SCROPHULARIACE.E 



SCULPTURE 



263 



in the interests of the agricultural lal>ourer. A 

 Fellow of the Royal Society and other learned 

 associations, he died 19th January 1876. 



Scrophulariaceae (also culled Scrofifuilar- 

 ine<e), a natural order, chietly herbaceous and half- 

 shrubby plants. The order is a very large one, 

 containing almost 2000 known s[>ecies, which are 

 distributed over the whole world, both in cold and 

 warm climates. Acridity, bitterness, and astring- 

 ency are prevalent characteristics*, and many 8[>ecie8 

 are poisonous. Mucilage, resinous substances, and 

 essential oils are also products of many of the 

 species. Some are root parasites. Some are ad- 

 mired and cultivated for their flowers ; some are 

 used medicinally. Digitalis or Foxglove, Calceo- 

 laria, Mimulns, Mullein, Antirrhinum or Snap- 

 dragon, Gratiola, Scrophnlaria or Fiywort, Veronica 

 or Speedwell, and Euphrasia or Eyeoright are 

 familiar examples. Very different from these 

 humble herbaceous plants is Paulownia imperialis, 

 a Japanese tree, 30 to 40 feet high, with trunk 

 two or three feet in diameter, and flowers in 

 panicles, about as large as those of the common 

 foxglove ; the tree is hardv in the milder parts of 

 England, and is a beautiful ornament of shrub- 

 beries from London southwards. 



Scrub. See AUSTRALIA, Vol. I. p. 589. 



Scruple (Lat. scrupulum, 'a small, sharp 

 stone') was the lowest denomination of weight 

 among the Romans, and with them denoted the 

 24th part of an ounce (uncia), or the 288th of a 

 pound (libra). As a measure of surface it was also 

 the 24th part of the uncia (see OUNCE). In 

 Apothecaries' Weight a scruple contains 20 Troy 

 grains, is the third part of a drachm, the 24th of 

 an ounce, and the 288th of a Troy pound. See 

 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



Bendery, MADELEINE DE, an interminable 

 French novelist, was born at Havre in 1607, her 

 father of Provencal origin. Left an orphan at six, 

 she received a careful education from an um-le, 

 and, still young, came up to Paris, where she soon 

 became a notable figure in the brilliant society of 

 the Hdtel Rambouillet. She was plain, if not ugly, 

 thin, dark, and long-faced, full of vanity and 

 prndishness, a 17th-century Madame de Genlis 

 plus virtue, as Sainte-Beuve styles her. But 

 blue-stocking as she was she had a woman's 

 heart, and loved after the fathion of her heroines, 

 with an exalted and chaste affection, the ill- 

 favoured but learned Pellisson, in whom she hail 

 inspired a passion. Her half-crazy brother Georges 

 (1601-07) left the service in 1630* to devote himself 

 to literature, and, lieing gifted with fatal facility, 

 posed as a rival of Corneille, and wrote many pieces 

 long since securely forgotten. To Christina of 

 Sweden he dedicated one poem, Alaric, of 11,000 

 verses. A kind of swashbuckler among men of 

 letters, he wrote prefaces that read like cartels of 

 defiance to any who had the temerity to doubt his 

 genius. Hi- sister used to help him in his writing, 

 and Tallemant ascribes to her the entire res|>nsi 

 bility of IltraJiim on I'llliutre Bit.wa, a romance in 

 four large volumes, which he signed and published 

 in 1641. Similarly Artamene MI, le Grand Ci/rui 

 (10 vols. 1049-53) and Clelie (10 vols. 1654-60) 

 both \x>rt> the name of Georges de Scudery, although 

 he contributed only the framework of the two, 

 that is to say, the part which is the worst in l>oth. 

 Mdlle. de Scudery lacked real invention, and took 

 lier figures from her acquaintance and from the 

 oeiety of the day, travestying them as Romans, 

 Greeks, Persians, or Carthaginians thus, she has 

 Half-painted herself as Saplio in vol. x. of the 

 Urn ml. Cyrus. Victor Cousin discovered a key 

 '1657) which named all the figures definitely, as 

 Artaiu*^e for Conde, Mandane for Mme. de Longue- 



ville, Parthenie for Mme. de Sable 1 , &c. But she 

 had real skill in polished conversation, and, in later 

 days when her stories had gone out of fashion, she 

 reproduced ten volumes (1680-92) of these taken 

 from her novels. Madame de Sevigne writes her 

 daughter, ' Mdlle. de Scudery has just sent me two 

 little volumes of conversations ; it is impossible 

 that they should not be good, now that they are not 

 drowned in a gresit romance. ' The Grand Cyrus is 

 one of the masterpieces amongst the romans de 

 lonytie fialeine, as their order has been felicitously 

 named, but a modern reader seldom strays far into 

 its 15,000 pages. The incidents follow in the most 

 helpless monotony and lack of verisimilitude, but 

 the naivete of the reflections completely disarms 

 the critic. The virtuous authoress prided herself 

 on her ability to fathom all the depths of love 

 without having sounded them in her own experi- 

 ence, and the lamous ' Carte de Tendre ' in Clelie, 

 liistmre Romainf,, is a fantastic but pretentious 

 attempt to construct an analysis and guide to the 

 whole kingdom of Love. It was not an invention 

 of Mdlle. de Scudery, but due to the collalioration 

 of the superfine ladies and gentlemen who fre- 

 quented her Saturdays. She lived till the age of 

 ninety-four, respected and honoured to the last, 

 dying at Paris, 2d June 1701. Theetherealised senti- 

 ment of her novels had already wearied the world, 

 but the death-blow waited to be dealt by the hand 

 of Boileau. Cousin calls her, but not happily, ' a 

 sort of French sister of Addison.' As a woman it 

 should not lj forgotten to her honour that her 

 brave devotion to friends like Mine. Longueville 

 and Fouquet survived their. fall; and none could 

 ever be an object of indifference to the world of 

 whom Madame de Sevignc could write, ' In a 

 hundred thousand words I could tell you but one 

 truth, which reduces itself to assuring you, Made- 

 moiselle, that I shall love you and adore you all 

 niy life ; it is only this word that can express the 

 idea I have of your extraordinary merit. I am 

 hiippy tn have some part in the friendship and 

 esteem of such a person. As constancy is a per- 

 fection, I say to myself that you will not change 

 for me ; and I dare to pride myself that I shall 

 never be sufficiently abandoned of God not to be 

 always yours.' 



See Victor Cousin, La SorMf Franfaise au Dix- 

 Kptifme Siiclt (1858); Sainte-Benve, Cauteria du 

 l.n n'lt. vol. iv. ; Andre Le Breton, Le Roman au Dix- 

 tcjttii'mf Sitclc (1890); and chapter iii. of Amelia Gere 

 Jin* m's work, The Women of the French Salons (1891). 



Scildo (Ital., 'shield'), an Italian silver coin 

 mi responding to the Spanish Piastre (q.v.), the 

 American Dollar (q.v.), and the English Crown 

 (q.v.). It was so called from its bearing the 

 heraldic shield of the prince by whose authority 

 it was struck, and differed slightly in value in the 

 different states of Italy, the usual value being 

 about four shillings. 



Srilllilm has two senses, a river sense and a 

 sea sense. In its fresh-water acceptation sculling 

 is the propulsion of a boat with a pair of sculls 

 or light oars by one man (see ROWING). Among 

 seafaring men, however, to scull is to drive a boat 

 onward with one oar, worked like a screw over the 

 stern. 



Snilpin. a name given to the Dragonet (q.v.), 

 and also in the United States to various marine 

 species of Cottus or Bull-head notably to C. 

 octoclecimspinoins and C. scorpius ; the ' Daddy- 

 Sculpin ' lieing C. groenlandicits, 



Sculpture has been practised in all ages and 

 by all races. There is no savage so untutored 

 but can scratch a rude design upon a flat surface 

 (the beginning of relief) or fashion a stone into 

 the rugged semblance of a god. There are still 



