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SPEED (John), an eminent English historian, born at Farington, in Cheshire, in 1542. He was by profession a tailor, and freeman of the company of merchant-tailors in London. In 1606 he published his Theatre of Great Britain, which was afterwards reprinted in folio under the title of the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. His Genealogies of Scripture were first bound up with the Bible in 1611, when the first edition of the present translation was printed. In 1614 appeared his History of Great Britaine, which has been translated into Latin: and in 1616 he published his Cloud of Witnesses, in 8vo. He lived in marriage fifty-seven years with his wife, by whom he had twelve sons and six daughters; and died in 1629. He was interred in the church of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London, where a monument was erected to his memory.

SPEED'WELL, n. s. Lat. veronica. Fluellin. A plant.

In a scarcity in Silesia a rumour was spread of its raining millet seed; but it was found to be only the seeds of the ivy-leaved speedwell or small Derham's Physico-Theology.

henbit.

SPEEDWELL, in botany. See VERonica. SPEEDWELL, FEMALE, a species of antirrhinum. SPEIGHT'S Town, a sea-port town of Barbadoes, on the north-west coast, formerly much frequented by the Bristol traders, and thence called Little Bristol. It contains a church, and four regular spacious streets, leading down to the shore. It has also two forts.

SPEISS, in metallurgy, an artificial metal compounded of cobalt, bismuth, and nickel. Sulphur and arsenic are sometimes added.

SPELL, v. a., v. n. & n. s. Sax. rpel, spellian, a word; Mæs. Goth. spillan, also means to divide, split: hence to spell is to divide and write a word with proper letters; to charm; form a word rightly; read: a charm consisting of some words of occult power.

Start not; her actions shall be holy :
You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her,
Until you see her die again; for then

You kill her double. Shakspeare. Winter's Tale.

I never yet saw man,
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
But she would spell him backward; if fair faced,
She'd swear the gentleman should be her sister.
Shakspeare.

I have you fast:
Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms,
And try if they can gain your liberty.

Id. Henry VI. Their toil is so extreme as they cannot endure it above four hours in a day, but are succeeded by spells the residue of the time they wear out at coytes and kayles. Carew. Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms, Had not spells

:

And black enchantments, some magician's art,
Armed thee or charmed thee strong.

Milton's Agonistes. Begin, begin; the mystic spell prepare. Milton. If I read aught in heaven,

Or heaven write aught of fate, by what the stars,
Voluminous or single characters,

In their conjunction met, give me to spell,
Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate,
Attend thee.

Id. Paradise Lost.

When gowns, not arms, repelled The fierce Epirote, and the African bold, Whether to settle peace, or to unfold The drift of hollow states, hard to be spelled.

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Dire stepdames in the magic bowl infuse. Dryden.

By pasting on the vowels and consonants on the sides of four dice, he has made this a play for his children, whereby his eldest son in coats has played Locke. himself into spelling.

The Latin being written of the same character with the mother tongue, by the assistance of a spelling book it is legible. Spectator.

As to his understanding, they bring him in void of all notion; a rude unwritten blank, sent into the world only to read and spell out a God in the works of creation. South.

Another cause which hath maimed our language is a foolish opinion that we ought to spell exactly as we speak. Swift.

SPELLING, in grammar, that part of orthography which teaches the true manner of resolving words into their syllables. All words are either simple or compound, as use, disuse; done, undone; and the rules for dividing each must be such as are derived from the analogy of language in general, or from the established custom of speaking. See ORTHOGRAPHY and PRONUNCIA

TION.

SPELMAN (Sir Henry), an eminent English antiquarian, descended from an ancient family, and born at Cengham, near Lynn, in Norfolk, about 1561. He was knighted by king James I. who esteemed him on account of his service in discovering the oppressions of exacted fees in the courts, civil and ecclesiastical, and he employed him three times in Ireland on public affairs. When he was about fifty years of age, he went to reside in London; where, following the bent of his genius, he collected all books and MSS. on antiquities, foreign and domestic. In 1613 he published his book De non Temerandis Ecclesiis; i. e. against the profanation of churches. In 1626 he published the first part of his well known Glossary, which he never carried beyond the letter L; because, as some say, he had said things under Magna Charta, and Maximum consilium, that would have given offence. Upon his death all his papers came into the hands of his son Sir John Spelman, a gentleman who had abilities to have completed his father's design, if death had not prevented him. The second part was afterwards published by Sir William Dugdale, but unfinished. The next work was an edition of the English Councils, of which he published the first volume about two years before his death, leaving the second to be published by Sir William Dugdale. Sir Henry wrote several other works on ancient laws and customs, and died in 1641. His posthumous works were published in folio, 1698, under the care of Mr. Gibson, afterwards bishop of London.

SPELMAN (Sir John), eldest son of Sir Henry, was also a very learned man, and was knighted and appointed master of Sutton's Hospital, by Charles I., and during the civil war was a member of his privy council. He published, 1. The Life of king Alfred the Great; which was reprinted at Oxford, in 1709, 8vo. 2. The Saxon Psalter; in 1614, 4to. from an old MS. 3. A view of a pretended book, entitled Observations of his Majesty's late answers and Epistles; Oxford, 1642, 4to 4. The Case of our Affairs in Law, Religion, &c., briefly examined, 1643, 4to. He died 25th of July, 1643.

SPELMAN (Clement), youngest son of Sir John, was also very learned, became a counsellor at law, and was appointed Puisne Baron of Exchequer, upon the restoration. He published some tracts on Government; and a large preface to his father's work De non Temerandis Ecclesiis. He died at London, in June 1679.

SPELT, v. n. Sax. rpellian. To split; break. A bad or rather an obsolete word. See

above.

Feed geese with oats, spelted beans, barley meal, or ground malt mixed with beer.

Mortimer's Husbandry. SPELT'ER, n. s. Teut. speltre. A kind of semi-metal.

Metals in fusion do not flame, for want of a copious fume; except spetter, which fumes copiously, and thereby flames. Newton.

SPELTER, in metallurgy, the same with zinc. SPENCE (Joseph), was fellow of New College, Oxford, where he took the degree of A. M. in 1727. About that time he became first known as an author, by an Essay on Pope's Odyssey, in

which some particular beauties and blemishes of that work are considered; a work of great merit, and which, for sound criticism and candid disquisition, is almost without parallel. He was elected professor of poetry by the university in 1728, and held that office ten years. His History of Stephen Duck was first published in 1731; but it was afterwards much altered, and prefixed to an edition of Duck's poems. About this time he travelled into Italy as tutor to the earl of Lincoln, afterwards duke of Newcastle. In 1736 he republished Gorboduc, at Mr. Pope's desire, with a preface giving an account of the author, the earl of Dorset. In 1742 he was presented by the Society of New College to the rectory of Great Harwood, in Buckinghamshire. He never resided in his living; but paid it an annual visit, distributing large sums of money among the poor, and providing for many of their children. The same year he was made professor of modern history at Oxford. In 1747 he published Polymetis; or an enquiry concerning the agreement between the works of the Roman poets and the remains of ancient artists, being an attempt to illustrate them mutually from each other. This work was treated by Gray with a contempt which it did not deserve. He objects that the author did not illustrate his subject from Greek writers; that is, he failed to execute what he never undertook. He was install ed prebendary of the seventh stall at Durham, the 24th May, 1754; when he published, An Account of the Life, Character, and Poems, of Mr. Blacklock, student of philosophy at Edinburgh; which was afterwards prefixed to his poems. The prose pieces which he printed in the museum he collected and published, with some others, in a pamphlet called Moralities, by Sir Harry Beaumont. Under the same name he published Crito, or a Dialogue on Beauty, and A particular Account of the Emperor of China's Gardens near Pekin, in a letter from F. Attiret, a French missionary now employed by that emperor to paint the apartments in those gardens, to his friend at Paris. Both these treatises are printed in Dodsley's fugitive pieces, as is also A Letter from a Swiss Officer to his friend at Rome; which Mr. Spence first published in the Museum. In 1738 he published A Parallel, in the Manner of Plutarch, between a most celebrated man of Florence and one scarcely ever heard of in England.

This was also inserted in the fugitive pieces. The same year he made a journey into Scotland, which he described in an affectionate letter to Mr. Shenstone, published in Hall's Collection of Letters, 1778. In 1764 he was very well described by Mr. James Ridley, in his admirable Tales of the Genii, under the name of Phesoi Ecneps (his name spelt backwards), dervise of the groves. A letter from Mr. Spence to that ingenious moralist, under the same signature, is preserved in the third volume of Letters of Eminent Persons. In 1768 he published Remarks and Dissertations on Virgil, with some other classical observations by the late Mr. Holdsworth. On the 20th of August the same year he was unfortunately drowned in a canal his garden at Byfleet in Surry. He was found flat upon his face at the edge of the canal, where

the water was so shallow as not even to cover his head. The accident, it was supposed, for he was quite alone, was owing to a fit. The duke of Newcastle possesses some MS. volumes of anecdotes collected by Mr. Spence, from, which Dr. Johnson was permitted to insert many extracts in his Lives of the Poets. In 1819 appeared Observations, Anecdotes and Characters of Books and Men, collected from the conversation of Mr. Pope, and of other eminent persons of his time, from a MS. of Mr. Spence, with his life, &c., by S. W. Singer, 8vo.

SPENCE (William), M. D., of Fairniehirst, in Fifeshire, a late eminent Scottish physician and surgeon; who, after the usual course of study, and having been some years abroad, settled in Dumfermline, where he had great practice. But afterwards, taking a fancy to gardening, he spent great part of the money he had gained by his practice upon improvements, which turned out more ornamental than profitable. He is memorable as a physician, for having been the first to introduce the use of the Peruvian bark with success, in malignant fevers and putrid diseases. He published some medical tracts, and was a man of a benevolent disposition. He had been married, and left three daughters. He died at Edinburgh, January 3d, 1802, aged seventyeight.

SPENCE, a river of Ireland, in Down. SPENCER (Dr. John), an eminent divine, born in Kent in 1630, and educated at Cambridge. He was chosen fellow of his college, and took his degree of D.D. in 1663. In 1667 he was chosen master of C. C. College, and preferred to the deanery of Ely in 1677. He died on the 20th of May 1695. His works are, 1. The Righteous Ruler; a sermon on Proverbs xxix. 2, preached June 28th 1660. 2. A Discourse concerning Prodigies, wherein the vanity of presages by them is reprehended, and their true and proper ends asserted and vindicated. To this excellent work was afterwards added, A Discourse concerning vulgar prophecies, wherein the vanity of receiving them as the certain indications of any future event is exposed; and some marks of distinction between true and pretended prophets are laid down. 3. A Latin Dissertation concerning Urim and Thummim. 4. His famous treatise De Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus, Earum Rationibus. The intention of this book, as he informs us himself, was to vindicate the deity from the imputation of acting from arbitrary and fantastical motives. It has been highly and justly esteemed both for the elegance of style and the uncommon erudition and sound sense which it displays.

SPENCER (William), a learned English writer, who was fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1658 he published, at the University's press, Origen's Philocalia, and his eight books against Celsus; with a corrected Latin translation and notes of his in 4to. own, SPEND, v. a. & v. n. Sax. rpendan; Ital. SPENDER, n.3. spendere. To consume; SPEND THRIFT. exhaust; waste; effuse; make expense; prove by use: the noun substantive corresponding: a spendthrift is a lavish spender; a prodigal.

They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Job xxi. 13. There is oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man spendeth it up. Prov. xxi. 20. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? Isaiah Iv. 2.

I will very gladly spend and be spent for you. 2 Cor xii. 15.

He spends his life with his wife, and remembereth neither father nor mother. 1 Esdras, iv. 21.

In those pastoral pastimes a great many days were spent, to follow their flying predecessors.

Sidney.

Nothing but only the hope of spoil did relieve them, having scarce clothes to cover their nakedness, and their bodies spent with long labour and thirst Knolles's History of the Turks. Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent Against the invulnerable clouds. Shakspeare.

When we can intreat an hour to serve, Would spend it in some words upon that business, If you would grant the same. Id. Macbeth. The sound spendeth, and is dissipated in the open air; but in such concaves it is conserved and con

tracted.

Bacon. On mountains, it may be, many dews fall, that spend before they come to the valleys. Id.

There have been cups and an image of Jupiter made of wild vines; for the vines that they use for wine are so often cut, that their sap spendeth into the

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Bitter cold weather starved both the bird and the spendthrift. L'Estrange. Money is brought into England by nothing but spending here less of foreign commodities than what we carry to market can pay for. Locke.

Most men, like spendthrift heirs, judge a little in Id. hand better than a great deal to come.

The waves ascended and descended, till, their violence being spent by degrees, they settled at last. Burnet's Theory of the Earth. He spends as a person who knows that he must come to a reckoning.

Thou oft hast seen me

South.

Wrestling with vice and faction; now thou see'st

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The whole of our reflections terminate in this, what course we are to take to pass our time; some to get, and others to spend, their estates.

Wake.

When he was of riper years, for his farther accomplishments, he spent a considerable part of his time in travelling. Pope.

The son, bred in sloth, becomes a spendthrift, a profligate, and goes out of the world a beggar.

Swift. A woman of fortune, being used to the handling of money, spends it judiciously but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion. Johnson.

SPENDIUS, a Campanian deserter, who rebelled against the Romans, raised tumults, and joined the Carthaginians; and afterwards, deserting from the Carthaginians, carried on war for some time against Hamilcar, in that desperate warfare, called from its horrors the inexpiable war. He was at last crucified by Hamilcar, with nine of the other ringleaders. See CARTHAGE. SPENER (Philip James), a celebrated Lutheran divine, born in Alsace, about 1635. Wishing to revive vital religion, in opposition to formality on the one hand and infidelity on the other, he became the founder of a new sect called Pietists. See PIETISTS. But though his intentions seem to have been upright, and his sentiments pure, he and his followers met with much opposition, and were both calumniated and persecuted. He published several tracts on practical theology, and died at Berlin in 1705.

SPENSER (Edmund), the poet, was born in London in 1553, and descended from an ancient family of the Spensers in Northamptonshire. He was admitted a sizar of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, and matriculated in 1569. At this time began his intimacy with Mr. Gabriel Harvey, a man of genius and a poet. In 1576, having completed his degrees in arts, he left the university, as it is said, for want of subsistence, and retired to the north of England. Here he had the misfortune to become enamoured of his Rosalind, who, after flattering his passion for a time, at length preferred his happier rival. Spenser continued in the country till 1578, when at the persuasion of his friend Mr. Harvey he removed to London, where that gentleman introduced him to Mr. Sidney, afterwards Sir Philip. Concerning his first introduction to Sir Philip, there is indeed a different story, which was first told by the writer of his life, prefixed to his works in 1679, and transcribed by Hughes, Cibber, and several others; which, nevertheless, is doubted. It is, that Spenser, being unknown to this Mecanas of the age, went to Leicester House, and sent in the ninth canto of the first book of the Fairy Queen; that, on reading part of it, Sir Philip ordered his steward to give the bearer £50; on reading a little farther £50 more; then £200, bidding him to make haste and pay the money, lest he should give the poet his whole estate. The story tells prettily enough; but the Fairy Queen was begun long after his acquaintance with Sir Philip. By this universal patron of genius, however, he was presented to queen Elizabeth, who honored him with the place of poet laureat. About this time he finished his

Shepherd's Calendar, which was first printed in 1579; and in 1580, being recommended by his patron to the earl of Leicester, he went to Ireland as secretary to the lord Grey of Wilton, then appointed lord-lieutenant of that kingdom. Lord Grey was recalled in 1582, and with him Spenser returned to London, where he continued till after the death of Sir Philip Sidney in 1586; a loss which he bewailed to the end of his life. In 1587, having obtained a royal grant of 3000 Ireland, he set out for that kingdom, took posacres of forfeited lands in the county of Cork in session of his estate, and fixed his residence in the castle of Kilcolman, which had belonged to the earl of Desmond. In this retirement he resumed his great work of the Fairy Queen; and continued in Ireland till, being visited by his old friend Sir Walter Raleigh in 1589, he Ireland in 1590; where he fell in love with a came over with him to England, but returned to country girl, and married her. Soon after his marriage, he paid another visit to his native country, where we also find him in 1596. In 1597 he returned once more to Kilcolman; but on the rebellion of lord Tyrone, who ravaged the whole county of Cork, he was obliged to fly for safety with his family to England, where, in 1559, he died in extreme poverty, according to Camden; but Mr. Malone has discovered from the patent roll, 33 Eliz. p. 3, that in February 1590-1, Spenser obtained from Elizabeth an annuity of £50 during life; which was then equal to the value of £200 at present. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, according to his request, near Chaucer. A monument was erected to his memory by Ann countess of Dorset. We know but little of his character as a man; he deserves our utmost veneration. He wrote as a poet, considering the age in which he lived, various pieces besides those above-mentioned. His whole works, with his life by Hughes, were published in six volumes, 12mo., in 1715 and

1750.

SPENSER, OF SPENCER, in dress, a kind of half modern coat, that covers the body and arms, but reaches no farther down than the middle: su named from earl Spenser, who first introduced the fashion, it is said, in consequence of a wager, that he should start the most ridiculous piece of dress, that had yet been invented, and that in three months it should be generally followed by people of rank. He did so and gained his bet.

serving lives at sea, in cases of shipwreck, so SPENSER, MARINE, a recent invention for prenamed from the above piece of dress. It consists of 800 bottle corks, strung together upon a strong wire, and covered with a piece of canvas six inches broad, and oiled to exclude the water. It is made to fit the body, round the back and breast; and, when used, is brought up over the feet and legs, up to the arm pits, and fastened over the shoulders with straps or baudages. A person thus equipped cannot possibly sink; and by the motion of his arms and legs may easily make his way to the nearest shore.

Such

SPER'ABLE, adj. Lat. sperabilis. as may be hoped. Not in use." We may cast it away, if it be found but a bladder,

and discharge it of so much as is vain and not spe rable. Bacon.

SPERGULA, spurrey, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of decandria, and the order of pentagynia; natural order twentysecond, caryophylleæ: CAL. pentaphyllous; the petals five, and undivided: CAPS. oval, unilocular, and containing five valves. There are five species, all of which are British; viz. 1. S. arvensis, corn-spurrey, has linear furrowed leaves, from eight to twenty in a whirl. The flowers are small, white, and terminal. It is frequent in corn fields. In Holland it is cultivated as food for cattle, and has the advantage of growing on the very poorest soils; but does not afford a great deal of food. Poultry are fond of the seeds; and the inhabitants of Finland and Norway make bread of them when their crops of corn fail. Horses, sheep, goats, and swine, eat it. Cows refuse it.

2. S. laricina, larch-leaved spurrey. Several stalks arise from one root, from an inch to an inch and a half high; the leaves are linear, subulate, and acuminated, somewhat hairy on the edges, and their points turned to one side of the stalk. The petals are white, and about the length of the calyx. Lightfoot found this species on a hill in the Isle of Bute. He is doubt ful whether the sagina procumbens, var. ẞ of Linnæus, be not the same plant with this. It flowers in July.

3. S. nodosa, knotted spurrey. Several stalks arise from one root, sometimes reclining and sometimes erect, and from three to five inches high. The leaves are smooth, of a fine green, narrow, pointed, and opposite. The flowers are white, terminal, and yellow antheræ.

4. S. pentandra, small spurrey. The leaves are very narrow, and grow in whirls at the joints. The seeds are black, with a white circle. It flowers in July.

5. S. saginoides, pearlwort spurrey, has smooth, linear, opposite leaves; the peduncles are solitary and very long. Aiton says it is a native of England, and flowers from June to August.

SPERLING (Otto), a German physician, born at Hamburg, in 1602. He studied physic. in Italy, and afterwards settled at Bergen in Norway. In 1638 he was appointed physician to Christian IV., king of Denmark; but, being afterwards concerned in count Ulfeld's conspiracy, he was put in prison, where he died in 1681, aged seventy-nine. He published A Catalogue of the Plants in Denmark, and some works on Medals and Antiquities.

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is made; and that is very improperly called sperma, A particular sort of whale affords the oil whence this because it is only the oil which comes from the head of which it can be made. It is changed from what it is naturally, the oil itself being very brown and rank. The peculiar property of it is, to shoot into flakes, not much unlike the crystallization of salts; but in this state 'tis yellow, and has a certain rankness, from which it is freed by squeezing it between warm metalline plates: at length it becomes perfectly pure, inodorous, flaky, smooth, white, and in some measure transparent. Quincy.

SPERMACETI, a whitish, unctuous, flaky substance, prepared from oil, but chiefly from the brains of a species of whale called physete macrocephalus. The method of preparing spermiaceti is kept a secret; but the process is said to be this: The brains, being taken out of the animal, are then, as some say, melted over a gentle fire, poured into moulds, and when cold melted again; and this process is continued till they are purified. Others say that, after being pressed and drained, they are more thoroughly purified by steeping them in a ley of alkaline salt and quicklime. The brains are then washed, and.cut into thin flakes or slices with wooden knives. One fish is said to afford some tons of brains. Good spermaceti is glossy and semitransparent, in fine white flakes; soft and unctuous to the touch, yet dry and friable; in taste somewhat like butter, and of a faint smell like that of tallow. Some adulterate it with wax; but the deceit is discovered, either by the smell of the wax or by the dulness of the color. Some also sell a preparation of oil taken from the tail of the whale instead of that from the brain; but this kind turns yellow as soon as exposed to the air. Indeed it is apt in general to grow yellowish, and to contract a rancid fishy smell if not carefully been purified at first the less susceptible it is of secured from the air. The more perfectly it has these alterations; and, after it has been changed,

it

may be rendered. white and sweet again by steeping it afresh in ley of alkaline salt, and congeals again as it cools. Spermaceti is of use in medicine. Quincy says it is a noble remedy in the asthma, &c., though chiefly used in bruises, inward hurts, and after delivery. For internal use it may be dissolved in aqueous liquors into the form of an emulsion, by trituration with al

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