SORITES, in logic, is a species of reasoning in which a great number of propositions are so linked together, that the predicate of the one becomes continually the subject of the next, till at last a conclusion is formed by bringing together the subject of the first proposition and the predicate of the last. Such was that merry argument of Themistocles, to prove that his little son under ten years old governed the whole world. Thus my son governs his mother; his mother me; I the Athenians; the Athenians the Greeks; Greece commands Europe; Europe the whole world therefore my son commands the whole world. See LOGIC. SORITIA, an ancient town of Spain. SORN, n. s. Irish and Scotch, soreSORE HON. horn; Ital. soiorne. A kind of arbitrary exaction or servile tenure, formerly prevalent in Scotland and Ireland, by which a chieftain came down among the tenants with his followers, and lived on free quarters. They exact upon them all kind of services; yea, and the very wild exactions, coignie, livery, and sorehon by which they poll and utterly undo the poor tenants and freeholders under them." SORREL, in botany, a species of the rumex, which grows in pastures and meadows, and is well known. The natives of Lapland boil large quantities of the leaves in water, and mix the juice when cold with the milk of their rein-deers, which they esteem an agreeable and wholesome food. The Dutch cultivate this plant for its usefulness in the dyeing of woollen cloths black; and we know that by means of the common broad-leaved sorrel an excellent black color is, in many places in Scotland, given to woollen stuffs without the aid of copperas. As this mode of dyeing dees not in the smallest degree injure the texture of the cloth, which continues to the last soft and silky, without that hardness to the touch which it acquires when dyed black by means of copperas; our readers will probably thank us for the following receipt, with which we have been favored by a learned physician :-Let the stuff to be dyed be well washed with soap and water, and afterwards completely 'dried. Then of the common broad-leaved sorrel, boil as much as shall make an acid decoction of sufficient quantity to let the stuff to be dyed lie in it open and easy to be stirred. The greater quantity of sorrel that is used the better will the color be; and therefore if the pot or caldron will not hold enough at once, when part has been sufficiently boiled, it must be taken out and wrung, and a fresh quantity be boiled in the same juice or decoction. When the liquor is made sufficiently acid, strain it from the sorrel through a sieve, put the cloth or yarn into it, and let it boil for two hours, stirring it frequently. If stockings be among the stuff to be dyed, it will be expedient, after they have been an hour in the boiling liquor, to turn them inside out, and at the end of the second hour let the whole be poured into a tub or any other vessel. The pot or caldron must then be washed, and water put into it, with half a pound of log-wood chips for every pound of dry yarn or cloth. The logwood and water should boil slowly for four hours; and then the cloth or yarn being wrung from the sour liquor, and put into the logwood decoction, the whole nust be suffered to boil slowly for four hours, stockings, if there be any, being turned inside out at the end of two hours. Of this last decoction there must, as of the former, be enough to let the cloth lie open and easy to be stirred while boiling. At the end of the four hours the cloth must be taken out, and among the boiling liquor, first removed from the fire, must be poured a Scots pint or English gallon of stale urine for every pound of dry cloth or other stuff been stirred and become cold, the cloth must be to be dyed. When this compound liquor has put into it and suffered to remain well covered for twelve hours, and then dried in the shade; after which, to divest it of smell or any other impurity, it may be washed in cold water, and dried for use. Two species of hibiscus. SORREL, INDIAN RED, SORREL, INDIAN WHITE, SORREL, TREE. See ANDROMEDA SORREL, WOOD, in botany. See OXALIS. SORRENTO, a town of Italy, on a peninsula, on the south side of the gulf of Naples, between the mountains of Vico and Massa.. Its situation is delightful, being surrounded with gardens. At present it contains only 4200 inhabitants, but the number of ancient marbles, and of the ruins of edifices, shew it to have been formerly more extensive. Of its temples, those of Juno, Diana, and Hercules, were the most magnificent. Its wines were in former ages accounted little inferior to the most renowned of Italy. At present they are raised in large quantities; also olives, oranges, and silk. Part of the latter is manufactured in the town. Sorrento is the see of an archbishop, and gave birth to Tasso, the celebrated poet. Fifteen miles S.S. E. of Naples. SORRI (Peter), an Italian painter, born at Sienna, in 1556 He was the disciple of Salimbini; and excelled in history, portrait, and landscape. He died in 1622. SOR'ROW, v. n. & n. s. Saxon rongian'; SOP'ROWED adj. Swed. sorja; Goth. SORROWFUL. saurgian. To grieve; mourn; be sad or dejected: grief; pain for something past; sadness; mourning. 'Sorrow is not the effect of present evil, but of lost good,' says Dr. Johnson: sorrowed means accompanied with sorrow: sorrowful, mournful; grievous; deeply serious. Hannah said, No my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have poured out my soul before the Lord. 1 Samuel. Dryden. Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good lost, which might have been enjoyed longer; or the sense of a present evil. Locke. Sad the prince explores The neighb'ring main, and sorrowing treads the shores. Pope. SORRY, adj. Sax. rang; Dan. sorrig; SOR'RILY, adv. Swed. sorg (sorrow); Isl. SOR'RINESS, 1. s. saur, vile. Grieved for something past. Generally used of slight or casual miscarriages or vexations: vexatious; pitiful; worthless it is in these latter senses only that the adverb and noun substantive are used. The king was sorry: nevertheless, for the oath's sake, he commanded the Baptist's head to be given her. Matthew xiv. 9. Thy pipe, O Pan, shall help, though I sing sorrily. Sidney. How now, why do you keep alone? Of sorriest fancies your companions making, Using those thoughts which should indeed have died With them they think on. Shakspeare. Macbeth. I'm sorry for thee, friend; 'tis the duke's pleasure. Shakspeare. If the union of the parts consists only in rest, it would seem that a bag of dust would be of as firm a consistence as that of marble; and Bajazet's cage had been but a sorry prison. Glanville. Course complexions, And cheeks of sorry grain, will serve to ply The sampler, and to teize the housewife's wool. Milton. If this innocent had any relation to his Thebais, the poet might have found some sorry excuse for detaining the reader. Dryden. How vain were all the ensigns of his power, that could not support him against one slighting look of a sorry slave! L'Estrange. If such a slight and sorry business as that could produce one organical body, one might reasonably expect, that now and then a dead lump of dough might be leavened into an animal. Bentley's Sermons. We are sorry for the satire interspersed in some of these pieces, upon a few people, from whom the highest provocations have been received. Swift. SORT, n. s., v. a., & v. n. Fr. and Ital. sorte; Span, suarte of Latin sors. Kind; species; lot; portion; rank; condition; manner; superior condition: to separate into lots or classes; arrange; conjoin; cull; choose: to be joined; suited; arranged; &c.: also (Fr. sortir) to come out or issue in a particular manner: sortal is an adjective introduced and explained below by Locke: sortance, suitableness; agreement. I have written the more boldly unto you in some Rom. xv. 15. sort, as putting you in mind. That I may laugh at her in equal sort As she doth laugh at me, and makes my pain her Spenser's Sonnets. sport. Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt Hooker. nor seen well by those that wear them. The one being a thing that belongeth generally unto all; the other, such as none but the wiser and Id. more judicious sort can perform. I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people. Shakspeare. common together. Woodward. Hospitality to the better sort, and charity to the poor; two virtues that are never exercised so well as when they accompany each other. Atterbury's Sermons. Pope. SORTILEGE, was an ancient species of divination performed by sortes or lots. The sortes prenestinæ, famous in antiquity, consisted in putting a number of letters, or even whole words, into an urn; and then, after shaking them together, they were thrown on the ground; and whatever sentences could be made out from them constituted the answer of the oracle. To this method of divination succeeded that which has been called sortes Homerianæ and sortes Virgilianæ, a mode of enquiring into futurity which undoubtedly took its rise from a general custom of the oracular priests of delivering their answers in verse; it subsisted a long time among the Greeks and Romans; and being from them adopted by the Christians, it was not till after a long succession of centuries that it became exploded. Among the Romans it consisted in opening some celebrated poet at random, and among the Christians the Scriptures, and drawing, from the first passage that presented itself to the eye, a prognostic of what would befal one's self or others, or direction for conduct when under any exigency. There is good evidence that this was not confined to the vulgar; the greatest persons, philosophers of the best repute, admitted this superstition. Socrates him self was not free of it; for when in prison, hearing this line of Homer, Within three days I Phthia's shore shall see, he immediately said, within three days I shall be out of the world; gathering it from the double meaning of the word Phthia, which in Greek is both the name of a country and signifies corruption or death. This prediction, addressed to Æschinus, was not easily forgotten, as it was verified. When this superstition passed from paganism into Christianity, the Christians had two methods of consulting the divine will from the Scriptures; the one casually to open the divine writings, and take their direction, as above mentioned; the other, to go to church with a purpose of receiving, as a declaration of the will of heaven, the words of the Scripture which were singing at the instant of entrance. This unwarrantable practice of enquiring into futurity prevailed very generally in England till the beginning of the eighteenth century; and sometimes the books of Scripture, and sometimes the poems of Virgil, were consulted for oracular responses. One remarkable instance, or rather two, happened to king Charles I. and lord viscount Falkland. See CARY. Several, whose devotion has not always been regulated by judgment, have pursued this method of divination; and have generally observed that the consequence has been despair or presumption. To such we beg leave to recommend one passage in Scripture, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' It is SORY, in natural history, a fossil substance much spoken of by the ancients, and sometimes, but erroneously, supposed to be now lost. firm and not brittle, though of a spongy and cavernous structure, and is considerably heavy. It is found in masses of no regular shape or size, some being roundish, others angular or flatted, and some of the size of a walnut, others of many pounds weight. It feels very harsh and rough to the touch, and is covered with no investient coat or crust, but shows its natural surface, which is always corrugated or wrinkled, and usually full of small protuberances and cavities; and, when broken, is found to be of a rugged and spongy structure within. Its natural color is a rusty black; but it is sometimes reddish and sometimes bluish and is commonly stained, in different places, with spots of a bluish or rust color, when black, and of a greenish hue when it is of a reddish color: in the places where it is free from these, it is usually somewhat bright and sparkling. It is of an acrid and disagreeable taste, and of a strong and nauseous smell; put into the fire it burns to a deep purple; and, if boiled in water, a great part of it becomes dissolved in it; and this may again be separated from the water by evaporation and crystallisation, and then appears in the form of pure blue vitriol, forming regular rhomboidal crystals, and tinging iron to a copper-color, on being first wetted and then rubbed upon it. It is still found in many parts of the Turkish dominions, particularly in Gallo-Græcia ; as also in some parts of Germany. In this country it is boiled for the blue vitriol it contains. In Turkey it is mixed with lime, and made into a paste with water, which is laid on such parts of the body as they would eradicate the hair from, and effects that purpose in a very few minutes. In the eastern nations, where it is thus used, it is The ancients known by the name of rusma. used it to take off pimples, and put a piece of it into a hollow tooth, as a remedy for the toothache. There can be no doubt of their sory being the same substance with this; since Dioscorides has described it to be blackish in color, full of small cavities, moist on the surface (as ours always is in moist weather), and of a disagreeable taste and smell. This substance, as also the chalcitis, misy, and melanteria, are all properly ores of vitriol, the particles of those salts being so perfectly blended in them as not to be at all distinguishable to the naked eye, yet being always regularly separable from them by water, which is to the saline ores what fire is to those of the metalline kind.-Hill's History of Fossils, p. 606. SOSIGENES, a celebrated mathematician of Egypt, who flourished in the time of Julius Cæsar, and was employed by him in reforming the Roman Kalendar, which it stood very much in need of. Without detracting therefore from Cæsar's merit in forming the plan of that chronological reform, the merit of the execution belongs to Sosigenes, who flourished about A. A. C. 45, when the Julian year or period commenced. His works on astronomy and mathematics are lost. SOSILUS, a learned Spartan writer who flourished in the time of Hannibal, with whom he was very intimate, taught him Greek, and wrote the history of that great man's life, which is lost.Corn. Nepos. SOSIPATER, a grammarian, who flourished in the reign of Honorius. He published five books of observations on grammar, but they are SOSTHENES, the chief ruler of the Jewish synagogue at Corinth, who, upon Gallio's dismissing the accusation of the Jews against Paul, as groundless, was seized by the Greeks and severely beaten, in presence of the deputy. Some think that he was converted, and that he is the person whose name is joined with Paul's in the salutation of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and whom he honors with the title of a brother. SOSTI, a town of Naples, in Calabria Ultra, ten miles south of Squillace. SOSTRATUS, the son of Dexiphanes, a cele brated architect, born at Cnidos, who flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and was employed by that monarch to erect the Pharos of Alexandria. This he did to great perfection, and was well paid for it; yet he endeavoured, by a trick, to defraud Ptolemy of the honor, and assume it to himself: but this measure had only served to perpetuate the memory of his own villany. SOSVA, the name of two considerable rivers of Tobolsk, in Asiatic Russia. The first rises in the Ourals, about 65° N. lat., and, running almost due east, falls into the Obi, near Beresof, after a course of about 160 miles. It receives a smaller river of the same name, called the Little He gained a king, Ahaz his sottish conqueror. Wilkins. Milton. Atheism is impudent in pretending to philosophy; and superstition sottishly ignorant, in fancying that the knowledge of nature tends to irreligion. Every sign That calls the staring sots to nasty wine. The potion Glanville. Roscommon. Dryden Turns his brain and stupifies his mind; The sotted moon-calf gapes. 'Tis sottish to offer at things that cannot be brought about. L'Estrange. conduct; and presently the sot, because he knows neither history nor antiquity, shall begin to measure himself by himself, which is the only sure way for him not to fall short. Tell him that no history or antiquity can match his South. Few consider what a degree of sottishness and confirmed ignorance men may sin themselves into. Id. A surly ill-bred lord, Granville. SOTADEA CARMINA, a name given to serpentine verses, which can be read either way (see SERPENTINE VERSES); such as the following:Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor. Si bene te tua laus taxat, sua laute tenebis. It was also a name given to all obscene poems; from SOTADES, a Greek poet of Thrace, who delighted in that sort of poetry. He even wrote a poem in praise of an unnatural crime to which he was addicted. At last he got what he merited; for, writing a satirical poem against Ptolemy Philadelphus, he was put into a cage of lead, and thrown into the Red Sea. SOTER, Gr. Ewrηp, Saviour, a name assumed by the first Ptolemy of Egypt, and the first Antiochus of Syria. See EGYPT. SOTERIA, in antiquity, sacrifices offered to the gods, the saviours, for delivering a person from danger; as also poetical pieces composed for the same purpose. SOTERICUS, a poet and historian who flourished in the reign of Dioclesian. He wrote a panegyric on that emperor, and a Life of Apollonius Tyranæus. His works were much esteemed, but are now lost, except a few fragments, preserved by the scholiast of Lycophron. SOTERUS (St.), bishop of Rome, who succeeded Anicetus, A. D. 168, and suffered martyrdom in 177, during the persecution under Marcus Aurelius, according to Dr. Watkins. But. Mr. Marcel places his accession to the bishopric in 175, and his martyrdom in 179; in which dates Alstedius agrees with him. Such differences among chronologists, in modern history, are unaccountable. SOTIATES, an ancient people of Gaul, conquered by Cæsar.-Cæs. de Bel. Gal. iii. c. 20, 21. SOTO (Dominic), a learned Spanish Dominican, born at Segovia in 1494. He distinguished himself as a theologian, and was one of the most active and esteemed members of the council of Trent. He was appointed confessor to Charles V.; and died in 1560, aged sixty-six. His works are numerous. SOUBISE (John de Parthenay), lord of. He was a distinguished hero among the Protestants. In 1562 he was appointed by the prince of Conde to command in the city of Lyons, which he defended most effectually, and performed many great actions there. SOUBISE (Benjamin de Rohan), duke of, grandson of the preceding, by his celebrated daughter Catherine de Parthenay. He vigorously supported the Protestants, and assisted his brother the duke of Rohan in all his enterprises for that purpose, particularly during the siege of Rochelle. In 1621 he held out the siege of St. Jean d'Angeli, against an army commanded by Louis XIII., and when obliged to surrender received a pardon. Yet soon after he took Royan; and in 1622 took Oleron, and reduced the whole country of Lower Poitou; but, the fortune of war afterwards changing, he took refuge in England, where he procured a powerful supply to the Protestants in Rochelle; and where he continued till he died. SOUCHAI (John Baptist), a learned French writer, born at St. Amand, near Vendome, ir 1687. In 1720 he was elected a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and furnished several learned dissertations, which are preserved in their Memoirs. He was also canon of Rodez, counsellor to the king, and professor of eloquence in the Royal College. He died in 1780. SOUDAN, a word in the language of Negroland, signifying the country of the Negroes. See CASHNA and NEGROLAND. SOUDAN, a country of Interior Africa, described as lying between Upper Egypt and Sennaar. Browne places it between lat. 11° and 16° N., and between long. 26° and 30° E. On the north it is bounded by a desert, which separates it from Egypt; on the east by Kordofan, which is now subject to Soudan, and lies between it and Sennaar; and on the south and east by countries of which the names are hardly known. Mr. Browne visited Soudan in hopes of being able to trace the Bahr el Abad, or true Nile, to its source, but was disappointed; the sultan, a cruel and capricious tyrant, detained him a prisoner at large about three years. Soudan, or Darfur, abounds with towns or villages, ill built of clay, and none of them very large. The perennial rains, which fall in Darfur from the middle of June till the middle of September, generally both frequent and violent, suddenly invest the face of the country, till then dry and sterile, with a delightful verdure. Except where the rocky nature of the soil absolutely impedes vegetation, wood is found in great quantity; nor are the natives assiduous to clear the ground, even where it is designed for the cultivation of grain. As soon as the rains begin, the 'proprietor, and all the assistants he can collect, go out to the field, and having made holes, at about two feet distant with a kind of hoe, over all the ground he occupies, the dokn, a kind of millet, is thrown into them, and covered with the foot. The time for sowing the wheat is nearly the same. The dokn remains scarcely two months before it is ripe, the wheat about three. The animals are the same as in other parts of Africa in the same latitude. Though the Furians breed horses, and purchase very fine ones in Dongola, and from the Arabs east of the Nile, the ass is more used for riding; and an Egyptian ass (for the asses of Darfur are diminutive and indocile like those of Britain) fetches from the value of one to that of three slaves. The villages are infested with hyenas; and in the unfrequented parts of the country are elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, leopards, and all the other quadrupeds of Africa. The Arabs often eat the flesh of lions and leopards, and sometimes they so completely tame those animals as to carry them loose into the market place. Our author tamed two lions, of which one acquired most of the habits of a dog. He satiated himself twice a-week with the offal of the butchers, and then commonly slept for several hours successively. When food was given them, they both grew ferocious towards each other, and towards any one who approached them. Except at that time, though both were males, he never saw them disagree, nor show any sign of ferocity towards the human race. Even lambs passed them unmolested. Among the birds, the vultur perenopterus, or white-headed vulture, is most worthy of no |