he calls Sabians (Sábi'úna). He distinguishes them from the Magians and polytheists (xxii. 17), and appears to say that they believed in God and in the day of resurrection and judgment. It has commonly been supposed that the sect referred to is the MANDEANS (q.v.); but it is more probable that they were some obscure half-Christian body (Elkesaites ?), which had representatives in Arabia itself (see MOHAMMEDANISM, vol. xvi. p. 547). The 'name is derived from the Aramaic yay, with a softening of y to N, such as took place in certain dialects of that speech, and means "Baptists." The older Mohammedan theologians were agreed that the Sabians possessed a written revelation, and were entitled accordingly to enjoy a toleration not granted to mere heathen, and it appears that the Mandæans got the benefit of this, whether they were the sect Mohammed had in view or not. But under Al-Mamún (830) a body that had certainly no claim to be deemed other than polytheists began to shield themselves under the same name, viz., the Ḥarranians, or remnant of the old heathen of Mesopotamia. Star-worship had a chief place in the religion of the Harranians, as it had had in the older Babylonian and Syrian faiths, but they had partly disguised their polytheism in a fantastic philosophy, so that they were able on occasion to pose as people of enlightened beliefs. Accounts of these false Sabians reached the West through Maimonides, and then through Arabic sources, long before it was understood that, in this application, the name was only a disguise. Hence the greatest confusion prevailed in all European accounts of them till Chwolsohn published in 1856 his Ssabier und Ssabismus, in which the authorities for the history and belief of the Harranians in the Middle Ages are collected and discussed. See also Dozy and De Goeje in the Actes of the sixth Oriental congress, ii. 1, 185 sq., Leyden, 1885. It is quite inappropriate to call star-worshippers in general Sabians or Zabians or to speak of a distinct Sabian religion, as older writers do. The religion of the Harranians is simply a modernized form of the old Syrian polytheism. SABICU WOOD is the produce of a large leguminous tree, Lysiloma Sabicu, a native of Cuba, where alone it appears to be found. The wood has a rich mahogany colour; it is exceedingly heavy, hard, and durable, and therefore most valuable for shipbuilding. Sabicu, on account of its durability, was selected for the stairs of the Great Exhibition (London) of 1851, and, notwithstanding the enormous traffic which passed over them, the wood at the end was found to be little affected by wear.

SABINE, SIR EDWARD (1788-1883), astronomer, was born in Dublin on 14th October 1788, a scion of a family said to be of Italian origin. He was educated at Woolwich and obtained a commission in the Royal Artillery at the age of fifteen. He attained the rank of major-general in 1859. His only experience of actual warfare seems to have been at the siege of Fort Erie in 1814; but few men have seen more than he of active and sometimes perilous service. In early life he devoted himself to astronomy and physical geography, and in consequence he was appointed astronomer to various expeditions, among others that of Sir J. Ross (1818) in search of the North-West Passage, and that of Sir E. Parry soon afterwards. Later, he spent long periods on the inter-tropical coasts of Africa and America, and again among the snows of Spitzbergen. Sir Edward Sabine died at East Sheen, Surrey, on 26th May 1883.

Of Sabine's scientific work two branches in particular deserve wery high credit-his determination of pendulum data for the investigation of the figure of the earth and his extensive researches connected with terrestrial magnetism. His pendulum observations were the first to show the altogether unexpected amount of accuracy attainable in a matter which, under the most favourable conditions,

circumstances often of peculiar difficulty. The establishment of a system of magnetic observatories in various parts of British territory all over the globe was accomplished mainly on his representations; and to the direction of these observatories and to the reduction and discussion of the observations a great part of his life was devoted. His published papers, as shown by the Royal Society's Catalogue, amounted in 1872 to 101. While the majority bear on one or other of the subjects just mentioned, others deal with such widely different topics as the birds of Greenland, ocean temperatures, the Gulf Stream, barometric measurement of heights, arcs of meridian, glacier transport of rocks, the volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands, and various points of meteorology. Sabine occupied for ten years (1861-71) the president's chair of the Royal Society, and was made K.C.B. in 1869. Though he cannot be said to have been a man of striking originality, his unflagging devotion to his work deservedly won him an honourable position among the foremost scientific men of the present century.

SABINES. The Sabines (Sabini) were a people of Central Italy, who played an important part in the early history of Rome. According to all old writers they were one of the most ancient nations of Italy, and the parent stock from which many of the other tribes that occupied the central and southern regions of the peninsula derived their origin. Of their own origin and affinities we know very little. Strabo calls them a very ancient race and "autochthonous," which may be taken as signifying that there was no authentic tradition of their immigration, or of the quarter from whence they came. The story of their Laconian descent may be safely rejected as one of those fictions by which a certain class of the later Greek writers sought to derive every people in Italy from a Greek origin. But the evidence concerning their language, scanty as it is, is sufficient to prove that they were a cognate race with the neighbouring Umbrians and Oscans, as well as, more remotely, with the Latins. Cato, the best authority among the Roman writers with respect to the different races of Italy, affirmed that the Sabines originally occupied the country about Amiternum, in the upper valley of the Aternus, at the foot of the loftiest group of the Apennines. From thence they gradually extended themselves into the fertile valleys about Reate, where we find them established in historical times, and occupied the tract from thence to the Tiber and the Anio. But even in its widest extension the region held by the Sabines was of small dimensions, and for the most part of a rugged and mountainous character. Hence it was natural that they should seek a place for their superfluous population by repeated emigrations into the neighbouring districts, and the general tradition among Roman writers ascribed the origin of several of the more powerful and populous nations of the peninsula to such emigrations. This result was especially promoted by a custom which, though not unknown to the other nations of Italy, appears to have been peculiarly characteristic of the Sabines-that of a Ver Sacrum, or "sacred spring," when everything born in that year was consecrated to some local divinity, most frequently to Mamers or Mars. All the cattle were duly sacrificed, while the young men were allowed to grow up to manhood, and then sent forth in a body to seek for themselves new abodes beyond the limits of their native land. To such colonies is ascribed the foundation of the Picentes or people of Picenum, the Samnites, and the Hirpini. Of these the last-mentioned derived their name from hirpus, the Sabine name for a wolf, an animal of that description being supposed to have been divinely sent as the leader of the colony, as a woodpecker (picus), also sacred to Mars, became that of the Piceni. The Peligni also, as we learn from Ovid, himself a nativo of the district, claimed a Sabine origin, and the same was probably the case with the smaller kindred tribes of the Marsi, Marrucini, and Vestini. The Samnites, again, in their turn sent forth the Frentani and the Lucanians, who extended their dominion throughout the mountainous regions of

Founded by Basque or Spanish sailors, Sables was the first place in Poitou invaded by the Normans in 817. Louis XI., who went there in 1472, granted the inhabitants various privileges, improved the harbour, and fortified the entrance. Captured and recaptured during the Wars of Religion, the town afterwards became a nursery of hardy sailors and privateers, who harassed the Spaniards and afterwards the English. In 1696 Sables was bombarded by the combined fleets of England and Holland. Hurricanes have more than once caused grievous damage to town and harbour. SACCATOO. See SOKOTA.

SACCHETTI, FRANCO (c. 1335-c. 1400), Italian novelist, was the son of Benci di Uguccione, surnamed "Buono," of the noble and ancient Florentine family of the Sacchetti (comp. Dante, Par., c. xvi.), and was born at Florence about the year 1335. While still a young man he achieved repute as a poet, and he appears to have travelled on affairs of more or less importance as far as to Genoa, Milan, and "Is. chiavonia." When a sentence of banishment was passed upon the rest of the house of Sacchetti by the Florentine authorities in 1380 it appears that Franco was expressly exempted, "per esser tanto uomo buono," and in 1383 he was one of the " "eight," discharging the office of "prior" for the months of March and April. In 1385 he was chosen ambassador to Genoa, but preferred to go as podestà to Bibbiena in Casentino. In 1392 he was podestà of San Miniato, and in 1396 he held a similar office at Faenza. In 1398 he received from Lis fellow-citizens the post of captain of their then province of Romagna, having

his residence at Portico. The date of his death is un

known; most probably it occurred about 1400, though some writers place it as late as 1410.

Sacchetti left a considerable number of sonnetti, canzoni, ballate, madrigali, &c., which have never been printed, but which are still extant in at least one MS. in the Laurentian library of Florence. His Novelle were first printed in 1724, from the MS. in the same collection, which, however, is far from complete. They were originally 300 in number, but only 258 in whole or in part now survive. They are written in pure and elegant Tuscan, and, based as they are for the most part on real incidents in the public and domestic life of Florence, they are valuable for the light they throw on the manners of that age, and occasionally also for the biograph ical facts preserved in them. But in no other respect do they come up to the corresponding compositions of his friend Boccaccio. Some of them, it need hardly be said, are very coarse-a feature not compensated for by the moralizings almost invariably appended-and many more are dull and pointless, leaving the impression, as Sismondi has remarked, that in that century of artistic advance the

art of conversation had remained far behind the others.

SACCHI, ANDREA (c. 1600-1661), a leading painter of the later Roman school, was born in Rome in 1600, or perhaps as early as 1598. His father, Benedetto, a painter of undistinguished position, gave him his earliest instruction in the art; Andrea then passed into the studio of Albani, of whom he was the last and the most eminent pupil, and under Albani he made his reputation early. The painter of Sacchi's predilection was Raphael; he was the jealous opponent of Pietro da Cortona, and more especially of Bernini. In process of time he became one of the most learned designers and one of the soundest colourists of the Roman school. He went to Venice and to Lombardy to study Venetian colour and the style of Correggio; but he found the last-named master unadaptable for his own proper methods in art, and he returned to Rome. Sacchi was strong in artistic theory, and in practice slow and fastidious; it was his axiom that the merit of a painter consists in producing, not many middling pictures, but a few and perfect ones. His works have dignity, repose, elevated yet natural forms, severe but not the less pleasing colour, a learned treatment of architecture and perspective; he is thus a painter of the correct and laudable academic order, admired by connoisseurs rather than by ambitious students or the large public. His principal painting, often spoken of as the fourth best easel-picture in Romein the Vatican Gallery-is St Romuald relating his Vision to Five Monks of his Order. The pictorial crux of dealing

with these figures, who are all in the white garb of their order, has often been remarked upon; and as often the ingenuity and judgment of Sacchi have been praised in varying the tints of these habits according to the light and shade cast by a neighbouring tree. The Vatican Gallery contains also an early painting of the master,—the Miracle of St Gregory, executed in 1624; a mosaic of i' was made in 1771 and placed in St Peter's. Other leading examples are the Death of St Anna, in S. Carlo ai Catinari; St Andrew, in the Quirinal; St Joseph, at Capo' alle Case; also, in fresco, a ceiling in the Palazzo Barberini-Divine Wisdom-reckoned superior in expression and selection to the rival work of Pietro da Cortona. Sacchi, altar-pieces in Perugia, Foligno, and Camerino. who worked almost always in Rome, left few pictures visible in private galleries: one, of St Bruno, is in Grosvenor House. He had a flourishing school: Nicholas Poussin and Carlo Maratta were his most eminent scholars; Luigi Garzi and Francesco Lauri were others, and Sacchi's own son Giuseppe, who died young, after giving very high hopes. This must have been an illegitimate son, for Andrea

died unmarried.

There are likewise

This event took place in Rome in 1661. musical composer, of the Italian school, was born at Pozzuoli, SACCHINI, ANTONIO MARIA GASPARE (1734-1786), 23d July 1734, and educated under Durante at the Conservatorio di San Onofrio at Naples. His first serious opera was produced at Rome in 1762, and was followed by many others, nearly all of which were successful. In 1769 he removed to Venice; and in 1772 he visited London, where, notwithstanding a cruel cabal formed against him, he achieved a brilliant success, especially in his four new operas, Tamerlano, Lucio Vero, Nitetti e Perseo, and Il Gran Cid. Ten years later he met with an equally enthusiastic reception in Paris, where his Rinaldo was produced under the immediate patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette, to whom he had been recommended by the emperor Joseph II. But neither in England nor in France did his reputation continue to the end of his visit. He seems to have been everywhere the victim of bitter jealousy. Even Marie Antoinette was not able to support his cause in the face of the general outcry against the favour shown to foreigners; and by her command, most unwillingly given, his last opera and undoubted masterpiece, Edipe à Colone, was set aside in 1786 to make room for Lemoine's Phèdre,—a circumstance which so preyed upon his mind that he died of chagrin, 7th October 1786.

Sacchini's style was rather graceful than elevated, and he was deficient both in creative power and originality. But the dramatic truth of his operas, more especially the later ones, is above all praise, and he never fails to write with the care and finish of a thorough and accomplished musician. Edipe was extremely successful after his death, and has since been performed at the Académie nearly 600 times. The last performance of which anv record has reached us took place in 1844.

SACHEVERELL, HENRY (1674-1724), an English church and state politician of 'extreme views, was born in 1674, the son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough, who at his death left a large family in poverty. Henry Sacheverell matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, 28th August 1689, and was demy of his college from 1689 to 1701 and fellow from 1701 to 1713. Addison, another Wiltshire lad, entered at the same college two years earlier, but v was also elected a demy in 1689; he inscribed to Sacheverell in 1694 his account of the greatest English poets. Sacheverell took his degree of B.A. in 1693, and became M.A. in 1696 and D.D. in 1708. His first preferment was the small vicarage of Cannock in Staffordshire; but he leapt into notice when holding a preachership at St Saviour's, Southwark. His famous sermons on the church in danger from the neglect of the Whig ministry to keep guard over its interests

were preached, the one at Derby, 14th August, the other at St Paul's Cathedral, 5th November 1709. They were immediately reprinted, the latter being dedicated to the lord mayor and the former to the author's kinsman, George Sacheverell, high sheriff of Derby for the year; and, as the passions of the whole British population were at this period keenly exercised between the rival factions of Whig and Tory, the vehement invectives of this furious divine on behalf of an ecclesiastical institution which supplied the bulk of the adherents of the Tories made him their idol. The Whig ministry, then slowly but surely losing the support of the country, were divided in opinion as to the propriety of prosecuting this zealous parson. Somers was against such a measure; but Godolphin, who was believed to be personally alluded to in one of these harangues under the nickname of "Volpone," urged the necessity of a prosecution, and gained the day. The trial lasted from 27th February to 23d March 1710, and the verdict was that Sacheverell should be suspended for three years and that the two sermons should be burnt at the Royal Exchange. This was the decree of the state, and it had the effect of making him a martyr in the eyes of the populace and of bringing about the downfall of the ministry. Immediately on the expiration of his sentence (13th April 1713) he was instituted to the valuable rectory of St Andrew's, Holborn, by the new Tory ministry, who despised the author of the sermons, although they dreaded his influence over the mob. He died at the Grove, Highgate, on 5th June 1724.

Ample information about his life and trial will be found in Hearne's Diaries, Bloxam's Register of Magdalen, iii. 98-110, and Hill Burton's Queen Anne, vol. ii. Mr Madan of the Bodleian Library has compiled a Sacheverell bibliography.

SACHS, HANS (1494-1576), the most eminent German poet of the 16th century, was born at Nuremberg on 5th November 1494. His father was a shoemaker, and Hans was trained to the same calling. Before beginning his apprenticeship, however, he was educated at the Latin school of Nuremberg. Having finished his " "Lehrjahre" as a shoemaker, he began his "Wanderjahre" in 1511, and worked at his craft in many towns, including Ratisbon, Passau, Salzburg, Leipsic, Lübeck, and Osnabrück. In 1516 he returned to Nuremberg, where he remained during the rest of his life, working steadily at his business, and devoting his leisure time to literature. He married in

1519, and after his wife's death he married again in 1561. He died on 19th January 1576.

Sachs was much respected by his fellow-citizens, and acquired great fame as a poet. Early in life he received instruction in the principles and rules of the "Meistergesang," and at Munich in 1518 he completed his study of "the charming art." " Afterwards he wrote many poems in the formal manner of the "Meistersinger," but to these efforts he attributed so little importance that he did not include them in his own collection of his works. Among his best writings are his hymns, in which he gave expression to the highest spiritual aspirations of the age of the Reformation. He was one of the most ardent adherents of Luther, and in 1523 wrote in his honour the poem beginning, "Die wittenbergisch Nachtigall, Die man jetz höret überall." This poem attracted much attention and was of great service to Luther. Sachs also wrote in verse many fables, parables, tales, and dialogues. Of his dramatic poems, the most remarkable are his Shrove Tuesday Plays, in each of which he offers a lively representation of an action without any attempt at exact portraiture or at a profound appreciation of motives. Works of this kind were popular before Sachs's time, but he gave them fresh vitality by his humour and fancy. Sachs had extraordinary fertility of imagination, and none of his German contemporaries approached him in his mastery of the forms of literary expression which were then known. He wrote thousands of poems, and in his lifetime a large number of them were printed, in three volumes; after his death two additional volumes appeared; and in recent times many volumes of his works in manuscript have been discovered. From about the middle of the 17th century, when German writers of verse became as a rule mere imitators of foreign models, Sachs was almost forgotten, until interest in his work was revived by Goethe; and many selections from his writings have

since been published. A complete edition, prepared by A. von Keller, has been issued by the Literary Society of Stuttgart. A biography of Sachs by M. Solomon Ranisch was published in 1765, (1868), and Lützelberger (1874). and there are later biographies by J. L. Hoffmann (1847), Weller

SACKING AND SACK MANUFACTURE. Sacking is a stout close-woven fabric, properly of flax, but now very largely made of jute. The chief centres of the manufacture are Dundee and Forfar in Scotland. Sacks, however, are made of many qualities and from different fibres, according to the purposes to which they are devoted. A large proportion of flour sacks, those particularly of American origin, are made of stout cotton. Numerous attempts have been made to manufacture seamless sacks; but none have met with success. The invention of a sewing-machine for the "overhead" seaming of sacks has been successfully solved in the machine of Laing and other inventors.

SACO, a city of the United States, in York county, Maine, on the left or north bank of the Saco river, opposite Biddeford, 9 miles from the sea and 100 from Boston by the Boston and Maine Railroad. The waterpower furnished by the river, which here falls 55 feet, is utilized by various cotton-factories, machine-shops, lumbermills, &c. Originally included in Biddeford, but sepa rately incorporated in 1762 as Pepperellborough, Saco received its present name in 1805 and was made a city in 1867. The population was 5755 in 1870 and 6389 in 1880.

SACRAMENT. The Latin word sacramentum, meaning "an oath," is most commonly used by classical writers to denote the military oath of allegiance; for its technical application in legal phraseology see ROMAN LAW, vol. xx. p. 682. In the earliest ecclesiastical Latin traces of the (Ad Mart., 3) writes, "We were called to the warfare of old military meaning are still present; thus Tertullian the living God in our very response to the sacramental words [in baptism]"; but the main import of the word has entirely changed, it being used simply as the equiva lent of the Greek μvorpiov. Thus even in the Vulgate 16), "of the seven stars" (Rev. i. 20), "of the woman and we still have the " sacrament of godliness (1 Tim. iii. the beast" (Rev. xvii. 7); but in earlier Latin versions the word also occurred in numerous other places where 2). In addition to its general sense the word vorý "mysterium " is now found (e.g., Rom. xvi. 25; 1 Cor. xiii. special meaning as denoting those external rites of their not unnaturally soon came to have for Christians a more religion, solemn, instructive, and more or less secret, which had most analogy with the MYSTERIES (q.v.) of paganism. No attempt, however, was at first made to enumerate or to define these. Tertullian speaks of the sacrament of baptism and the Eucharist, Cyprian of "either sacrament,” meaning baptism and confirmation, and many others, following Eph. v. 22 (see Vulgate) of the sacrament of marriage, but all with the utmost vagueness. Augustine's turies it was all the Western Church had, and for even a definition of the word was little more explicit, but for cenlonger period it continued to be a sufficiently adequate expression of the Oriental view also. According to him a sacrament is "the visible form of invisible grace," or 8 sign of a sacred thing." The sacraments he principally has in view are those of baptism and the Lord's Supper, but with so wide a definition there was nothing to prevent him from using the word (as he freely does) in many other applications. The old Sacramentaries or liturgical books,

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which can in some cases be carried back as far as to the 8th century, in like manner contain prayers and benedictions, not only for the administration of the Eucharist and of baptism, but also for a variety of other rites, such as the blessing of holy water and the dedication of churches. In the De sacramentis Christianæ fidei of Hugh of St