STRADELLA 



STRAFFORD 



757 



of Tyrrhenia adjacent to Sardinia ; towards the 

 south, from the Euxine to the borders of Ethiopia. 

 And perhaps there is not one among those who 

 have written geographies who has visited more 

 places than I have between these limits.' Yet it 

 must not be supposed that he describes with equal 

 accuracy or fullness all the countries of whose 

 geography he treats. Some he seems to have 

 visited hurriedly, or in passing elsewhither; others 

 he knows like a native. For example, his accounts 

 of Greece, particularly the Peloponnesus, are 

 meagre in the extreme, and of many of the obscurer 

 regions he writes chiefly from hearsay. He makes 

 copious use of his predecessors Eratosthenes, 

 Artemidorus, Polybius, Posidonius, Aristotle, 

 Theopompus, Thucydides, Aristobulus, and many 

 other writers now lost to us, but he strangely 

 depreciates the authority of Herodotus, and quotes 

 few Roman writers except Fabius Pictor and Julius 

 Cfesar. Of the seventeen books of the Geography 

 books i.-ii. contain a criticism of former geo- 

 graphers, and the mathematical part of physical 

 geography the poorest portion of the work ; book 

 iii. is devoted to Spain ; iv. to Gaul, Britain, and 

 Ireland ; v. and vi. to Italy ; vii. to the north and 

 east of Europe as far as the Danube ; viii.-x. to 

 Greece ; xi.-xvi. to Asia ; xvii. to Africa. The 

 style is pure and simple. The editio princess of 

 Strabo appeared at Venice in 1516. Good editions 

 are those by Miiller and Dlibner (1853-56) and 

 Meineke (1852-53). See Marcel Dubois, Examen 

 de la Geographic de Strabo ( 1891 ). 



Slradcllil. AI.ESSANDRO, a singer and musical 

 composer, famous both in respect of his music and 

 of his own tragical history. His works, which con- 

 sist of airs, duets, cantatas, madrigals, sonatas, 

 and the oratorio San Giovanni Battista ( his most 

 important production ), contributed to form the 

 taste of such composers as Purcell and Scar- 

 latti. The dates of his life are altogether un- 

 certain ; it can only be affirmed that he lived 

 during the second half of the 17th century. But 

 the facts or events of his life are better ascer- 

 tained. Stradella, who was renowned for his 

 exquisite voice and polished manner, was engaged 

 bv a wealthy Venetian to instruct his mistress in 

 singing. But master and pupil became infatuated 

 with one another and fled to Rome. They were 

 traced thither by two bravos despatched by the 

 Venetian ; but both assassins, it is said, were so 

 captivated with the music of Stradella's oratorio, 

 which they heard him conducting whilst lying in 

 wait for him, that they abandoned their object, 

 after lietraving to him the plot. Stradella and the 

 lady then fled to Turin. They were found there, 

 ana the musician was attacked and left grievously 

 wounded. He recovered and married the lady, and 

 then proceeded to Genoa (1678). The day after 

 his arrival both he and his wife were mortally 

 stabbed in their bedchamber by the emissaries of 

 their unrelenting persecutor. 



Stradivari, ANTONIO, the famed violin-maker 

 of Cremona, lived 1649-1737. He was the pupil of 

 Nicholas Amati, and carried the Cremona type of 

 violin to its highest perfection. See VIOLIN. 



Stratford, THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF, 

 English statesman, was born on Good Friday, 13th 

 April 1593, in Chancery Lane, London, at the 

 house of his mother's father, Robert Atkinson, a 

 bencher of Lincoln's Inn. The eldest of the twelve 

 children of Sir William Wentwprth, he represented 

 a great Yorkshire family, which from before the 

 Conquest had been seated at Wentworth-Wood- 

 honse near Rotherham, and was allied to royalty 

 itaelf. He grew np a keen sportsman, an apt and 

 dilijr^nt scholar, and was sent at an early age to 

 8t John's College, Cambridge. In 1611 he was 



knighted and married ; and having thereafter 

 travelled for fourteen months in France and Italy, 

 in 1614 lie was returned to parliament for the county 

 of York, and succeeded his father in the baronetcy 

 and an estate of 6000 a year. In 1615 he became 

 custos rotulorum for the West Riding a post from 

 which Buckingham sought two years later to oust 

 him ; else we know little about him during James 

 I.'s reign save as a generally silent member in three 

 brief parliaments, a strenuous student, and a fre- 

 quent attendant at the Court of Star-chamber. 

 His first wife, Lady Margaret Clifford, eldest 

 daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, died childless 

 in 1622, and in 1625 he married Lady Arabella 

 Holies, the younger daughter of Lord Clare. j 



Conscious of his own splendid abilities, and with 

 no great belief in parliamentary wisdom, loyal in 

 his devotion to crown and church, an eager advo- 

 cate of domestic reforms, and therefore opposed to 

 all wars of aggression, Wentworth in Charles's first 

 parliament ( 1625 ) acted with, yet was not of, the 

 opposition ; from the second ne was purposely 

 excluded by his appointment to be sheriff of York- 

 shire. In the July of that same year (1626), after 

 a vain application to Buckingham for the pre- 

 sidency of the Council of the North, he was curtly 

 dismissed from the keepership of the rolls, and for 

 refusing to pay the forced loan he was committed 

 first to the Marshalsea and then to an easy cap- 

 tivity at Dartford. So in the famous third parlia- 

 ment (1628) he impetuously headed the onslaught, 

 not on the king, but on his evil ministers, and 

 pledged himself ' to vindicate what ? New things ? 

 No ! our ancient, sober, and vital liberties ! by 

 reinforcing of the ancient laws made by our 

 ancestors ; by setting such a stamp upon them as 

 no licentious spirit shall dare hereafter to enter 

 upon them.' From its meeting on 17th March 

 until 5th May he was the leader of the Lower 

 House; on 7th July the Petition of Right (q.v.), 

 superseding a similar measure of his own, became 

 law ; and on the 22d he was created Baron Went- 

 worth, on 10th December Viscount Wentworth, 

 and on the 15th President of the North. As such 

 at York he set himself to govern, to strengthen 

 government with an efficient militia and ample 

 revenue, and to 'comply with that public and 

 common protection which good kings afford their 

 good people.' Towards these ends he used on 

 occasion high-handed methods, which embroiled 

 him, however, chiefly with the gentry. His second 

 wife died in October 1631, leaving a son William, 

 second Earl of Strafford (1626-95, died s.p.), and 

 two daughters ; and within a twelvemonth he 

 married privately Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George 

 Rhodes, Knight. 



In January 1632 he was appointed Lord Deputy 

 of Ireland, but it was not till the July of the 

 following year that he landed at Dublin. His 

 plans had, however, been meanwhile carefully 

 matured ; and with the subtlety of a Machiavel 

 and the strength of an Englishman he straightway 

 proceeded to coerce Ireland into a state of obedience 

 and well-being unknown alike before and after- 

 wards. He raised the revenue from an annual 

 deficit of 14,000 to a surplus of 60,000, and the 

 customs from 12,000 to 40,000 ; transformed the 

 army from a rabble of 1300 to an orderly force of 

 8000 ; swept the seas of the corsairs infesting them ; 

 introduced the cultivation of flax, still Ireland's 

 one flourishing industry ; called into existence a 

 docile parliament ; did his utmost to cleanse the 

 Augean stable of the Protestant Church ; and, 

 whilst seeking ' to draw Ireland into conformity of 

 religion with England,' could yet boast truly that 

 since he had ' the honour to be employed there, no 

 hair of any man's head was touched for the free 

 exercise of his conscience." The aim of his policy 



