and he turned his attention to dramatic composition. His first production, the Rivals, was acted at Covent garden in 1775, with moderate success; but the Duenna, a musical entertainment, which followed, was received with general admiration; and his School for Scandal gained him the highest reputation as a comic writer. On the retirement of Garrick from the management of Drury lane theatre, Sheridan, in conjunction with doctor Forde and Mr. Linley, purchased Garrick's share of the patent. This property qualified him for a seat in parliament; and, in 1780, he was chosen member for the borough of Stafford. Lord North was then minister, and Sheridan, joining the opposition, displayed so much ability, that, on the retreat of the premier, and the conclusion of the American war, he was made under secretary of state for the war department. He resigned, with his principal, in consequence of a dispute with lord Shelburne, afterwards marquis of Lansdowne, who was at the head of the ministry. His intimate connexion with Fox brought him again into office on the coalition of that statesman with lord North, when Sheridan neld the post of joint secretary of the treasury under the duke of Portland. The dissolution of that ministry threw him again into the ranks of opposition, where he remained during the whole period of the political ascendency of Mr. Pitt. He now attained distinguished celebrity as a parliamentary orator, and his talents were particularly exhibited in his opposition to the extension of the revenue laws, and on the subject of the Westminster election; but the grandest display of his eloquence occurred during the progress of the impeachment of Warren Hastings. In 1792, Mr. Sheridan lost his wife, who left one son; and, three years afterwards, he married Miss Ogle, daughter of the dean of Winchester. With this lady he had a considerable fortune, which enabled him to purchase the estate of Polesdon, in Surrey; and, as he held the office of receiver-general of the duchy of Cornwall, worth £1200 a year, and retained his interest in Drury lane theatre, he seemed to be placed beyond the reach of pecuniary distress. The political changes consequent on the death of Mr. Pitt, in 1806, occasioned the exaltation of the party with which Sheridan was connected, and he obtained the lucrative post of treasurer of the navy, and the rank of a privy counsellor. This ad ministration being weakened by the loss

of Mr. Fox, who survived his celebrated rival only a few months, new alterations took place, and Sheridan was deprived of office, to which he never returned. At the general election in 1806, he obtained a seat for Westminster, the great object of his ambition; but he was afterwards nominated for the borough of Ilchester, which he continued to represent during the remainder of his parliamentary career. The latter part of the life of this highlytalented individual was imbittered by misfortunes, principally arising from his Own indolence and mismanagement, though the destruction of Drury lane theatre by fire contributed to increase his difficulties. When the affairs of that establishment were arranged, in 1811, Mr. Sheridan and his son were to have £40,000 for their share of the property; but the portion of the former was not sufficient to liquidate the debts and reserved claims to which it was liable. The dissolution of parliament, and his failure in an attempt to obtain a seat for Stafford, the borough he had formerly represented, completed his ruin. In the latter part of 1812, he had relinquished all thoughts of returning to the house of commons; and the remainder of his existence was spent in attempts to ward off the dangers to which his improvidence had exposed him. At length every resource failed, and the disappearance of his property was followed by the arrest of his person. After a few days' detention, lie was released, but only to experience fresh apprehension and alarm, from which he sought a temporary relief in that unrestrained indulgence and dissipation which had occasioned his misfortunes. Intemperance had undermined his constitution, and mental anxiety completed the destruction of his health. Even on the bed of sickness he was not exempted from the terrors of being arrested for debt. His death took place July 7, 1816. Besides the plays already mentioned, Mr. Sheridan was the author of St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant, a farce; a Trip to Scarborough, a comedy, altered from Vanbrugh; the Camp, a farce; the Critic, or the Tragedy rehearsed; Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday, a pantomime; and Pizarro, a play, from the German of Kotzebue. He also wrote Verses to the Memory of David Garrick (1779, 4to.); and a Comparative Statement of the two Bills for the better Government of the British Possessions in India (1788, 4to.). As a speaker, he ranks among the most finished and varied of the rhetorical

school; and his speech already alluded to against Warren Hastings has been deemed one of the most striking specimens of English eloquence upon record. As a dramatist, he may be considered the head of the department of that line of comedy which exhibits the polite malice, the civil detraction, the equivoque, intrigue, persiflage, and lurking irony, which characterize social intercourse in the more cultivated ranks of life. Wit usually takes the lead of humor in this species of composition, with a correspondent destruction of nature and verisimilitude. The School for Scandal is a felicitous exemplification of character, and of some of the most conspicuous of the well-bred vices and follies of fashionable life. A collection of his speeches, in five volumes, was published in 1816. His Dramatic Works appeared in 1821 (2 vols., 8vo.), edited by Thomas Moore, who has since published a Life of Sheridan.

SHERIFF. The sheriff is an officer of great antiquity, and known by a corresponding name in most countries in Europe. He was called in the Danish grävue Swedish, grefwe; Anglo-Saxon, gerefa; German, graf; and, in the Latin of the middle ages, graphio, or grafio. Adelung observes that the twelve judges appointed by Odin were called greve. Both the officer and the name have, with some variations, been retained in Germany. The graf of the Germans is, for the most part, a title of dignity, answering to the count of the French, and the earl of the English; and, in some cases, it is also the title of a prince, as the landgraf, or markgraf. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the gerefa, or, as he is called in English, the reeve, was an officer of justice inferior in rank to the alderman. He was a ministerial officer, appointed to execute processes, keep the peace, and put the laws in execution. He witnessed contracts, brought offenders to justice, and delivered them to punshment, took bail of such as were to appear before the shiregemote, or county court, and presided at the hundred court or folcmote. There was a distinction both in the rank and jurisdiction of the gerefa. The shire-gerefa, shire-reeve, or sheriff, was probably distinguished by the name of the king's gerefa, because he more immediately executed the king's precepts, and sometimes sat in the place of the alderman in the county court. He appears, also, to have been distinguished by the title of the heh-gerefa, or high-sheriff. The gerefa who acted in the tithing was called the tithing-reeve, he who acted in the

byrig, or burgh, a borough-reeve, and he who acted in the town the tun-gerefa. The leading duties of this officer, in England and the U. States, are the same as those performed by the Anglo-Saxon gerefa namely, of an executive as distinguished from those of a judicial kind.

SHERIFFMUIR, or SHERIFF MOOR; a plain of Scotland, near the Grampian mountains, in Perthshire. Here a bloody battle was fought between the army of George I and the rebels, under the earl of Mar, in 1715. (See Stuart, James Edward Francis.)

SHERIFF'S TOURN. (See Courts, vol. iii, p. 589.)

SHERLOCK, William, an Episcopal clergyman, born in Southwark, about 1641, studied at Eton, and afterwards at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he proceeded doctor of divinity in 1680. After the revolution, having refused to take the oath of allegiance to William III, he was suspended from the pastoral office; but, on his subsequent compliance, he was restored, and, in 1691, promoted to the deanery of St. Paul's. His death took place in 1707. Doctor Sherlock distinguished himself as a polemical divine against the Dissenters, and carried on a controversy with doctor South relative to the doctrine of the Trinity. His works on practical theology, especially his Discourses on Death and on Judgment, are much esteemed, and have passed through numerous editions.

SHERLOCK, Thomas, son of the preceding, born in London, in 1678, received his education at Catharine-hall, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship. In 1714, he was chosen master of Catharine-hall, and was promoted to the deanery of Chichester in 1716, after which he entered into a controversy with bishop Hoadly, in defence of the corporation and test acts. In 1725, he published Discourses on Prophecy, intended to obviate the infidel objections of Anthony Collins. Doctor Sherlock, in 1728, succeeded Hoadly in the bishopric of Bangor, and, in 1734, in that of Salisbury. He was offered the primacy on the decease of archbishop Potter, in 1747; but he refused it; and, the following year, he was translated to the see of London, where he remained till his death, 1761. Bishop Sherlock was the author of the Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus; and his Sermons are among the best specimens of English pulpit eloquence extant.

SHERMAN, Roger, a signer of the Der

laration of Independence, was born at Newton, Massachusetts, April 19, 1721. His father was a respectable farmer, but of circumstances too moderate to allow him to give his son any other education than that furnished by the village school. Roger was early apprenticed to a shoemaker; and, on the death of his father, when he was only nineteen years of age, he supported his mother and a numerous family by his labor, his older brother having, some time before, removed to New Milford, in Connecticut. Thither the whole family also removed in 1743, Roger performing the journey on foot, with his tools on his back. Soon afterwards he relinquished the shoemaking trade, and entered into partnership with his brother as a country merchant. From his earliest youth, he had always manifested an unconquerable avidity for knowledge, and, availing himself of every opportunity, became remarkable for the variety and extent of his attainments at an early age. His skill in mathematics occasioned him to be appointed, in 1745, county surveyor. In astronomy he was likewise a proficient. In 1748, and for several succeeding years, he supplied the astronomical calculations for an almanac published in the city of New York. Having devoted for some time his leisure moments to the study of the law, he was admitted, in 1754, to the bar, where he rapidly rose to distinction. In the following year, he was appointed a justice of the peace for New Milford, which town he also represented the same year in the colonial assembly. In 1759, he was appointed judge of the court of common pleas for the county of Litchfield -an office which he filled with great reputation for the two ensuing years. He then fixed his residence in New Haven, of which town he was made a justice of the peace, and often represented it in the colonial assembly. In 1765, he was made judge of the court of common pleas, and, about the same time, he was appointed treasurer of Yale college. In 1766, he was elected a member of the upper house in the general assembly of Connecticut, which station he retained for nineteen years, when, the office of judge being considered incompatible with it, he retired. His judgeship he held until his election, in 1789, to congress, under the federal constitution. His early and strenuous support of American rights caused him to be chosen a delegate to the first general congress of 1774. He was present at the opening of the session, and зі

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continued to occupy a seat in that body until his death, in 1793, a space of nineteen years. His whole congressional career was marked by indefatigable zeal, industry and fortitude. His sterling sense, integrity and firmness, gave him great influence in the assembly. The estimation in which he was held by his fellow members may be inferred from the selection of him as the associate of Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and Livingston, on the committee appointed to prepare the Declaration of Independence. While holding a seat in congress, he served the state which he represented in various other ways. During the war, he was a member of the governor's council of safety; and, from 1784 to his death, was mayor of the city of New Haven. In 1783, he was commissioned, together with Richard Law, both of whom were at the time judges of the superior court, to revise the statutes of the state-a work of great. labor and difficulty, and which was executed with corresponding ability. 1787, he was a member of the convention which formed the present constitution of the U. States; and its adoption in Connecticut was owing, in a great measure, to his influence. He appeared before the state convention, and made a plain and perspicuous explanation of the probable operation of the principles of the instrument. He was continued in his place in the house of representatives under the new government, and, at the expiration of two years, was chosen to the senate, but was obliged to retire from this station in consequence of ill health, July 23, 1793, in the seventy-third year of his age. The predominant trait of Mr. Sherman's character was his practical wisdom, or, in other words, his strong common sense. "That," said Mr. Jefferson, on one occasion, when pointing out the various members of congress to a friend, "that is Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut-a man who never said a foolish thing in his life." He possessed singular power in penetrating into the characters and motives of men, while the rectitude and integrity of his own nature enabled him to acquire an extraordinary influence. Though a man of naturally strong passions, he obtained a complete control over them by means of his deep religious spirit, and became habitually calm, sedate and self-possessed. As a speaker, he was slow and hesitating, and devoid of most of the graces of oratory; but the weight of his matter, and the conviction of his sincerity, caused him to he listened to with great respect and

attention. His learning was extensive and profound.

SHERRY; a Spanish wine, growing in the neighborhood of Xeres de la Frontera, in the province of Andalusia, near Cadiz. Many of the principal vineyards are in the hands of British and foreign settlers, to which probably is to be ascribed the improvement which of late has taken place in Sherry wines. The best soil (albariza) consists chiefly of carbonate of lime, with a small admixture of silex and clay, and occasionally magnesia. Red and white grapes are used indiscriminately. When ripe and gathered, they are spread on mats, and left to dry for two or three days; they are then freed from the stalks, and the rotten or unripe berries rejected. Being now introduced into vats, with a layer of burnt gypsum on the surface, they are trodden by peasants with wooden shoes. The juice is collected in casks, in which the fermentation is allowed to take place, continuing generally from October till the beginning or middle of December. The wines are then racked from the lees, and those intended for exportation receive additions of brandy, seldom more than three or four gallons to the butt. The new wine is harsh and fiery, but mellows by being allowed to remain in the wood four or five years, though fifteen or twenty years are required to perfect its flavor. Sometimes bitter almonds are infused to give the wine a nutty flavor. The dry sherry is the most esteemed. Its flavor partakes of the taste of leather (called in Spanish olor de bota). This is owing to the custom of bringing the wines down the country in large leather vessels, or, as the Spaniards call them, botas, whence we derive the term butts. This flavor goes off with keeping. The sherry wines are shipped, for the most part, at Cadiz, and are principally exported to England. See Henderson's History of Ancient and Modern Wines (London, 1826, 1 vol., 4to.).

SHETLAND OF ZETLAND ISLES; the north-east division of the Scottish Northern Isles, about fifteen leagues north-east of the Orkneys. The southern promontory of the Mainland (the largest of the Shetland islands) lies in 59° 48′ 30" of north latitude, and the northern extremity of Unst, in latitude 60° 52′ north. The meridian of London passes through this last island. The islands are about eightysix in number, of which forty are inhabited: the others are small holms or rocky islets, used only for pasturage. The principal inhabited islands are the Main

land (with the capital, Lerwick), Yell, Unst, Whalsay, Bressay. The climate is not agreeable. The winds are tempestuous, and the rains heavy. The sea swells and rages in such a manner, that for five or six months the ports are almost inaccessible. There is great diversity of soil. The general appearance is a scene of ruggedness and sterility. Some patches of miserably cultivated soil relieve the eye of a traveller; but no tree nor shrub is to be seen. The western parts are peculiar ly wild, dreary, and desolate, consisting of gray rocks, stagnant marshes and pools, broken and precipitous coasts, ex cavated into vast natural arches and deep caverns. There is plenty of peat and turf for fuel. Great numbers of horses are bred in Shetland, though they are o very small size. These little animals, however, are full of spirit, and bear fatigue much better, in proportion to their size, than larger horses, and evidently proceed from the Norway horse, though reduced in size, perhaps, in some degree, by scanty fare. The cattle of Shetland are also of a small size. The inhabitants are a hardy, robust, and laborious race, and hospitable. They have few manufactures. They make a coarse cloth for their own use, and a little linen. They likewise export great quantities of stockings, knit from their own wool; some of which are so fine that they equal silk in price, and can be drawn through a finger ring. Their chief trade is to Leith, London, Dublin, and Barcelona; but they also deal with the Dutch fishermen, who visit their islands. They export annually 1000 tons of cod, tusk, and ling, and 500 tons of kelp, and about £5000 worth of stockings and mittens. The whole exports may be estimated at £35,000. Population, 26,145. See Hibbert's Description (Edinburgh, 1821), and a full account in the article Shetland, in Brewster's New Edinburgh Encyclopædia.

SHIBBOLETH. When Jephthah (q. v.), at the head of the Gileadites, had defeated the Ephraimites, and his troops intercepted their flight across the Jordan, they required the former to pronounce the word Shibboleth. The peculiar pronunciation of the Ephraimites, who, unable to give the aspirate, called it Sibboleth, betrayed them to their enemies. The word has thence acquired the signification of the watch-word of a party.

SHIELD; a piece of defensive armor, borne on the left arm, to screen the body from the blows of the enemy; afterwards superseded, in a great degree, by the use

of more convenient armor. (See Breastplate.) Shields were composed of different materials, and were of various figures. The ancient clypeus was round, and of brass; the scutum, or donis, was of an oblong shape, rectangular, generally made of wood, covered with skins; the parma was made of skin; the pelta was crescentshaped. In the centre was the umbo, an iron boss projecting forward, to glance off missiles, or to press the enemy. They were often highly ornamented, and the ancients esteemed it a great disgrace to leave them on the field of battle. "With it, or on it," was the exhortation of a Spartan mother to her son, giving him the buckler of his father, as he went to war. In time of peace, they were hung up in consecrated places, and those taken in war were often suspended in the temples as trophies. (Potter's Antiquities; Vegetius, ii, 17.) The Tartar shield is made of leather. Both in France and in England and Scotland, round leather shields were used. Many of these shields had wood wicker work or metal plates below the leather. There was a particular kind of shield used several centuries ago, called pavois or tallevas, of extraordinary dimensions, and borne by an attendant. This in sieges was interposed between the archers and the besieged. The most ancient and universal form of shields, in the earlier ages, seems to have been the triangular, vulgarly called the heater shield. Numerous instances of this are seen in the monuments and gems of antiquity. This was the shape of the Norman shields. The shield, though not entirely relinquished while the use of the long-bow and cross-bow continued, underwent some alteration in its form, the triangular shape gradually giving place to the circular or rectangular. They seem to have been used in affrays as late as the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. The target and broad-sword were the favorite arms of the Scotch Highlanders as late as 1746, and even later.

SHIGEMOONI. (See Lama.)

SHIITES (heretics); a name given by the Sunnites (q. v.) to all Mohammedans, who do not acknowledge the Sunna as a law. The Shiites believe that Ali, the fourth caliph after Mohammed, was his first lawful successor. The Persians are Shiites. From them the sect of Ismaelites (q. v.) separated. (See the article Islam.)

SHILLING Anglo-Saxon, skylling; Swefish, skilling; German, schilling); the name of a coin of very different value in different places (see Coin), the etymology

of which is very uncertain. It appears to have been originally only a money of account in England, or the twentieth part of a pound; and, according to some antiquarians, the first English shillings were coined in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

SHILLOOKS. (See Sennaar.)
SHINGLES. (See Erysipelas.)

SHIP; a locomotive machine, adapted to transportation over rivers, seas, and oceans. As no human device is more worthy of admiration than the ship, so no investigation can be more curious than to trace, step by step, the slow progress of improvement, from the first rude attempt of incipient navigation, down to the perfection of modern times. And here, at the very threshold of the inquiry, our attention is arrested by a singular fact-the uniformity with which the human mind, prompted by the same desires, and aided by the same faculties, arrives at the same results. How small, indeed, is the difference between the canoe of the Esquimaux, framed of the bones of beasts and fishes, and covered with the skins of seals, and those in which the poets show us Dardanus fleeing before the deluge, or Charon conducting his trembling charge to the shades below; between those said to have been used in primitive times by the Egyptian, the Ethiopian, and the Arab, and the light barks of the early Britons, made of osiers and hides, which Cæsar imitated in Spain to extricate hiinself from the perilous situation in which ho was held by the lieutenants of Pompey! In what does the canoe of our own Indian, of the islander of the south seas, and of the native African, differ from those which the savage Germans hollowed from a single tree, in the days of Pliny?

It is an old tradition, that the first idea of the canoe was suggested by a split reed, seen by some ingenious savage floating safely upon the billow. Be this as it may, there can be little doubt that the raft, as it is the most easy and obvious means of crossing the water, was likewise of most early invention. The savage who first ventured forth upon a solitary tree, that the river had brought within his reach, must have found his situation unsteady and precarious: his ingenuity suggested the idea of fastening several together, and the cou veyance became at once a safe one. The earliest records which history affords on this subject, show the Egyptians traversing the Nile upon rafts. The Phoenicians also availed themselves of the invention; and we are told that many islands, even