a ber ful ivory statue of a female, fell in love with his owr work, and by his prayers moved Venus to animate it. This fable is the theme of frequent allusion.

PLADIS, a prince of Phocis, bound so closely in the Lands of friendship with Orestes, that they are cited as exemplars of that feeling in its strongest form.

PYRAMUS, a youth of Babylon attached to Thisbe, whom, from the hostility of their parents, he could only converse with through a chink in the wall between their habitations. The lovers, however, appointed to meet at the tomb of Ninus. Thisbe arriving first, was frightened away by a lioness, which, with bloody jaws, tore a scarf dropped in her flight. Pyramus saw this article, and Believing Thisbe dead, slew himself. The distracted maiden, on her return, followed him to the tomb.

PYRRHA, wife of Deucalion, and saved with him from the great Thessalian deluge. By throwing stones behind her she is said to have repeopled the earth with women, as Deucalion supplied it with men.

from among whom Romulus carried off wives for his followers on founding Rome.

SALLUST, a Roman historian, whose works, though not lengthened, are justly valued for their style and ac

curacy.

SAPPHO, a famous poetess of Lesbos, whose scanty fragments indicate extraordinary powers, and who was so tortured by love as to throw herself into the sea.

SARDANAPALUS, the last of the Assyrian monarchs, noted for his luxury and effeminacy. His officers having conspired against him, and besieged him in Nineveh, he set fire to his palace, and was consumed in the flames, with all his slaves, concubines, and treasures.

SATURNALIA, festivals held in honour of Saturn, and intended to commemorate the freedom and equality which prevailed in the golden age, when Saturn was king. From the privileges enjoyed during these holidays by the poor man and the slave, any revels where a free and levelling spirit is displayed have been called Saturnalia.

ter.

PYTHIA (Pythoness), the priestess of Apollo at Delphi, who, inspired by vapours from the earth, delivered, amid convulsive writhings, the oracles of the deity.

PYTHON, a serpent killed by Apollo, from which his priestess received her name, as he himself was called the Pythian god.

REGULUS, a Roman consul, who, in warring with Carthage, was taken prisoner, and afterwards sent home to negotiate a peace. Aware of the reduced state of their enemy, Regulus advised the Romans not to agree to a cessation of hostilities. The noble prisoner thus sealed his own doom, as he was bound, if peace was not obtained, to return to Carthage. He did so, and underwent, after cruel tortures, the horrible death of being shut up in a barrel pierced on all sides with sharp spikes. His devotion to his country and his promise have gained him an undying name.

RHADAMANTHUS, brother of Minos, and so famous for his equity on earth, as to have been appointed one of the judges of the dead.

ROMULUS.-Romulus and Remus, the two brothers who founded Rome, were fabled by their proud descendants to be the sons of Mars by a princess of Italy. They were exposed in infancy, but were saved and suckled by a she-wolf. The twins, on reaching manhood, resolved to found a city; but, for a trifling offence, Remus was slain by his brother. Romulus, however, with a band of fugitives and criminals, founded Rome; and as the neighbouring tribes despised his followers, he carried off inates for them from among the women of the Sabine nation. This abduction was often adverted to by the descendants of its authors. Romulus reigned thirty-nine years, and was then carried up to heaven, according to a story invented, most probably, to conceal his assassination. He received divine honours after his death.

Roscius, a Roman actor of such celebrity, that every distinguished follower of that profession has received his

name.

RUBICON, now Rugone, a small stream of Italy, which, after long hesitation, Julius Cæsar crossed, thus throwing off allegiance to the Roman senate, and affording a lasting simile for the taking of any decisive and hazardous step.

SABINI. The Sabines were a primitive Italian people;

as an aged man with a scythe in his hand and a serpent wound into a circle, to indicate the ceaseless round of time. Chronos, or Time, is also one of the names of Saturn.

SATYR.-The Satyrs were minor deities of the country, shaped like goats inferiorly, and having horns on their head and long hair over the body. The idea of them most probably came from the baboon tribe.

SCIPIO, the patronymic of an illustrious family of Rome, one member of whom, surnamed Africanus from the feat, was the conqueror of Hannibal at Zama. He was equally famous for his private virtues as for his military successes; and "the continence of a Scipio," a common phrase, had its origin in the refusal of Africanus to see a beautiful princess who had fallen into his hands, lest the frailty of human nature should tempt him to take any advantage of his power over her fate.

SCYLLA, a rock off Sicily, famous as dangerous to mariners, in combination with the whirlpool Charybdis. The ancients called the rock a monster, into which the nymph Scylla had been changed by Circe.

SEMELE, daughter of Cadmus, and mother of Bacchus by Jupiter, destroyed by her vain wish to behold her lover in all the insupportable blaze of his divinity.

SEMIRAMIS, a queen of Assyria, celebrated for her masculine strength of character, her warlike successes, and the magnificent buildings which she constructed in Babylon.

SERAPIS, a deity of the ancient Egyptians. SESOSTRIS, an early king, renowned for the extent of his conquests and the mildness of his sway.

SIBYL.-The Sibyls were women inspired by the gods with the spirit of prophecy. The most famous of them was the Cumaan Sibyl, who is said to have resided at Cuma, in Italy, and to have obtained from Apollo the privilege of living as many years as there were grains in a handful of sand. But she forgot to ask for youth also, and grew old and decrepit. It is stated that the Sibyl sold three of nine volumes of prophesies to the monarch Tarquin, and that these were preserved and consulted by the Romans with great reverence, until they were destroyed by fire. A book of Sibylline verses is extant, but scholars universally deem it spurious and modern. Every gipsy fortune-teller is familarly named a Sibyl.

SILENUS, a son of Pan, and attendant of Bacchus, usually painted as a jolly intoxicated old man riding on an ass, and crowned with flowers.

SINON, a Greek, whose frauds before Troy have made his name a by-word.

SIRENS. Three sea-nymphs who lived on a small

TARTARUS, the most familiar name of the infernal regions. Though taken often for the whole, Tartarus properly expressed the last abode of the wicked, as Elysium indicated that of the good.

SISYPHUS, a crafty prince of the heroic times of Greece, who, for some uncertain offence to the gods, was doomed, in the infernal regions, to roll a huge stone up a hill, whence it redescended immediately, rendering his punishment perpetual. The fruitless toil of Sisyphus is often the theme of allusion and comparison.

TELEMACHUS, son of Ulysses, who showed his filial piety by travelling in quest of his father, when the latter wandered from place to place on his way from Troy. Minerva accompanied the young prince under the form of an old man named Mentor, whence a common term for a counsellor and guide.

TEMPE, a vale of Thessaly, described by the poets as the most delightful spot on the earth, and used as a byname for all similar scenes of natural beauty.

TERPSICHORE, the Muse of dancing. THALES, one of the seven wise men of Greece, peculiarly famous for his skill in astronomy.

THALIA, the Muse who presided over comic poetry, pastorals, and festival celebrations.

THEMIS, a goddess whom Homer calls the presiding

SOLON, one of the seven wise men of Greece, celebrated for the equity of the laws dictated by him to the Athenians. His fame for wisdom has caused men of similar repute to be called Solons.

SOMNIS, the god of Sleep, and son of Night. SOPHOCLES, a tragic poet of Greece, who composed in a grave and lofty style.

Sparxx, a monster with the head and chest of a woman, a dog's body, a serpent's tail, and the wings of a bird, sent by Juno to devastate Boeotia. An oracle told that the Sphinx would destroy herself on one of her enigmas being explained, and Œdipus, on being asked by her what animal walked on four legs at morn, two at noon, and three in the evening, correctly answered "man," referring to infancy, manhood, and old age. The Sphinx then killed herself against a rock.

STAGYRA, the birth-place of Aristotle, whence he was called the Stagyrite.

STENTOR, a Greek whose voice, according to Homer, equalled those of fifty men combined. "Stentorian" is a settled synonym for excessively loud enunciation.

STOIC.-The Stoics were a sect of philosophers founded by Zeno, who professed so grave and stern a morality that their designation has been applied to men who exhibit great powers of self-restraint and endurance.

STYX, a cold and venomous river of the infernal regions, famous on account of the estimation in which it was held by the gods, who swore by it, and held such oaths inviolable.

SYBARIS, a town on the bay of Tarentum in Italy, the inhabitants of which were so effeminate, that "a Sybarite" has become a phrase applied to any person of such a character.

TACITUS, a Roman annalist of the empire, whose writings have been deemed models of excellence in historical literature.

TANTALUS, who, for murdering his own son, and serving him up to Jupiter to try his divine insight, was condemned to remain up to the neck in water, which ever fled from his lips as he sought to slake his perpetual thirst. Hence the word "tantalize," now firmly fixed in various modern languages.

TARPEIA, a woman who is said to have given name to the Tarpeian rock on which stood the Capitol, and from which great malefactors were hurled by the Romans. TARQUIN. From the son of the last Tarquin of Rome, VOL. II-8

lawyers nominally acknowledge as their patroness. She is painted holding a sword and scales.

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THEMISTOCLES, a famous Athenian commander, who conquered the Persians at the great naval fight of Salamis Several anecdotes of him are often quoted. Strike, but hear me !" were words used by him to an angry adversary. Napoleon Bonaparte, at his surrender to England, compared himself to Themistocles, who in a similar way had planted himself on "the hearth" of a foreign king and sought refuge.

THEOCRITUS, a native of Syracuse, styled the father of pastoral poetry.

THESEUS, an Athenian prince of the heroic ages, renowned for his great deeds. In youth he went to Crete as one of the tributary band to be sacrificed in the Labyrinth to the Minotaur, but he slew the monster, and escaped by the help of the clue of Ariadne. He afterwards deserted Ariadne. The share of Theseus in the battle of the Lapithæ, his friendship for Pirithous, proverbial for its closeness, and a visit to Tartarus, are among the principal other features in his story.

THESPIS, an ancient Greek poet, from whom, as the supposed inventor of tragedy, springs the phrase of the Thespian art, applied to the drama.

THETIS, a sea-deity, who, by marriage with the mortal Peleus, became the mother of Achilles.

THISBE, a maiden of Babylon, beloved by Pyramus. THUCYDIDES, a historian of Athens, highly esteemed for his fidelity and the merits of his style.

THULE, an island in the northern parts of the German Ocean, termed by the Romans Ultima Thule, as the ultimate point of the earth in that direction. Some have thought it Greenland and some Iceland, but the probability is that the name was really applied to the Shetland Isles.

TIBERIUS (CESAR), successor of Augustus, and only less proverbial for cruelty than his successors Nero and Domitian.

TIBULLUS, a poet of Rome, whose graceful and chaste compositions have gained for him a first place among elegiac bards.

TIMOTHEUS, a poet and musician who followed the fortunes of Alexander, and is celebrated by Dryden aş "raising a mortal to the skies”—that is, flattering his master as a divinity.

TIRESIAS, a famous Theban, struck blind, as the story runs, by Juno, but gifted with prophecy by Jupiter, and consulted during his life by all Greece.

TISIPHONE, one of the three Furies.

TITAN. The gigantic family of the Titans, descended from the Heaven and Earth, warred against Jupiter, and tossed mountains at him in their fury, but were subdued

[A COMPREHENSIVE and minute Terminological Dictionary, or vocabulary of all the terms now in use in literature, science, and art. would require a much larger amount of space than can be here afforded. Fortunately, so extensive a view of terminology is not required, as the terms appertaining to many branches of knowledge have already been explained in the present ser.es. For example, in those numbers of the "Information for the People" which treat of Astronomy. Geology; Zoology, the Anatomy of the Human Body, Chemistry, and Mechan es. the principal terms connected with these subjects will be found, with ample accompanying explanations; and the case is the same as regards other matters discussed in the course of these sheets. It is not in general difficult to discover the department, at least, of science to which any word of doubtful meaning belongs, and reference may be satisfactorily had. it is imagined, to the quarters alluded to, for interpretations not given in the present dictionary. As the insertion of radical, or primitive words would have occupied much space, without answering any good purpose, it may be here generally observed that men of science have almost universally selected the Greek language as the one best suited by its idiomatic peculiarities for the formation of compound terms. It may be of some little advantage to name here a few of the most common roots so ased. Many of the names of sciences are framed from the word grapho. Thus. Geography, derived from grapho, which signifies to write, and ge, the earth, has the sense of a writing on or description of the earth." Other scientific terms are formed from logos, a discourse. Thus, Ornithology means "a discourse on birds." ornis being the Greek term for a bird. Nomos, a law, composes other words; as, for example, Astronomy. which signifies the law of the stars," astron being the word for a star. The word scope, an observation, compounds a few terms, as Cranioscopy, which, with cranion, means observation of the skull." Various terms are also formed from metron, a measure; thus, Geometry signifies a "measuring of the earth," and Thermometer "a measure of heat," therme being the term for heat or warmth. In the science of Geometry, any words are compounded of gonia, an angle, as in the case of Pentagon, a word signifying "a figure of five (penté) angles:" and some are formed from hedra, a base or side, as Octahedron, "a figure of eight sides. Again, in the science of Botany, a great many words are framed from andres, men, and guné, a woman. For instance, when the former word is compounded with monos, alone or single, it forms Monandria, a word applied to plants with one stamen to each of its flowers. Monogynia, framed similarly with monos and guné. signifies a plant with one pistil. The whole of the Greek numerals are joined with these words in the like manner, and indicate in each case the existing number of what are called the sexual parts of plants. The following is the mode of the use of these numerals with andres, and they are similarly compounded with other words:-Monandria, 1; Diandria. 2: Triandria, 3; Tetrandria, 4: Pentandria, 5; Hexandria. 6: Heptandria, 7: Octandria, 8; Enneandria, 9: Decandria. 10; Dodecandria, 11 to 17. Where numbers not reckoned in detail are to be indicated, polus, signifying many, is the compounding

term, as in Polyandria, a plant with many stamens.

The same words monos and polus form many general terms, as Monotonous, in the sense of single-toned, and Polytechnic, having the meaning of many-scienced. The word polis, a citu, compounds many words, as Metropolis, signifying the mothercity. Hudor, water, and pur, fire, also form a number of scientific terms: as Hydrophobia, a drend of water, and Pyrotechny, the art of making fireworks.

These general hints on the compounding of technical terms are all that can be given here. As in the preceding instances, the majority of the epithets used in science are simple in construction: and in the present sheet, the language which renders the original roots most directly into English has been chosen in giving the sense of the words compounded from them. Some are disposed, it may be observed, to find fault with men of science for not making use of modern and vernacular language, but the complaint is made without due consideration. The idiom of the English and most living tongues is opposed altogether to such a system of compounding and as each country might fairly demand to employ her own language, what a maze of confusion scientific nomenclature would inevitably become, were there not some common form of speech intelligible to all.]

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ABEYANCE.—Lands are said, in law, to be in abeyance when they are not actually in the possession, but only in the expectance, of the next inheritor.

ABORIGINES, a name given first to the ancient inhabitants of Latium, and now applied to the original natives of any country.

ACCIDENCE, a display of the variations of words according to their government or sense. The term is often applied to any work that teaches the rudiments of

grammar.

ACCOLADE, the ancient ceremony of conferring knight hood, consisting, formerly, in an embrace given to the young knight by the sovereign. The neck is now gently touched with a sword instead.

ACCORDION, a new and small musical instrument, the sounds from which are produced by air acting on vibrating tongues. It is held during use in the hands.

Acins, compound chemical bodies which are tart to the taste, change the vegetable blues to red, and form salts with alkalies and earths.

ACOLYTE, a name applied to the young official attendants of the Catholic bishops.

ACOUSTICS, that branch of science which treats of the nature and modification of sound. (See article Acous TICS, in the present series.)

ACROSTIC, a poem, the first letters of which compose, collectively, some name, title, or word chosen for the purpose.

ADIPOCERE, a fatty or waxen substance, into which, under certain circumstances, decomposed animal bodies resolve themselves.

ADVOWSON, the right of presentation to a church or benefice.

AEROLITES, meteoric stones which fall from the atmosphere, and have been found at different times in considerable numbers, some of them weighing but a few grains, and others upwards of a hundred pounds.

AERONAUTICS.-The art of aëronautics or aërostation consists in the navigation of the air by means of balloons filled with a gas of greater rarety than the atmosphere. Heated or rarefied air was first used for the purpose, but now hydrogen gas is universally employed. AGRICULTURE, the art of cultivating the earth. (See article AGRICULTURE.)

ALBINOS, a class of human beings remarkable for the red colour of their eyes, their white hair, and pale skin, peculiarities caused by a defective physical constitution.

ALCHEMY, a name now applied to the vain art which had in view the discovery of the elixir of perpetual life, and of the power of transmuting baser metals to gold.

ALCORAN, or The Koran (meaning The Book), a work containing the precepts and disquisitions of Mohammed. ALGEBRA, the science of computing abstract quantities by symbols or signs. (See article ALGEBRA.)

ALIAS and ALIBI.-Alias, used in the sense of other wise or at another time, is applied to a case where a man bears two names, as Brown alias Smith. When a party proves himself to have been at a different place when a crime was committed at any given spot, he is said to have proved an alibi, or that he was elsewhere at the time. ALKALI, a metallic oxide which changes vegetable blues to green, and forms neutral salts with acids.

ALLUVIUM, a term applied to flat patches of soil. formed by the wearing-down action of moving waters on mountains and other elevated portions of ground.

ALPHA, the first letter of the Greek alphabet. ALTO-RELIEVO, an expression used by sculptors to designate figures brought out strongly from any surface, or in high relief.

ALUMINA, an earth containing alum, and forming the basis of clayey soils.

AMALGAM. A mixture of mercury with any metal was formerly called an amalgam; but any thorough union of one article with another is now termed amalgamation.

AMAUROSIS, a disease of the eye, consisting in a general dimness of vision, and caused by defects in the power of the retina.