SKKU.KJS 



SKKRRYVOUE 



ulna, whicli articulate with the humenis at the 

 elbow ; the wrist of eight car|>al liones ; the fjve 

 metacarpals of the palm; the live digits, of which 

 tin- tour lingers have each three joints or phalanges, 

 while the thumb hag two. The important )>one of 

 the pectoral girdle is the shoulder-blade or scapula. 

 To tliis. at tin- shoulder-joint, there i- fused a 

 Rmall beak-like bone thecoracoid which is separ- 

 ate in Birds and Reptiles, hut reduced to a mere 

 pun-ess of the scapula in all Mammals except the 

 Monotremes. Stretching from the breastlione to 

 shoulder-blade is the curved collar-bone or clavicle. 

 The skeleton of the leg also includes thirty bones 

 in the thigh the femur, which articulates with 

 the hip-girdle ; in the lower leg the shin-bone or 

 tibia and the splint-bone or fibula, which articulate 

 with the femur at the knee-joint, where there lies 

 a little ' sesamoid ' l>one the patella ; in the ankle 

 region seven bones, then five metatarsal bones 

 forming the sole of the foot, and five toes with the 

 same nnmlier of phalanges as in the fingers. The 

 pelvic girdle consists in early life of three paired 

 bones large dorsal ilium, a posterior ischium, an 

 anterior puins on each side but these unite about 

 the twenty fifth year into single haunch-bone, 

 with the socket of which the thigh articulates. See 

 AKM, HAND, SHOULDER, FOOT, LEG, PELVIS, 

 KIBS, SKULL, and SPINAL COLUMN ; for literature, 

 see the works referred to in the article ANATOMY. 

 Skeletons other than human will be seen under the 

 headings of ANTHROPOID APES, BAT, BIRD, ELK, 

 FISHES, HESPEIIOHNIS, ICHTHYOSAURUS, IOUANO- 

 DOX, MKCATHERIUM, PLESIOSAURUS, PTERO- 

 DACTYL, &c. ; and skulls at BABIROUSSA, GARNI- 



VORA, DOG, HODENTIA, &C. 



Skrlligs, three rocky islands on the south-west 

 coast of Ireland, King 10 miles SW. of Valentia 

 i-hmd. On one of the rocks stands a lighthouse, 

 the light of which is 175 feet above high-water, 

 and visible 18 miles at sea. On Great Skellig 

 (710 feet high ) are the ruins of a monastery. 



Skellliersdale, a town of Lancashire, 4J 

 miles from Ormskirk. Pop. ( 1851 ) 760 ;( 1891 ) 6627. 



SKHlon. JOHN, an early satirical poet, is sup- 

 posed to have been born about 1460, most probably 

 in Norfolk, although generally said to have been 

 sprung from a Cumberland family. He studied at 

 ( 'am bridge, perhaps also at Oxford, and received 

 from each the academical honour of laureate. He 

 was appointed tutor to the young prince Henry, 

 and early acquired such reputation for learning 

 that Erasmus styles him ' the one light and orna- 

 ment of British" letters.' He took lioly orders in 

 1498, and liecame rector of Diss in Norfolk, but 

 seems later to have been KttfMBdod for keeping a 

 concubine ; although l-'uller tells us how, on nis 

 death-lied he protested 'that in hi.- conscience he 

 kept her in the notion of a wife, though such his 

 cowardliness that he would rather confess adultery 

 (then accounted but a venial) than own marriage, 

 esteemed a capital crime in that age.' Wood tells 

 us that he 'was esteemed more lit for the -i.-iL.-e 

 than the pew or pulpit,' and Churchyard -av- ' his 

 talkc was as he wraet.' Already he had produced 

 some translations, and elegies upon Edward IV. 

 nnd that Earl of Northumberland murdered by a 

 Yorkshire mob in 1489; but now lie struck into 

 an original vein of satirical vernacular poen\. 

 in rattling verses of six, five, and even four 

 syllables, with i|uiek-reciirring rhymes, overflowing 

 with grotesc|iie words and images and mire-trained 

 iocnlaritv. and lightened up by bright gleams of 

 fancy. His IMMII leaned strongly towards satire, 

 and in this kind his chief productions were The 

 Kovgr nf t'mirlr, I'nti/n I7ontr, and IIV/.v I'nmt ye 

 not to Court'-. Of these the first is an allegorical 

 poem showing striking power of characterisation ; 



the second, a vigorous and unsparing attack on the 

 corruptions of the church, of which he himself 

 says, 'though my rvme be ragged, tattered and 

 jagged, rudely rain-lieaten, rust and moth eaten, 

 take well therewith, it hath in it some 

 pvth;' the last is a sustained invective against 

 Cardinal Wolsey. He attacks with the mo-t 

 plain-spoken boldness his arrogance, avarice, and 

 incontinence, and does not spare even his 'gresy 

 genealogy' and the 'bocher's stall.' Wolsey felt 

 i he sting, and tried to arrest his libeller, but'Skel- 

 ton lied to the sanctuary in Westminster, \\heie 

 Abbot klip sheltered him till his death, .Mine 21, 

 1529. Of his other poems the chief are 7 Vi ///////( 

 Sparowe, a young girl s lament for a pet bird killed 

 in a convent of black nuns at Carowe near Nor- 

 wich, an amusing but rather profane je ifesprit, 

 which Coleridge called 'an exquisite and original 

 poem;' The Tunnyng of Kliiimur fiMMMfNf, a 

 vigorous burlesque picture of low life, its heroine 

 an ale-wife at Leatherhead in Surrey ; the Cur 

 lande of Laitrell, a long but less successful poem ; 

 and Magnyfycence, the only one of his Interludes 

 that has survived. Skelton's reputation for wit, 

 if not ribaldry, was so great that a wretched book 

 of ' merye tales ' was popularly linked with his 

 name : as undeserved is Pope's phrase ' beastly 

 Skelton ' written on occasion of a reprint in 1736 

 of the first collected edition ( 1568). The only good 

 edition is that by the Rev. A. Dyce (2 vols. 1843). 



SKciic. WILLIAM FORBES, an erudite Scottish 

 historian, was born at Inverie in Inverness-shire, 

 7th June 1809, the second son of Scott's friend, 

 James Skene (1775-1864). He hod his educa- 

 tion at Edinburgh High School, in Germany, 

 and at the universities of St Andrews and 

 Edinburgh, afterwards, in 1834, becoming a 

 Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. In 1879 he 

 received the D.C.L. degree from Oxford, and in 

 1881 he succeeded. Hill Burton as Historiographer 

 for Scotland. He died on the 29th August Is'.i'J. 

 Among his most important works are The High,- 

 liiiKlrrx <>f Snit/iiiul (-2 vols. 1837), The Dean of 

 Lismore's Book: a Selection of Ancient (latin- 

 J';,-frif (1861); Chronicles of the Picts and Scott 

 ( 1807) ; Fonlun's Cronica Genii's Scotoriim (2 vols. 

 1871 ); The Four Ancient Books of Wales (2 vols, 

 1868) ; Celtic Scotland, n History of Ancient Alban 

 (3 vols. 1876-80) ; and Memorials of tin f-'mnily of 

 Skene of Skein ( New Spalding Club, 1887). 



SUcpl iriMii. See SCEITICISM. 



Skerries, a name applied to several groups of 

 isolated rocky islets round the coasts of Great 

 Britain, more" especially a group about 2 miles off 

 the north-west coast of Anglesey, having a light- 

 house 117 feet high. See also PENTLAND FlRTH. 



Skerries, an Irish seaport, 18 miles N. by E. 

 of Dublin. Pop. 2227. 



Skerrwore, the chief rock of a reef which 

 lies 10 miles SW. of Tyree and 24 W. of lon.-i. 

 This reef, which stretches 8 mile- west south west- 

 ward, is i po-ed of compact gneiss, worn smooth 



by the constant action of the waves, and wax long 

 a terror to mariners, having caused the loss of one 

 ship annually for forty vein- pievious to 1S44. 

 The Northern Lighthouse Commission had long 

 intended the erection of a lighthouse on Skerry- 

 vore. tin- only point of this dangerous reef which 

 could afford the needful foundation ; but the difli- 

 cully of landing on the rock, from the immense 

 force (3 tons to the superficial foot) with which the 

 Atlantic waves beat "I 1 "" "' caused the delay of 

 the scheme till 1838. The design and superintend 

 ence of the building were oil i listed to Alan Steven 

 son, who followed generally the mode adopted by 

 his father, Robert Stevenson, in the construction 

 of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, and completed hut 



