

SORTES VIHGII.I \ 



sol msK 



manufacture of silk and the making of parquetry 

 are extensively carried on. It is celebrated fin tin 1 

 mildness and general salubrity of ite climate, for 

 it- beautiful situation in tin- midst of orange-groves 

 and fruit gardens, and for the pictnresqueness of 

 the a<ljacent coast; on these accounts it is imirli 

 ir-oricd to by suninier visitors. In tin- time of 

 Augustus it was noted for ite fine buildings ; but 

 few trace* of these now exist, \rmuiu the Romans 

 tin- wine of Sorrento was held in high repute. 

 Tosso was a native. Pop. 6089. 



Sortes Virifiliiiiia-. a favourite mode of 

 divination among the ancients, in which an oracular 

 answer was found in a doubtful juncture by open- 

 ing Virgil's Alnetd at random, and pricking a pin 

 into the hook, or taking the first passage on which 

 the eye chanced to real. Another method was to 

 take a number of his verses, shake them together 

 in an urn, and draw out one, from whose contents 

 to infer gocxl or evil. The ancient Sibylline oracles 

 naturally afforded a subject, and the strange magi- 

 cal reputation early attached to Virgil helped to 

 make his great poem the book most frequently 

 used for this purpose. The mediaeval mind read 

 Christianity into Virgil, and consequently found 

 no difficulty in ascribing equal value to the jEncut 

 and the Bible for purposes of divination. \\"e are 

 told that Severus fore-read his high destiny in 

 the line, ' Tn regere ini|>erio populos, Romane, 

 memento;' and Gordianus, who was to reign for 

 lint a few days, read his doom in the words, 



1 Ostendnnt terris hunc tantum fata, nee ultra esse 

 sinunt.' Gundulf, afterwards bishop of Rochester, 

 and two other monks one day at Caen turned over 

 the pages of a book of tln> gospels to read their 

 future fortunes, and the Abbot Lanfranc foretold 

 from Gundiilf's passage that he should yet become 

 a bishop. Rabelais found his license to escape 

 from the bondage of the convent in the line, ' Heu ! 

 fuge rrudeles terras, fugc lilt us avarnm ; ' and we 

 may see all tlie weakness of this method in the 

 perplexity of the answers it yielded in the great 

 question of I'linnrge's marriage. Dr Wei wood 

 tells us that Charles I. and Lord Falkland once 

 made experiment of their future fortunes at the 

 Bodleian in Oxford, and found passages equally 

 ominous to each. The lines which the king 

 read (/. iv. 615-620) from Dido's impreca- 

 tion against .Kneas plainly foretold reliellion, 

 defeat, and a shameful death ; Falkland opened 

 at Ev-ander's lamentation over the untimely death 

 of his son Paila.4 ( /En. xi. 152-1H1). Unfor- 

 tunately for this lieaiitiful story. Aubrey in his 

 Remains of Gentilistmr, ml ,1 inliiixnii- tells it of 

 Prince Charles and the poet Cow ley at Paris just 

 )>efore the trial of the king. At any rate Cowley 

 himself tells us that he found smiie light from 

 Virgil about the Seoitisli treaty, when employed 

 as a secretary in a Hairs of stale : and we read 

 how the Lord Chamlicrlain used the passage in 



2 Chron. xix. "> 8 during Charles l.'s miserable 

 Sunday of hesitation about the execution of 

 Stratford to convince the king that the responsi- 

 bility really rested upon the judges. Sir Thomas 

 Browne in his Ptifpar JTrror* denounce* the 5orfM 

 as an ancient fragment of pagan divination ; and 

 Dr Nathanael Home, in his I hi ninnnln^ir ( ItlfiO), 

 deplores the loss to the .-tale ami the -in to the 

 rliurch engendered through lots by sieves and 

 books. 



The early Christian writers denounced divina- 

 tion by lots as magical, and therefore a form of 

 idolatry. Still the practice continued to IM- common 



' p<-r sortw sanctorum.' by the first passage found 

 in the palter or gospel, ihe h-ctionary or sacra- 

 mentary. St A ugu-tine condemned this as an abuse 

 of the divine oracles, yet preferred to see men turn 

 in this way to the gospels rather than to demons. 



And we find that an unsought omen from a psalm 

 emlixl the op|tosition to the choice of St Martin as 

 bishop of 'lours. The ,W/. v .tfm.\t<i/<,riitH was a 

 collection of pious sentences much employed i,,r 

 divination, a bread and water fast of thn-e d:i\s 

 lieing prescribed liefore using it. A similar n 

 the Bible long survived amongst Proie-tants. and 

 indeed is not to this day extinct a ..... ng poop: 

 simple faith in corners of England and Germain. 

 A characteristic instance is told of his own e\peii- 

 ence by the great Cambridge evaiigcli.-al leader. 

 Charles Simeon, when downcast about the oppo>i 

 tion to his ministry in his earlier years. ' I praxeil 

 that God would comfort me with some cordial from 

 Mi- word, and that, on opening the book. I might 

 find some text which should sustain me. It was not 

 for direction I was looking, for I am no friend to 

 such superstitions as the Sortes Virgil i mi , but only 

 for support. The first text that caught my eye 

 was Matt, xxvii. 32. ... Simon was tin- same as 

 Simeon. What a word of instruction was here, 

 what a blessed hint for my encouragement ! ' The 

 obstinate survival of this superstition depends ii|K>n 

 the naturalness of the notion, where there is a 

 strong conviction of the power and watchful care 

 of an overruling Providence, and a belief in the 

 Bible as the literally inspired hand-bonk of divine 

 guidance to man. Bibliolatry makes the notion of 

 such divination perfectly rational, and we may 

 well believe that its disuse has been merely a 

 consequence of the decaying respect for the mere 

 letter of Scripture. See DIVINATION, and MAGIC. 

 See FERNS. 



Solrriolosry. that part of theology which 

 treats of salvation by a redeemer (Gr. Soter). 

 See ATONEMENT, CHRIST, CHRISTIANITY, JESUS 

 CHRIST. 



Sotliern. EDWARD ASKEW, comedian, was 

 IMH-II in Liverpool, 1st April 1826, and, declining 

 the church, medicine, or the bar, in 1849 joined a 

 company of players in Jersey, and soon afterwards 

 passed into the stock company of the Theatre 

 Royal, Birmingham, From 1859 he appeared in 

 the United States, without much success, until in 

 1858 Our American Cousin, by Tom Taylor, was 

 brought out in New York, with Bottom oast for 

 the small part (forty-seven lines) of Lord Dun- 

 dreary. The piece was a poor tiling, and the 

 character of the Knu'li-h peer as pla\goeis know 

 it was Sot herns own creation, bit by bit. In 

 Novemlier 1861 the play was produced in London, 

 at the Ha\ market . and ran for over 400 nights ; 

 and it was again and again revived in later \e.-<i-. 

 Sothem essayed many other characters, but 'he is 

 leinrmbcred chiefly as Dundreary; his other nio>t 

 memorable parts were David Garriok in liolx-rt- 

 son's comedy, and perhaps Kit/altamont in Th, 

 Crush* il Tniiirtliiiii ; the latter failed utterly in 

 Kngland, but was always popular in America, 

 whither Sothern returned several times. He .lied 

 in London, 21st January 1881. See the Memoir by 

 T. E. Pemlwrton (1890). 



5010. FKI; s \ M H > DE. See DE SOTO. 



Sottevillc-lcs-ltoiU'll, a town of France, 



dept. of Seine - IntVrioure. I miles by rail S. of 

 Rouen, with railway workshops and cotton indus- 

 tries. Pop. (1891) 15,608. 



5011, or Sol,. See SOLIDUS. 



Soilhiso. an ancient French family, whose 



Property and title came in 157") into the house of 

 tohan by the marriage of their heiress. Catherine 

 de Part Ill-nay . with the Vironite Rene II. dc Rohan. 

 Memorable as champions of the Huguenot cause 

 were both sons of this marriage, the elder, Henri, 

 Due de Rohan (q.v. ), and the younger son, 

 Benjamin de Rohan, to whom the soigneury of 



