Delaware, east by Worcester county, south by Pocomoke Bay, west by the Chesapeake, and north-west by Dorchester county. Chief town, Princess Anne. SOMERSET is also the name of a borough and post-town of the United States, capital of Somerset county, Pennsylvania, and remarkable as being the most eastern town of any consequence in West Pennsylvania, and, except Hamilton, in the Ohio valley. It is the seat of justice for Somerset county, and stands near the head streams of both the Youghiogheny and Conemaugh, on the south road from Pittsburg to Bedford. The mountain valley in which this town is situated is the abode of health, and having pure though often keen air. Thirty-five miles west of Bedford, and sixty-one E.S. E. of Pittsburg. There are a great number of small townships of this name in the United States. SOMERSETSHIRE, a maritime county of England, bounded on the north by Gloucestershire and the Bristol Channel, on the east by Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, on the south by Dorsetshire, and on the west and south-west by Devon; being sixty-eight miles in length and forty-seven in breadth, containing 1642 square statute miles, or 1,050,88 statute acres of land, and having 400,000 acres arable, and 534,500 in pasturage. It is divided into the forty hundreds of Abdick and Bulstone, Andersfield, Bathforum, Bempstone, Brent and Wrington, Bruton, Cannington, Carhampton, Catash, Chew and Chewton, Crewkerne, Curry-north, Ferris-Norton, Frome, Glaston, Hampton and Claverton, Hartcliffe and Bedminster, Horethorne, Hounborough, Huntspill and Puriton, Keynsham, Kilmersden, Kingsbury, Martock, Mells and Leigh, Milverton, Petherton-north and Petherton-south, Pitney, Portbury, Somerton, Stone, Taunton, Tintinhull, Wellow, Wells-forum, Whitestone, Whitley, Willerton and Freemanners, and Winterstoke; the whole containing seven liberties; two cities, Bath and Wells (exclusive of the greater part of the city of Bristol); five boroughs, Bridgewater, Ilchester, Milbourne Port, Minehead, and Taunton; and twenty-seven markettowns, Axbridge, Bruton, Castle-Cary, Chard, Crewkerne, Dulverton, Dunster, Frome-Selwood, Glastonbury, Ilminster, Keynsham, Langport, Melverton, North-Curry, Pensford, Petherton-south, Porlock, Stogumber, Shepton-Mallet, Somerton, Stowey, Watchet, Wellington, Wincanton, Wivelscombe, Rington, and Yeovil; and 482 parishes. The amount of the assessment under the property tax in 1815 was £1,900,651, and the amount of the poor's rates in 1815 was £233,387; being at the rate of 2s. 51d. in the pound. The average scale of mortality for ten years appears to have been as one to sixty-three of the population. It sends sixteen members to parliament; is included in the western circuit, the province of Canterbury, and in the diocese of Bath and Wells. The rivers are numerous but not large, their course being chiefly within the county. The principal is the Parret, which rising on the southern parts, flows northward, and is joined by the Ivel from the east, then by the Tone from the west, and afterwards emptying itself into the Bristol Channel at Bridgewater Bay; the small river Ax, from the north, passes Axbridge, and falls into the Bristol Channel; the Bruce rises near Bruton, and falls into the Bristol channel. The Parret, the Tone, and the Bruce, are each navigable for limited distances. The only navigable canal that has been completed is the Kennet and Avon, which unites together the two great rivers Thames and Severn. It commences near Bath, and soon enters Wiltshire. Other canals have been projected in different directions, but none of them have been prosecuted to completion; though on several of them large sums have been expended. The most valuable branch of rural economy here is the fattening of cattle and the manage ment of the dairy. The cheese of Cheddar has obtained great celebrity, but that made in many other parts, and frequently sold as Gloucester, is equal to any in the world. The butter in the southern division of the county is excellent, and much of it is sent to London under the denomination of Dorsetshire butter. Its next agricultural produce is cider, the universal beverage of the working classes. It is a purer and stronger liquor than the cider either of Herefordshire or Devonshire, and the consumption of it within the country is very large: some is also sent to distant parts. The abundance of natural grass is such that the farmers do not find it necessary to grow a crop of clover, or artificial grass, uniformly between two corn crops; nor is the practice of fallowing, or of introducing a rotation beginning with turnips, necessary. Without this they grow good crops of corn, and in the hundred of Taunton Dean the wheat is of the best quality. The bear and barley crops are also very good. Oats are extensively cultivated, but scarcely equal the demands of the county, and Ireland readily supplies the deficiency. A large proportion of the flax used in the manufactures is raised within the county. It is not unusual to rent land for half a year whilst a crop of flax is grown; after which it is taken again by the regular occupant, who finds the flax to be an excellent preparative for wheat. The rich loamy soils bring to maturity fine elm timber. Of the mineral products the hills of Mendip supply coals; lead, of a quality superior to that of Derbyshire, is also found in Mendip and on the Cheddar hills; and calamine is extensively produced, and supplies the brass manufactures of Bristol. Copper is found near Stowey: manganese, bole, and red ochre, are also among the products of Mendip. Cloths of Spanish and Saxon wool are made at Frome, Shepton Mallet, and their vicinity: some common woollen goods at Ilminster, Chard, Taunton, and Wellington; and some of a coarser kind at Wivelscombe, Milvarton, Watchel, and other places. The linen goods are tickens, dowlas, and sail-cloth; these are mostly made at Yeovil, Crewkerne, Montacute, and Martock. Silk-nills are found at Bruton and Taunton, and gloves are extensively made at Yeovil. Near Wells are establishments for making fine paper; and in the vicinity of Bristol are some excellent glass-houses. The commerce of Somersetshire passes chiefly through Bristol, but some of the woollen goods manufactured at Taunton and Wellington are shipped from Exeter. The linen and woollen goods are also distributed through the western and Welsh counties.. The county returns two members to the House of Commons, and two from each of the following places: Bath, Wells, Taunton, Bridgewater, Ilchester, Minehead, and Milborne Port; besides two for the city of Bristol, which is partly in this county, and partly in Gloucestershire, but retains an independent county jurisdiction. Ilchester, from the elections being held there, and the gaol and county-court, is usually considered the county-town, but the assizes in the spring are held at Taunton, and in the Summer at Wells and Bridgewater alternately. SOMERTON, a market-town and parish in Somerton hundred, Somersetshire, four miles east by north from Langport, and 133 west by south from London. The town is pleasantly situate by a branch of the Parret, on a rising ground, but the houses are mostly low, though of stone, and the streets are paved. It is of great antiquity, and was formerly the county town, giving, in fact, name to the county. It was often the residence of the West Saxon kings, who built a strong castle here, which was many years after used as a state prison. In it John, king of France, was confined, after he was made prisoner by Edward the Black Prince. The church is an ancient edifice, and near it is an excellent free-school, and a well-endowed alms-house for eight poor women. The hall in which the meetings of the justices is held is in the middle of the town. One of the county gaols is in this town, the other being at Ilchester. It is governed by a bailiff and constables, chosen annually from the inhabitants. Market on Tuesday. SOMERVILLE (William), an English poet, the son of Robert Somerville of Edston, esq., descended of an ancient and opulent family in Warwickshire, born at Edston in 1692. He was educated at Winchester, and afterwards became fellow of New College, Oxford; as was also his brother, Dr. Somerville, afterwards rector of Adderbury in Oxfordshire. Dr. Johnson celebrates him as a poet, a country gentleman, and a useful justice of peace. He translated Voltaire's Alzira; but his work which is chiefly admired is his Chase, which is a lively and classical performance. Shenstone pays a very mixed compliment to his character in his Letters (1742-3). Our old friend Somerville is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion. I can excuse all his foibles, impute them to age and to distress of circumstances; the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having, at least in one production, generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains of body, in order to get rid of pains of the mind, is a misery.' He died in 1743. SOMME, a Norman department of France, comprising the western part of Picardy, and bounded on the west by the English Channel, on the north by the department of the Pas de Calais. VOL. XX. Its area is about 2380 square miles. Population 495,000. This is, on the whole, one of the finest and most fertile of the French departments. The coast is low and sandy, but the interior consists of a level fertile loam, except towards the east, where the prolongation of a part of the Ardennes produces considerable elevations, and the corn culture gives place to plantations and pasture. Tillage and the breeding of cattle are followed here ou the plan adopted in Flanders; and stall feeding is practised on a large scale. The raising of green crops is also favored by the climate. Besides corn, pasturage, fruit, and vegetables, a large quantity of coleseed, rapeseed, flax, hemp, and oleaginous grains, are raised. The manufactures comprise woollens, coarse and fine linens, lawns, cambrics, soap, leather, and hardware. SOMNAMBULISM, sleep-walking. See MEDICINE, Index; and SLEEP. We have touched upon this subject in the article SLEEP. There is but little more of an authentic description that can be added. The case of Devaud, accurately observed by the Physical Society of Lausanne, is the most singular one. 'Once, we are told, he was observed dressing himself in perfect darkness. His clothes were on a large table, mixed with those of some other persons; he immediately perceived this, and complained of it much: at last a small light was brought, and then he dressed himself with sufficient precision. While his imagination was employed on various subjects, he heard a clock strike, which repeated at every stroke the note of the cuckoo. "There are cuckoos here,' said he; and, upon being desired, he imitated the song of that bird immediately.' Again, the reporters say, 'if he is teazed, or gently pinched, he is always sensible of it (unless he is at the time strongly impressed with some other thing), and wishes to strike the offender however, he never attacks the person who has done the ill, but an ideal being, whom his imagination presents to him, and whom he pursues through the chamber without running against the furniture, nor can the persons whom he meets in his way divert him from the pursuit.' Other facts impressed the observers with a belief that the sleep-walker was capable of receiving certain impressions through the medium of the senses, when they accorded with the images which his imagination was occupied in forming; but that this faculty was predominant, and only admitted those perceptions which, on the principles of association, mingled with the reverie. They inferred, too, that he was obliged to open his eyes, in order to recognize objects; but that the impression, once made, although rapidly, was vivid enough to supersede the necessity of opening them again; that is, the same objects appeared to be afterwards represented by the conceptions of his imagination, with as much force and precision as if he actually saw them. In the effort to open his eyes, however, when he wished to see an object, he could scarcely raise them a line or two, by drawing up his brows; and the iris appeared fixed, and the eye dim. He made this effort whenever any thing was presented to him, and he was told of it, always half opening his eyes with great difficulty, and then shutting them after he had taken what was of 2 R ered. Having engaged him to write a theme,' the committee of the Physical Society say, 'we saw him light a candle, take pen, ink, and paper from the drawer of his table, and begin to write, while his master dictated. As he was writing, we put a thick paper before his eyes, notwithstanding which he continued to write, and to form his letters very distinctly; showing signs, however, that something incommoded him, which apparently proceeded from the obstruction which the paper gave to his respiration, being held too near his nose. An experiment was made by changing the place of the ink-standish, while he was writing. He had a light beside him, and had certified himself of the place where his inkholder was standing by means of sight. From that time he continued to take ink with precision, without being obliged to open his eyes again: but, the ink-standish being removed, his hand returned as usual to the place where he thought it was. It must be observed that the motion of his hand was rapid, till it reached the height of the standish, and then he moved it slowly, till the pen gently touched the table, as he was seeking for the ink. He then perceived that a trick had been put upon him, and complained of it: he went in search of his ink-standish, and put it in its place.' This experiment, they affirm, was several times repeated, and was always attended with the same circumstances. And they put the following questions respecting the inferences to be drawn from it: Does not what we have here stated prove that the standish, the paper, the table, &c., are painted on his imagination in as lively a manner as if he really saw them; since he sought the real standish in the place where his imagination told him it ought to have been? Does it not prove that the same lively imagination is the cause of the most singular actions of this sleepwalker? And, lastly, does it not prove that a mere glance of his eye is sufficient to make his impressions as lively as durable?' The following example of the somnambulistic reverie is from the life of Dr. Blacklock in Anderson's poets, vol. xi. 'Dr. Blacklock, one day, harassed by the censures of the populace, whereby not only his reputation but his very subsistence. was endangered, and fatigued with mental exertion, fell asleep after dinner. Some hours after, he was visited by a friend, answered his salutation, rose, and went with him into the dining-room, where some of his companions were met. He joined with two of them in a concert, singing, as usual, with taste and elegance, without missing a note, or forgetting a word. He then went to supper, and drank a glass or two of wine. His friends, however, observed him to be a little absent and inattentive: by and by he began to speak to himself, but in so slow and confused a manner as to be unintelligible. At last, being more forcibly roused, he awoke with a certain start, unconscious of all that had happened, as till then he had continued fast asleep.' Those who wish fully to investigate this curious subject may consult Cleghorn de Somno, &c.; Hoffmann's Dissertatio de Somnabulisme, in the third volume of the supplement to his works; the French Encyclopédie, article Somnambulisme; Darwin's Zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xix. SOMNER (William), an eminent English antiquary, born at Canterbury in 1606. His first treatise was the Antiquities of Canterbury, which he dedicated to archbishop Laud. He then made himself master of the Saxon language, by which he discovered that the old glossary prefixed to Sir Roger Twisden's edition of the laws of king Henry I., printed in 1644, was erroneous in many places; he therefore added to that edition notes and observations valuable for their learning, with a very useful glossary. His Treatise of Gavelkind was finished about 1648, though not published till 1660. He was zealously attached to king Charles I., and in 1648 he published a poem on his sufferings and death. His skill in the Saxon tongue led him to enquire into most of the European languages ancient and modern. He assisted Dugdale and Dodsworth in compiling the Monasticon Anglicanum. His Saxon Dictionary was printed at Oxford in 1650. He died in 1669. SOMNIFEROUS, adj. Fr. somnifere; Lat. somifer. Causing sleep; procuring sleep; soporiferous; dormitive. I wish for some somniferous potion, that might force me to sleep away the intermediate time, as it does with men in sorrow. Walton's Angler. SOMNUS (Lat.), in the ancient mythology, the god of sleep, was the son of Erebus and Nox, or Hell and Night (the hell of the virtuous, see EREBUS), and the brother of Light and Day. He was one of the infernal deities, and his palace a dark cave, where the sun never penetrated. At the entrance grew poppies and all other somniferous herbs. The god was represented as asleep on a bed of feathers, with black curtains. The Dreams stand by him; and Morpheus, as his chief minister, watches, lest any should disturb him. Hesiod. Theog. Hom. Îl, 14. &c. SON, n. s. Sax. runa; Gothic sunus; SON-IN-LAW. Swed. son; Belg. sone. SON'SHIP. male child; male descendant; native, of a country; product; a Hebraism, denoting the predominance of some particular quality; as the sons of pride, &c. See below. A son-in-law is a man married to one's daughter: sonship, filiation; state or character of a son. Cast out this bondwoman and her son. A Gen. xxi. 10. I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings. Isaiah xix. If thou be the son of God, come down. Matt. xxvii. 40. And he schal go bifore in the spiryte and vertu of Helye: and he schal turne the hertis of the fadris to the sonis, and men out of beleeve to the prudence of just men: to make redy a perfyt puple to the Lord. Wiclif. Luk. 1. The fadir jugith ony man, but hath govun ech doom to the sone. Id. Jun. 5 Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. Shakspeare. She had a son for her cradle, ere she had a busband for her bed. Id. King Lear. If virtue no benighted beauty lack, I our son-in-law is far more fair than black. Id. Othello. The apostle to the Hebrews makes afflictions not oni incident but necessary to christianity, the badge and cognizance of sonship. Decay of Piety. SONATA, in music, is a piece of composition intended to be performed by instruments only; in which sense it stands opposed to cantata, or a piece designed for the voice. See CANTATA. The sonata, then, is properly a grand, a free, humorous composition, diversified with a great variety of motions and expressions, extraordinary and bold strokes, figures, &c. And all this purely according to the fancy of the composer; who, without confining himself to any general rules of counterpoint, or to any fixed number or measure, gives a loose to his genius, and runs from one mode, measure, &c., to another, as he thinks fit. This species of composition had its rise about the middle of the seventeenth century; those who have most excelled in it were Bassani and Correlli. See MUSIC. SONCHIS, an Egyptian priest, contemporary with Solon, whom he instructed in the traditions, mysteries, and learning, of Egypt. SONCHUS, sow-thistle, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of syngenesia, and to the order of polygamia æqualis; and in the natural system ranged under the forty-ninth order, compositæ. The receptacle is naked; the calyx is imbricated, bellying, and conical; the down of the seed is simple, sessile, and very soft; the seed is oval and pointed. There are thirteen species; viz. 1. S. alpinus; 2. ardensis; 3. Canadensis; 4. Floridanus; 5. fruticosus; 6. maritimus; 7. oleraceus; 8. palustris; 9. plumieri; 10. Sibiricus; 11. Tartaricus; 12. tenerrimus; 13. tuberosus. Of these the following are natives of Britain :1. S. alpinus, blue-flowered sow-thistle. The stem is erect, purplish, branched, or simple, from three to six feet high: the leaves are large, smooth, and sinuated; the extreme segment large and triangular the flowers are blue, and grow on hairy viscid pedicles, in long spikes: the calyx is brown. This species is found in Northumberland. 2. S. ardensis, corn sow-thistle. The leaves are alternate, runcinate, and heart-shaped at the base; the root creeps under ground; the stem is three or four feet high, and branched at the top. It grows in corn-fields, and flowers in August. 3. S. oleraceus, common sow-thistle. The stalk is succulent, pistular, and a cubit high or more; the leaves are broad, embracing the stem, generally deeply sinuated, smooth or prickly at the edges; the flowers are of a pale yellow, numerous in a kind of umbel, and terminal; the calyx is smooth. It is frequent in waste places and cultivated grounds. 4. S. palustris, marsh sow-thistle. The stem is erect, from six to ten feet high, branched and hairy towards the top; the leaves are firm, broad, half pinnated, serrated, and sharp pointed; the lower ones sagittate at the base; the flowers are of a deep yellow, large and dispersed on the tops of the branches: the calyx is rough. It is frequent in marshes, and flowers in July or August. SONG, n. s. SONG'ISH, adj. SONG'STER, n. s. SONG STRESS. Sax. rerungen. Any thing modulated in the utterance; a poem; lay; strain: an old song is a trifle: songish, containing or consisting of song, a foolish coinage of Dryden's: a songster and songstress, respectively, a male and female singer. Pardon, goddess of the night Those that slew thy virgin knight; For the which, with songs of woe, Round about his tomb they go ! There we awhile will rest; Shakspeare. Our next ensuing song to wondrous things addrest. Drayton. The pretty songsters of the spring, with their various notes, did seem to welcome him as he passed Howel. Noise other than the sound of dance and song. Milton. Id. Still govern thou my song. Either songster holding out their throats, Id. Id a soft and amorous, or a brisk and Bacchic thought, expressed in few words. But this is to restrain it to too narrow bounds; for we have devout songs, satyrical songs, and panegyrical songs. But, be the song what it will, the verses are to be easy, natural, and flowing; and are to contain a certain harmony, which neither shocks the reason nor the ear; and which unites poetry and music agreeably together. Anciently, the only way of preserving the memory of great and noble actions was by recording them in songs; and, in America, there are tribes who still keep their whole history in songs. At all times, and in all places, songs have afforded amusement and consolation to mankind: every passion of the human breast has been vented in song; and the most savage as well as civilised inhabitants of the earth have encouraged these effusions. The natives of New Zealand, who seem to live as nearly in a state of nature as any animals that are merely gregarious, have their songs, and their improvisatori; and the ancient Greeks, during every period of their history and refinement, had their scolia for almost every circumstance and occasion incident to society. Among the ancient Romans singing was so common as to become proverbial. Phædria, in the Phormio of Terence, begs Dorio to hear him, he has but one word to offer; when Dorio tells him he is always singing the same song. Horace speaks of the affectation among the singers of his time, never to sing when they are intreated, or to desist if no one wishes to hear them. And some idea of the cultivated state of music in Gaul, so early as the fifth century, may be acquired from a passage in one of the epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris, who, in his character of king Theodoric the Goth, says that this prince was more delighted with the sweet and soothing sounds of a single instrument, which calmed his mind, and flattered his ear by its softness, than with hydraulic organs, or the noise and clangor of many voices and instruments in concert.' The origin of songs and the formation of the language of every country are nearly coeval. In the frequent revolutions and struggles for empire, during the dark ages, the Roman language becoming debased and corrupted, while new tongues were forming, the art of rhyming, or unisonous terminations of verses, stole into poetical composition, and Leonine verses, supposed to have been so called from a pope or monk Leo, their author, in the seventh century, are by some thought the first attempt at rhyme: while others imagine the hymn to St. John the Baptist, by Paul Diaconus, written about the latter end of the eighth century, to be not only rendered memorable by Guido's scale, but by having been the model of all other monkish rhymes in Latin. Gravina thinks it as absurd to ascribe the invention of rhyme to any one writer, as to attribute to an individual the propagation of the plague, which is caused by the universal contagion of the air. The Arabs had rhyme, according to Calmet, before the time of Mahomet, who died 632, and in the second century used a kind of poetry in measures similar to the Greek, and set to music. See RHYME. While the new languages were unsettled, and but partially known, even in the single kingdom or province where they were forming, it was not uncommon to write half a poem in Latin and half in a vulgar tongue. Indead Dante has left a poem in three languages, Latin, Provençal, and Italian; and Rambaud de Vachieras, a Proven çal poet, in five. In the eleventh century the Troubadours, honored by the patronage and encouragement of the count of Poitou, and many other powerful princes and barons, had successfully cultivated poetry and music. At the courts of these munificent patrons they were treated with the greatest consideration and respect. The ladies, whose charms they celebrated, gave them the most flattering reception; and sometimes disdained not even to listen with compassion to tales of tenderness, and descriptions of the havoc which the irresistible charms of these sublunary divinities of chivalry had made in their hearts. The success of a few inspired the rest with hope, and excited exertions in the exercise of their art, which impelled them towards perfection with a rapidity that nothing but the united force of emulation and emolument could occasion. These founders of modern versification constructed their poems upon plans of their own invention; and as all classical authority was laid aside, either through ignorance or design, each individual gave unlimited indulgence to fancy in the subject, form, and species of his composition. It does not appear, during the cultivation and favor of Provençal literature that any one Troubadour so far outstript his brethren in the approaches he made towards perfection as to be considered as a model for his successors: we find, though military prowess, hospitality, Gothic gallantry, and a rage for feasts and revelry prevailed, that taste, refinement, and elegance, were never attained during this period, either in public or private amusements. The want of originality of composition is frequently lamented when license is repressed by laws, and the wild effusions of an ardent imagination are bounded by authority; but the productions that have been preserved of the Provençal bards, which may be called the offspring of writers in a state of nature, seem to prove the necessity of rule, order, and example, even in the liberal arts as well as the government of a free state. For the progress of taste must ever be impeded by the ignorance and caprice of those who cultivate an art without science or principles. For nearly two centuries after Guido's arrangement of the scale, no remnants or records of secular music can be found except those of the Troubadours, or Provençal poets: and though in the simple tunes which have been preserved of these bards no time is marked, and bu little variety of notation appears, yet it is no. difficult to discover in them germs of the future melodies, as well as poetry, of France and Italy. Unluckily the poetry and music of the Troubadours of Provence were not for a long time called into notice by writers possessed of those blandishments of style or manner which fascinate, and render whatever subject they treat interest |