legal proceeding can take place. From early times the Stationers' Company has been celebrated for it sumptuous state, and its attendance upon the Lord Mayor's shows. In the Hall, on Almanack Day, in November, are published the Almanacks printed for the Company, which still contain astrological predictions. What does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce is to be stuck up in Surgeons' or in Stationers' Hall? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders? Byron. Statue. For statues, etc., see the proper name following; e.g., STATUE OF MARCUS AURELIUS, see MARCUS AURELIUS. Staubbach. [Stream of Dust.] A famous waterfall at Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, one of the loftiest in Europe. "It [the Staubbach] is neither mist nor water, but a something between both; its immense height gives it a wave or curve, a spreading here or condension there, wonderful and indescribable. The torrent is in shape like the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind, such as it might be conceived would be that of the 'pale horse' on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse." Lord Byron. Staunton Harold. The seat of Earl Ferrers, in the county of Leicester, England. Stein. An ancient Austrian castle and stronghold, now in ruins, near Baden, Switzerland. Stennis, Standing Stones of. See STANDING STONES OF STENNIS. Stephen. See ST. STEPHEN, MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN, and STONING OF ST. STEPHEN. Stephen's, St. See ST. STEPHEN'S. Sternberg. One of two ruined castles on the Rhine, near Boppart, both crowning the top of a high rock. The other castle is called the Liebenstein, and the two together are known as the Brothers. Stirling Castle. This castle in Stirling, Scotland, on the summit of a hill overlooking the river Forth, commands a charming view. The fortress has been identified with the fortunes of Scotland, having repeatedly fallen into the hands of the English and been rescued by Scottish heroism. It has also been a royal residence. Its date and origin are unknown. "This fortress is one of the four to be kept always in repair, and garri soned according to the terms of the 'union' of England and Scotland... So that, although antiquated, and indeed almost useless as a stronghold now, Stirling Castle will continue to present a military aspect." J. F. Hunnewell. I have been sinuous as the Links of Forth seen from Stirling Castle, or as that other river which threads the Berkshire valley, and runs, a perennial stream, through my memory. Holmes. From Stirling Castle we had seen Stoa. A celebrated porch, or roofed colonnade, in ancient Athens, in which the philosopher Zeno and his successors taught. From this place the disciples of Zeno derived their name of Stoics. [Also called the Porch.] But, above all, the mysticism of Fichte might astonish us. The cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major among degenerate men: fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe! Carlyle. Stoke Park. The seat of Lord Taunton, about 17 miles from London. "The house is large, but not very good-looking outside. Inside, however, it is fine and filled with fine works of art, ancient and recent, among them the last four bas-reliefs by Thorwaldsen. . . . Of course I was taken to see the Old Manor-house, the scene of Gray's Long Story,' that begins, In Briton's Isle and Arthur's days.' It is well cared for, and is an excellent specimen of the Elizabethan style. The church, too, and above all the churchyard, which gave the world the undying Elegy. They are most poetical places; the architecture, the position, and the plantations being just what you would like to have them, and treated with the respect they deserve." George Ticknor. Stolzenfels. This is a royal castle on the banks of the Rhine, three miles above Coblenz, the highest point of which is 410 feet above the river. It was in the Middle Ages a residence of the archbishops; but in 1688 it fell into the hands of the French, and was nearly destroyed. During this century it has been entirely restored. The view from the castle is exquisitely lovely, and scarcely surpassed by any on the Rhine. Stone of Sconé, so called from the Scottish belief that the power of the nation would decline if the stone were lost, was brought from the Abbey of Scone by Edward I., and by him placed in Westminster Abbey and enclosed in a wooden chair. At an earlier date it had been transferred from Ireland to the Abbey of Scone. It was also called Jacob's Pillow, from the legend that it was the pillow upon which the patriarch slept when he beheld the vision of the ladder reaching to heaven. See CORONATION CHAIR. "The legends of the old his torians inform us that this is the very stone on which the patriarch Jacob laid his head in the plain of Luz; that it was brought from Egypt into Spain by Gathelus, the supposed founder of the Scottish nation; that it was thence transported into Ireland." Taylor. Ni fallit fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem. Stone of Destiny. See STONE OF Stonehenge. Stone of Sân. A famous trilingual Stone of Scone. On this stone, of legendary fame, which is now enclosed within the older of the two Coronation Chairs in Westminster Abbey, the Scottish kings had for ages been crowned. The "Fatal" or "Prophetic A famous monument of antiquity, being probably the remains of a Druid temple, though antiquaries are not fully agreed as to its origin or object. It is situated in a plain near Amesbury, and about eight miles from Salisbury, England. consists of a number of immense stones arranged in two circles, with flat pieces partly connecting them at the top. It "It is evident that Stonehenge was at one time a spot of great sanctity. A glance at the ordnance map will show that the tumuli cluster in great numbers round and within sight of it; within a radius of three miles, there are about three hundred burial-mounds, while the rest of the country is comparatively free from them. If, then, we could determine the date of these tumuli, we should be justified, I think, in referring the Great Temple itself to the same period.... Stonehenge, then, may, I think, be regarded as a monument of the Bronze age, though appar ently it was not all erected at one time, the inner circle of small unwrought blue stones being probably older than the rest." Sir John Lubbock. "On the broad downs, under the gray sky, not a house was visible, nothing but Stonehenge, which looked like a group of brown dwarfs in the wide expanse, Stonehenge and the barrows which rose like green bosses about the plain, and a few hayricks. On the top of a mountain the old tem ple would not be more impressive. Far and wide a few shepherds with their flocks sprinkled the plain, and a bagman drove along the road. It looked as if the wide margin given in this crowded isle to this primeval temple were accorded by the venera tion of the British race to the old egg out of which all their ecclesiastical structures and history had proceeded. Stonehenge is a circular colonnade, with a diameter of a hundred feet, and enclosing a second and third colonnade within. We walked around the stones and clambered over them, to wont our. selves with their strange aspect and groupings, and found a nook sheltered from the wind among them where C. [Carlyle] lighted his cigar. It was pleasant to see that just this simplest of all simple structures-two upright stones and a lintel laid across-had long outstood all later churches, and were like what is most permanent on the face of the planet: these, and the barrows -mere mounds (of which there are a hundred and sixty within a circle of three miles about Stonehenge) like the same mound upon the plain of Troy, which still makes good to the passing mariner on Hellespont, the vaunt of Homer and the fame of Achil les.... We counted and measured by paces the biggest stones, and soon knew as much as any man can suddenly know of the inscrutable temple. There are ninety-four stones, and there were probably once one hundred and sixty. The temple is circular and uncovered, and the situation fixed astronomically -the grand entrances here, and at Abury, being placed exactly north-east, as all the gates of the old cavern temples are.... The chief mystery is that any mystery should have been allowed to settle on so remarkable a monument in a country on which all the Muses have kept their eyes now for eighteen hundred years. We are not yet to learn much more than is known of this structure." R. W. Emerson. Stone is laid on the top of stone, just as it comes to hand: a trowel or two of biographic mortar, if perfectly convenient, being perhaps spread in here and there, by way of cement; and so the strangest pile suddenly arises; amorphous, pointing every way but to the zenith, here a Stones of Clava. An interesting sepulchral monument of antiquity, and one of the most extensive remains of the kind in Britain, near Culloden, Scotland. It consists of a circle of stones surrounding a line of cairns. Stones of Stennis. See STANDING STONES OF STENNIS. Stoning of Stephen. A cartoon by Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520), from which one of the tapestries in the Vatican at Rome was executed. Stonyhurst. An ancient and celebrated baronial residence in Lancashire, England. It is now the chief Jesuit College in the kingdom. Storm in the Rocky Mountains. A well-known picture by Albert Bierstadt (b. 1829). "No picture that we have ever seen has more entirely conveyed a sense of natural sublimity, and there is so much to study that the spectator is detained before it for a long time." Saturday Review. Storm King. An eminence on the Hudson River near West Point. It was formerly called the Boterberg, by the Dutch skippers, but received its present name from N. P. Willis. It commands a beautiful view. Stowe. The magnificent seat of the Duke of Buckingham, in the parish of the same name near Buckingham, England. It is one of the finest residences in the kingdom. It puzzles much the sages' brains, Strada Balbi. [Strada, street.] One of the two finest streets in Genoa, Italy. It is adorned with palaces of superb architecture. When shall I forget the Streets of Palaces: the Strada Nuova and the Strada Balbi! Dickens. Strada di Costanza. A name sometimes given to the territory between Perugia and Foligno in Italy, after St. Constantius, bishop of Perugia in the third or fourth century. Strada di Roma. See TOLEDO. Strada Nuova. [New Street.] A famous street in Genoa, Italy, sometimes called the street of palaces on account of the noble old palaces that front upon it. When shall I forget the Streets of Palaces: the Strada Nuova and the Strada Balbi! or how the former looked one summer day, when I first saw it underneath the brightest and most intensely blue of summer skies: with its narrow perspective of immense mansions, reduced to a tapering and most precious strip of brightness, looking down upon the heavy shade below! Dickens. Straight Street. An ancient street in Damascus, Syria, beginning at one of the gates of the city and extending about a mile, formerly in a straight direction, but at present with many windings. It was originally without question a broad promenade, but is now in places hardly more than a narrow lane. Of its identity with the street mentioned in the New Testament there can be no doubt; and many localities connected with the history of Paul are pointed out, such as the house in which he lodged, and the spot where he escaped from the city in a basket. They led him [Paul] by the hand, and brought him to Damascus. . . . And the Lord said unto him (Ananias], Arise and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus; for, behold, he prayeth. Acts ix. 8, 11. Strand, The. 1. A great thoroughfare in the city of London, extending from Temple Bar to Charing Cross, and skirting the margin of the river Thames, of which it was formerly the strand, or shore. The Strand was for three centuries a street of palaces, but these palaces are now gone. "You would think London Strand the main artery of the world. I suppose there is no thoroughfare on the face of the earth where the stream of human life runs with a tide so over. whelming. In any other street in the world you catch the eye of the passerby. In the Strand no man sees another except as a solid body whose contact is to be avoided. You are safe nowhere on the pavement without the vigilance of your senses." N. P. Willis. The Strand, that goodly thorow-fare be tweene The Court and City; and where I have seene Well-nigh a million passing in one day, Or change the rocks of Scotland for the I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much life. Lamb to Wordsworth. After an hour's walk in the Strand .. one has the spleen, one meditates suicide. Taine, Trans. Cheapside, the Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill, Each name a very story in itself. Robert Leighton. 2. A favorite promenade in Calcutta, India. Strasbourg, Boulevart de. See SÉBASTOPOL, Boulevart de. Strasburg Cathedral. This cathedral, which is one of the grandest Gothic structures in the world, was founded in 510, and destroyed by lightning in 1007. Its restoration was commenced in the eleventh century. The sculptures above the portal are said to belong to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The upper part of the spire was erected by Johann Hultz, of Cologne, at the commencement of the fifteenth century. Its height is 468 feet, which is greater than that of any building in Europe. The design of this cathedral is ascribed to Erwin of Steinbach, whose plans are still pre served. This church suffered some damage during the bombardment of Strasburg in the Franco-Prussian war, but the injuries have been repaired. "Next in rank to Cologne among German cathedrals is that at Strasburg. It is, however, so much smaller as hardly to admit of a fair comparison. The whole of the eastern part of this church belongs to an older basilica built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and is by no means remarkable for its beauty or its size, besides being so overpowered by the nave which has been added to it, as to render its appearance somewhat insig. nificant. The nave and the western front are the glory and the boast of Alsace, and possess in a remarkable degree all the beauties and the defects of the German style. It is not known when the nave was commenced, but it seems to have been finished about the year 1275, a date which, if authentic, is quite sufficient to settle the controversy as to whether any part of Cologne is of an earlier age, every thing we see in Strasburg being of an older style than any thing in that church. ... Alto gether the façade of the cathedral at Strasburg is imposing from its mass, and fascinating from its richness; but there is no building in France or Eng. land where such great advantages have been thrown away in so reckless a manner and by such an unintelligent hand." Fergusson. "We climbed the spire, we gained the roof. . . . Here I saw the names of Goethe and Herder. . But the inside! a forest-like firmament, glorious in holiness; windows many-hued as the Hebrew psalms; a gloom solemn and pathetic as man's mysterious existence, a richness gorgeous and manifold as his wonderful nature. In this Gothic architecture we see earnest Northern races whose nature was a composite of influences from pine forest, mountain and storm, expressing in vast proportions and gigantic masonry, those ideas of infinite duration and existence which Christianity opened before them. A barbaric wildness mingles itself with fanciful, ornate abundance; it is the blossoming of northern forests." Beecher. "I once ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, I think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filagree-work, frightfully open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from falling. To climb it is a noonday nightmare, and to think of having climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. While I was on it, 'pinnacled dim in the intense inane,' a strong wind was blowing, and I felt sure that the spire was rocking. It swayed back and forward like a stalk of rye or a cat-o'nine-tails (bulrush) with a bobolink on it." Holmes. Santa Croce and the Dome of St. Peter's are lame conies after a divine model. Strasburg Cathedral is a material counterpart of the soul of Erwin of Steinbach. Emerson. A great master of his craft, Erwin von Steinbach; but not he alone, For many generations labored with him. Children that came to see these Saints in stone, As day by day out of the blocks they rose, Grew old and died, and still the work went on, And on, and on, and is not yet completed. Longfellow. Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where In the noon-brightness the great minster's tower, Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, Rose like a visible prayer. Whittier. Strasburg Clock. A famous clock, - a wonder of art, in the cathedral of Strasburg, Germany. The original, which was made centuries ago, having fallen into decay, a German artist of the present century has reproduced the complete mechanism of the old clock. At the stroke of noon, the Twelve Apostles issue from the side door of a chapel, and move in procession before the Saviour, who bows his head in blessing as they pass, the cock crows and flaps his wings, Satan watches Judas, while the bells chime and the organ is played. Upon the dial of this clock are marked the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, the phases of the moon, and the constellations. Three of us stood in the Strasburg streets, Of a summer morn, at stroke of noon To see their wonder, the famous Clock Strathfieldsaye. The seat of the Duke of Wellington near Silchester, England. |