, along with Jefferson Hogg, his subsequent biographer; henceforth led a restless, wandering life; married at 19 Harriet Westbrook, a pretty girl of 16, a school companion of his sister, from whom he was separated within three years; under the influence of WILLIAM G.o.dWIN (q. v.) his revolutionary ideas of politics and society developed apace; engaged in quixotic political enterprises in Dublin, Lynmouth, and elsewhere, and above all put to practical test G.o.dwin's heterodox view on marriage by eloping (1814) to the Continent with his daughter Mary, whom he married two years later after the unhappy suicide of Harriet; in 1816, embittered by lord Eldon's decision that he was unfit to be trusted with the care of Harriet's children, and with consumption threatening, he left England never to return; spent the few remaining years of his life in Italy, chiefly at Lucca, Florence, and Pisa, in friendly relations with Byron, Leigh Hunt, Trelawney, &c.; during this time were written his greatest works, ”Prometheus Unbound,”
”The Cenci,” his n.o.ble lament on Keats, ”Adonais,” besides other longer works, and most of his finest lyrics, ”Ode to the South Wind,” ”The Skylark,” &c.; was drowned while returning in an open sailing-boat from Leghorn to his home on Spezia Bay; ”An enthusiast for humanity generally,” says Professor Saintsbury, ”and towards individuals a man of infinite generosity and kindliness, he yet did some of the cruellest and some of not the least disgraceful things from mere childish want of realising the _pacta conventa_ of the world;” Sh.e.l.ley is pre-eminently the poet of lyric emotion, the subtle and most musical interpreter of vague spiritual longing and intellectual desire; his poems form together ”the most sensitive,” says Stopford Brooke, ”the most imaginative, and the most musical, but the least tangible lyrical poetry we possess”
(1792-1821).
SHENANDOAH, a river of Virginia, formed by two head-streams rising in Augusta Co., which unite 85 m. W. of Was.h.i.+ngton, and flowing NE.