359 



SCOPAS. 



SCORESBY, WILLIAM AND REV. WILLIAM. 



380 



whether some statues representing the dying children 1 of Niobe 

 (' Niobse liberos morientes ') in the temple of Apollo Sosiauus at Rome, 

 were by Scopas or Praxiteles. The well known group or series of 

 figures representing this subject, now preserved in the gallery of the 

 Graud-Duke of Tuscany at Florence, is generally believed to be the 

 work alluded to by Pliny. Whether it be an original production of 

 either of these great masters, or, as some critics have supposed, only 

 copied from their work, it must be classed among the finest specimens 

 of art, and as a noble monument of the genius of its author. 



Scopas was employed upon the tomb of Mausolus, and had for his 

 associates and rivals ('somulos eadem setatc') Bryaxis, Timotheus, 

 and Leochares. This work, considered by the ancients one of the 

 seven wonders of the world, was of a square form, having four faces. 

 Each of the above-named artists completed one side. The eastern was 

 given to Scopas ; the northern to Bryaxis ; the southern to Timotheus ; 

 and Leochares decorated the western facade. Pliny in mentioning 

 this uses the terms ' ccelavere ' and ' ccelavit,' from which it may be 

 inferred that all their performances were in rilievo. The whole mass, 

 measuring twenty-five cubits in height, was surmounted by a quadriga, 

 or four-horsed chariot in marble. This was the work of one Pythia ; 

 of whom nothing further is known than his having been thus employed 

 on this celebrated monument. The sculptured slabs which Sir Strat- 

 ford Canning (now Lord Stratford de RedclifFe) obtained permission 

 from the Porte to remove in 1845-46 from the walls of Budrum, the 

 ancient Halicarnassus, and which are now deposited in the British 

 Museum, are now generally admitted to be a portion of the bassi-rilievi 

 with which Scopas and his associates adorned the tomb of Mausolus. 

 The materials obtained from the ruins of the tomb were used by the 

 knights of Rhodes in constructing, and afterwards in strengthening 

 the citadel of Halicarnassus, and the sculptured slabs of the frieze 

 appear to have been built into the inner wall of the citadel, where they 

 remained till removed as above stated. The slabs are thirteen in 

 number, of a uniform height of 3 feet, and of a connected length of 

 nearly 65 feet about equal to one side of the building. They repre- 

 sent the battle of the ancient Greek warriors with the Amazons, and 

 are executed with considerable spirit and beauty, but they have suffered 

 much injury from time and rough treatment. They are however 

 decidedly inferior to works of the best style of Greek art, and inferior 

 to what would be expected from the hand of Scopas, whence some 

 critics have chosen quite gratuitously to assign them to his associates. 

 (Newton, ' On the Sculpture from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus,' in 

 the ' Classical Museum' for 1847, p. 170, &c., where will also be found 

 a restoration of the building by Mr. Cockerell.) 



Pausanias, in his description of Greece, speaks of various per- 

 formances of Scopas (both in bronzo and marble), existing in the cities 

 which he visited. In the temple of Venus at Megara were statues 

 of "EpcDs/Ijuepos, and UdOos (Love, Passion, and Desire). (Paus., i. 43.) 

 There was also a statue of Hercules by him at Sicyon (ii. 10) ; and at 

 Gortys in Arcadia were two statues, one of ^Esculapius, ' imberbis ' (or 

 beardless), and the other of Hygeia (viii. 28). Two works by Scopas 

 are celebrated by epigrams in the Greek Anthology : one of them 

 refers to a much admired statue of Mercury; another pays a high 

 compliment to the skill displayed by the sculptor in a figure of a 

 Bacchante represented in a state of inebriety. The latter work was 

 executed in Parian marble. 



Strabo (lib. xiii., 604) mentions a statue by Scopas, of Apollo, in 

 rather a remarkable character, that of a ' killer of rats.' It was in 

 the temple of the god Burnamed Smintheus, at Chrysa or Chryse in 

 the Troad. The figure was represented in the act of pressing or 

 crushing a rat Vith his foot. 



From tho terms in which Pausanias speaks of the temple before 

 alluded to, which Scopas built to Minerva Alea at Tegea, his merit as 

 an architect must have been little if at all inferior to that which he 

 displayed in the sister art. Pausauias says it far exceeded, both in the 

 quality of its decoration and its dimensions, all the other temples in 

 Peloponnesus. He describes it as being of the Ionic order on the 

 outside ; but within it was decorated with Doric columns having over 

 them others of the Corinthian order. In the pediment in front was 

 represented the hunting of the Caledonian boar, with Atalanta,Meleager, 

 Theseus, and numerous other figures. The other pediment exhibited 

 the contest of Telephus and Achilles. Pausanias does not state dis- 

 tinctly that these works were by Scopas, but it may fairly be inferred 

 that they either were executed by him or at least were produced under 

 his superintendence. 



Before closing this short notice of Scopas it may be right to mention 

 that the difficulty of reconciling the dates given by Pliny has led the 

 learned antiquary Sillig (' Catal. Artificnm,' p. 415) to suppose there 

 may have been two artists of the name ; one a native of Paros, and the 

 other of Elis. But tho reasons adduced do not however appear suffi- 

 cient to warrant such a conclusion. 



SCOPAS, or SCOPINAS, an artist or mechanist, of unknown date, 

 mentioned by Vitruvius. 



SCO'POLI, GIOVANNI ANTONIO, was born at Cavalese in the 

 Tyrol, Juno 13, 1723. After pursuing his preliminary studies at Trent, 

 he went to Innspruck, and took the degree of Doctor in Medicine at that 

 university in 1743. He early displayed a great fondness for natural 

 history, and was in a great measure self-taught, since there was not 

 then at Innspruck any professor capable of directing hia studies in 



that department. Botany especially attracted his attention, and he 

 formed a plan, which however he never executed, for publishing the 

 Flora of his native country. 



A journey which he made to Vienna led to his obtaining an appoint- 

 ment as a physician at Idria. Here he published a Flora of Carniola, 

 and his proximity to the quicksilver-mines gave him many opportuni- 

 ties for cultivating mineralogy. The results of these studies appeared 

 in various memoirs, among which was a valuable essay on the diseases 

 to which the miners are liable. The talent and indefatigable dili- 

 gence which he displayed, excited the envy and opposition of many of 

 the officers in the mines, but his appointment as professor of minera- 

 logy at Idria relieved him from all the disquietudes to which he had 

 before been subjected. On the removal of Jacquin to Vienna, Scopoli 

 succeeded to the chair of mineralogy at Schemuitz ; and in 1777 ho 

 was appointed professor of natural history at Pavia, where he died on 

 May 8, 1788. 



Scopoli was well acquainted with all branches of natural history, 

 though especially distinguished as a botanist. He was much respected 

 by Jacquin and Linnaeus, the latter of whom named a plant in honour 

 of him, and a genus Scopolia is still distinguished by botanists. His 

 principal works are, 'Flora Carniolica,' Vienna, 8vo, 1760, and Leipzig, 

 8vo, 1772; 'Entomologia Carniolica,' Vienna, 1763; ' Tentamina 

 Physico-chemico-medica,' Venice, 8vo, 1761, Jena, 8vo, 1771, which 

 contains his paper on the diseases of the workers in the quicksilver- 

 mines ; ' Delicise Florae et Faunas Insubrise,' &c., Pavia, 1786-88, three 

 parts, folio. 



SCORESBY, WILLIAM, AND SCORESBY, THE REV. WILLIAM, 

 D.D., F.R.S., the most accomplished and successful Arctic navigators 

 of then: time, were descended from a Yorkshire family, of which notices 

 exist referring to the beginning of the 14th century, its members 

 occasionally possessing considerable property, and occupying con- 

 spicuous stations, but having descended, prior to the middle of the last 

 century, to the class of yeomen. WILLIAM SCORESBY, the elder, was 

 born on the 3rd of May 1760, on a small estate farmed by his father, 

 called Natholm, in the township of Cropton, about twenty miles from 

 Whitby. He received his chief education in an attendance often 

 interrupted, at an endowed school in the village of Cropton, but from 

 this he was removed at the very early age of nine, and employed in 

 agricultural occupations, first on his father's farm, and as he advanced 

 towards manhood on those of his neighbours. Undeserved treatment 

 from one of these led him to resolve, in the winter of 1779-80, to try the 

 adventure of a sea-faring life. Proceeding to Whitby for that purpose, 

 he made an engagement with a ship-owner,' but his service not being 

 immediately required, he returned home, and after remaining at the 

 farm he had somewhat abruptly left until his place could be satisfacto- 

 rily supplied, set himself arduously to work to prepare himself by the 

 study of such books as he could procure, for his new occupation, 

 upon which he entered April 1780. The skill he very soon acquired 

 in calculating his ship's position enabled him to save it from destruc- 

 tion, in the third voyage of both, but the ill-will this occasioned in the 

 minds of the officers he had thus excelled caused him to leave the ship, 

 and to engage iu an Ordnance armed-storeship, which was captured by 

 a Spanish vessel. With one of his fellow-sailors however he escaped 

 from Spain, and on his return to England retired, for a season, from 

 his seafaring pursuits. He remained at home, assisting his father in 

 the management of his farm, about two or three years, marrying in 

 the interval the eldest daughter of Mr. John Smith, of Cropton. But 

 in the spring of 1785 he entered upon that particular course of life in 

 which both he and his son were afterwards so long distinguished, by 

 embarking, though merely as one of the seamen, in the ship Henrietta, 

 belonging to the Greenland whale-fishery, which at that period was 

 pursued with considerable enterprise from the port of Whitby. In 

 this congenial occupation, on his sixth voyage he had risen above all 

 his associates, and attained the position of second officer, the ' spech- 

 sioneer ' of the ship, who has special charge of the fishing apparatus 

 and operations, and is a principal harpooner. In 1791 he was ap- 

 pointed to the command of the Henrietta. In his first voyage he 

 returned with " a clean ship," or without whales, but this was amply 

 compensated by the almost unprecedented success of the second, in 

 which he took eighteen whales, a ' catch ' which was extended, in his 

 fifth year, to the extraordinary number of twenty-five, and the amount 

 of his cargoes, during his six years' command of this ship, exceeded 

 by 151 tuns of oil that of the most successful of the Hull ships of the 

 time. In 1798 he obtained the command of the Dundee, a London 

 whaler of large size, in which his success was correspondingly great. 

 She returned from her first voyage with tho spoils of no less than 

 six-and-thirty captured whales ; and three years afterwards twenty- 

 three were taken, which yielded the previously unequalled quantity of 

 225 tuns of oil. In this engagement Mr. Scbresby's high reputation 

 for pre-eminent skill and success was amply maintained. Up to the 

 end of the century his successes, with but rare exceptions, were at the 

 head of the lists of the whole of the northern whalers, both of Davis' 

 Strait and Greenland. His voyages were not only unequalled in the 

 Greenland whale-fishery in their measure of success, but likewise in 

 the quickness with which they were accomplished, and the quality 

 of the oil yielded by their cargoes. 



In 1811 Mr. Scoresby resigned the command of the Resolution, in 

 which his voyages had been made for eight years, to his son ; but in 



