SEDLEY 



SEED 



299 



Writing, publishing, or uttering words tending to 

 excite subjects to insurrection, though not urging 

 them to rebellion or total subversion of the govern- 

 ment, come under the denomination of seditious 

 libel, and seditious meetings or assemblies are 

 punishable as misdemeanours. The crime consists 

 in the intention to excite disaffection against the 

 sovereign, the government, or tlie administration of 

 justice, or to excite the sovereign's subjects to 

 attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, the 

 alteration of any matter in church or state by law 

 established, or to promote ill-will and hostility 

 between different classes of such subjects. 



In Scotland sedition is distinguished from Leasing- 

 making (q.v.), in so far as the object of the latter 

 is to disparage the private character of the sove- 

 reign, while the former crime is directed against 

 the order and tranquillity of the state. The pun- 

 ishment of sedition, formerly arbitrary, is now 

 restricted to fine and imprisonment. See Lord 

 Cockburn's Trials fur Sedition in Scotland (2 vols. 

 1888). 



Srdli'.v. SIR CHARLES, courtier and poet, was 

 born at nis father's seat at Aylesford, Kent, in 

 1639, a maternal grandson of the famous Sir Henry 

 Savile. He was educated at Wadham College, 

 Oxford, repaired to court at the Restoration, and 

 soon became notorious at once for debauchery and 

 wit. Later he sat in parliament for New Roniney, 

 retired from court, and joined the party of William 

 at the Revolution, out of gratitude to James, who 

 had seduced his daughter, and made her Countess 

 of Dorchester. ' Since his majesty has made my 

 daughter a countess,' said he, 'it is fit I should do 

 all I can to make his daughter a queen.' Johnson's 

 line, ' And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a 

 king,' has kept alive the memory of this sordid 

 amour, but it is worth noticing that the daughter, 

 speaking of what attracted the king, decries her 

 own Iteauty with something of her father's wit : 

 ' It cannot lie my beauty, for he must see that I 

 have none ; and it cannot be my wit, for he has 

 not enough to know that I have any.' Sedley sur- 

 vived till 1701. He left six plays, among them 

 The Mulberry Garden and Bellamira, but what 

 little fame remains to him now rests solely on a 

 few songs and ver de societe. It is enough to name 

 three, ' Phillis, men say that all my vows;' 'Ah, 

 Chlnris, that I now could sit ; ' ' Love still has some- 

 thing of the sea,' to make good a claim to unusual 

 gracefulness of fancy and mastery of form. Even 

 his licentiousness does not wear the open grossness 

 of the age. 



Seduction, in English law, means the act of 

 decoying away a servant or member of a family 

 from his or her duty ; in a narrower sense it 

 includes offences against the chastity of women, 

 where the offender accomplishes his purpose by 

 persuasion, not by force. It is not a criminal 

 offence unless the facts are such as will support a 

 charge of Rape (q.v.) or Abduction (q.v.). No 

 action can be maintained by a woman who is 

 seduced, however basely or deceitfully the seducer 

 may have acted ; but a master or mistress may 

 sue in respect of loss of service caused by the 

 seduction. If a father or mother can make out 

 loss of service, damages can thus indirectly be 

 recovered for the seduction of a daughter ; and it 

 is the inveterate practice of juries to give ' exem- 

 plary damages ' in such cases, if the conduct of the 

 defendant has been heartless or dishonourable. 

 The rule of law is most irrational : a rich man, 

 whose daughter occasionally makes his tea, can 

 recover damages if she is seduced ; a poor man, 

 whose daughter is in a situation away from home, 

 cannot. In Scotland the woman can sue in her 

 wn name if deceit has been used ; but the diffi- 



culty of showing that the deceit was the only cause 

 of the injury prevents such actions from being com- 

 mon. Redress is sometimes obtained by an action 

 for breach of promise of marriage or (in Scotland) 

 by an action of declarator of marriage ; and the 

 father of an illegitimate child can be compelled to 

 maintain it. 



Sedulins. See HYMN, Vol. VI. p. 46. 



Scdllill. a genus of plants of the natural order 

 CrassnlacejH, having the calyx in four to eight 

 (usually five) deep segments, which often resemble 

 the leaves, the same number of spreading petals, 

 twice as many stamens, and four to eight (usually 

 five) ovaries, each with a nectariferous scale at 

 the base. The species are numerous, with succu- 

 lent, often roundish leaves, and pretty, star-like 

 flowers. Many of them grow on rocks, whence the 

 English name Stone-crop. They are natives of the 

 temperate and cold parts of the northern hemi- 

 sphere ; some are British. They have no import- 

 ant uses ; gome are refrigerant, others are acrid. 

 Among the British species are S. telephium, popu- 

 larly called Orpine, sometimes used as a diuretic, 

 and S. acre, the most common, whose brilliant 

 yellow flowers adorn the tops of old walls, the 

 debris around quarries, &c. Many of the dwarf- 

 growing species are employed in the now popular 

 style of flower-gardening called 'carpet- bedding.' 



Seed. In the higher plants, which are called 

 Phanerogams because of the conspicuousness of 

 their flowers or reproductive organs, the egg-cell 

 lies within an Ovule (q.v.), and after fertilisation 

 grows into an embryo plant, with one or two primary 

 leaves all before separation from the parent 

 plant. What is separated, to begin in favourable 

 conditions a new and independent life, is a seed, 

 which may be defined as a ripe ovule containing 

 an embryo plant. So distinctive of the Phanero- 

 gams is this mode of reproduction by seeds, that 

 they are often and conveniently called Sperma- 

 phytes or Seed-plants. 



From the article OVULE the reader will under- 

 stand how the seed is formed, how a mass of tissue 

 the nucellus borne by the carpellary leaf con- 

 tains a female spore or ' embryo-sac,' whose nucleus 

 divides into a female nucleus or oosphere (which 

 will develop into an embryo if fertilised) and a 

 number of other nuclei of minor importance. The 

 fertilised oosphere, within the embryo-sac, im- 

 bedded in the nucellus, and surrounded by the 

 coats of the ovule, develops into an embryo plant, 

 and the whole structure is called a seed. 



Structure of the Seed considered in relation to 

 the Groivth and Germination of the Embryo, The 

 segmented egg-cell within the embryo-sac gives 

 rise to the embryo and to a 'suspensor' which 

 moors it. The figure on p. 300 shows somewhat 

 (liagrammatically the embryo moored to the top of 

 the embryo-sac ny the suspensor ; the base of the 

 embryo next the suspensor is the region from 

 which the radicle or young root will spring ; the 

 depressed apex at the opposite pole of the embryo 

 is the region from which the plumule or young stem 

 will shoot forth ; the two sides form the young 

 cotyledons or seed-leaves. 



The embryo is the essential part of the seed ; 

 the other structures are subsidiary to its nurture, 

 protection, and germination. Of these other parts 

 of the seed the stored food material is of great im- 

 portance, for after separation from the parent the 

 embryo grows and sends put its rootlet, and pushes 

 up its stem and expands its delicate leaves, in great 

 part on the strength of what nutritive material it 

 or the seed contains. This nutritive material, or 

 ' albumen ' as it is often called, out of which the first 

 new parts of the young plant will l>e in great part 

 built up, is formed after fertilisation the physio 



