STYLE, OLD AND NF.\\. 



STYKONE. 



8114 



influence may be detected in the style of nearly every one of the more 

 remarkable writers who have subsequently appeared among us. At 

 the aame time, however, examples of altogether a different character 

 were alao producing their effects ; and the rude vigour of Warburtoii, 

 the *airtM of Sterne and Goldsmith, and, above all, the rapidity, 

 variety, and imaginative splendour of Burke, have all operated power- 

 fully in forming the greatest of our later writers. Finally, with all 

 these influences have mingled and co-operated two others which have 

 also been impulsive and generative to a considerable, though not both 

 to the same, extent : on the one band, the revived study of our 

 old Elizabethan literature ; on the other, the new life and spirit that 

 has been put into literature, as into all tilings else, by the political and 

 social convulsions of the last fifty years. These two influences, though 

 thus apparently opposite in origin, have proved rather mutually assistant 

 than contradictory. 



1'urity of style is more intimately connected with many apparently 

 higher things than is commonly supposed. When it is considered, 

 indeed, what the wrong use of a word springs from and implies, the 

 mischief it is apt to occasion is easily understood. It is produced by a 

 confusion of thought, which is propagated wherever the vicious mode 

 of expression prevails, and which, besides the injury done in the par- 

 ticular case, hulj* generally to impair the habit and the faculty of clear 

 and correct thinking. Yet words, for obvious reasons, have a strong 

 tendency to shift their signification ; if a language were to be merely 

 spoken, and not written, this would be constantly taking place to a 

 very groat extent ; the only thing that can check it, that can furnish a 

 practically available standard of the language, is the employment of it 

 in writing. Originally, indeed, the principles upon which it is written 

 must be taken from its spoken form from the titm et nurma lotjuentli; 

 but afterwards commonly the spoken language both will be and ought 

 to be rather regulated and controlled by the written language. If it 

 should continue to be otherwise, the language would not improve, but 

 would degenerate towards barbarism ; for there could be no progress 

 in any other direction, in this or in anything else, where the com- 

 parative slovenliness and incorrectness of extemporaneous precipitation 

 were allowed to carry it over the best efforts of deliberation and care. 



STYLE, OLD AND NEW. By the Old Style is meant the mode 

 of reckoning time anterior to the Gregorian reformation of the 

 calendar ; and by the New Style, that adopted since. The adoption of 

 the reformation at different times by different countries renders it 

 necessary to remember the difference of their reckonings, as follows : 



The reformation took place in 1582 : from thence to the end of 

 February, 1700, new style is ten days in advance of old style. Thus 

 January 1 (0. S.) is January 11 (N.S.), and so on. 



From and after March 1, 1700, to the end of February, 1800, new 

 style is eleven days in advance of old style : thus January 1 (0. S.) is 

 January 12 (N. S.). 



The new style was adopted in England by 24 Geo. II. (1751), which 

 enacted 1, that the year 1752 should begin on the 1st of January 

 instead of the 25th of March, which was then the It'jal commencement; 

 2, that the 3rd day of September, 1752, should be called the 14th, or 

 that the days from the 3rd to the 13th inclusive should have no 

 minimal existence. Accordingly, the year 1751 had no January, 

 February, nor March up to the 24th inclusive ; and September wanted 

 eleven complete days. 



According to Sir Harris Nicolas, the new style was adopted as 

 follows : By Denmark, France, Holland, and most of the Low 

 Countries (some towns excepted), most of Italy, Lorrain, Portugal, 

 and Spain, in 1582; by German and Swiss Catholics in 1584; by 

 Poland in 1586; by Hungary in 1587; by German and Swiss Pro- 

 testants, and the remaining parts of Holland, c., in 1700 ; by Tuscany 

 in 1749 or 1751 ; and by Sweden in 1753. It is not yet adopted in 

 Russia. 



It was at one time sometimes the mode to express the date in both 

 styles. We have an old letter written from France to Holland in 1619, 



IS* ft 



as we should now call it, the date of which is Fcvrier _, 161? 



28 y 

 [PERIOBS OF RKVOI.UTION.] 



STYLOBATE. In its general meaning this term signifies any sort 

 of basement upon which columns are placed to raise them above' the 

 level of the ground or floor ; but in its technical meaning it is applied 

 only to a continuous unbroken pedestal, upon which an entire range of 

 columns stand in contradistinction from pedestalt, which are merely 

 detached fragments of a stylobate placed beneath each column. The 

 Greeks very rarely employed the stylobate, but placed their columns 

 immediately upon the floor of the elevated platform of the gradini, or 

 deep steps, which served as the basement of the temple, and which 

 were generally continued on every side. [GIUXIAX AUCHITI . 

 The Romans, on the contrary, broke up their stylobates into distinct 

 blocks or pedestals placed beneath each column : and most followers 

 of that or the Italian school have considered pedestals of that kind to 

 be almost essential to an entire order, and have laid down proportions 

 iingly, which are in themselves exceedingly faulty, being much 

 too high. At the best, columns upon detached pedestals always look 

 as if placed upon stilts, and where such pedestals are as high as they 

 are sometimes made, the columns seem to stand very insecurely, and 

 the effect is very much like that of a round column immediately placed 

 upon a dwarf square one. 



STYPHNIC ACID. [PHKNYMC Giioor.] 



STYPTICS (iiMiii arvwrmts, " astringent" , agents which check the 

 flow of the fluids, generally of blood,: roin a relaxed or ruptured 

 vessel. They are a kind of astringent, and the principle of their m...l.- 

 of action has been already detailed. [AM The only i>im 



requiring notice here is to enforce the necessity of their prom 

 pl.'\ in, nt, as the natural disposition of the blood to coagulate l>< 

 less and lees as it continues to Sow, till fainting be induced, and a 

 cessation of the current results, after much injury is done to the 

 system. The bleeding may be spontaneous, as is frequently the case 

 with young persons, from whose nose blood frequently flow.-, 

 when perfectly quiet, but still more frequently when running or lifting 

 some heavy weijrht, or it may be the consequence of a wound, such as 

 a leech-bite, or of the extraction of a tooth, or caused by some cutting 

 instrument. Those astringents are alone entitled to be called styptics 

 which can be applied directly to the bleeding orilire ; ami of these some 

 act chemically, others vitally, and others merely mechanically. Of 

 chemical styptics, a saturated solution of alum, or sulphate of zinc, or 

 creosote, are the best. Strong acetic acid acts both eheniii- illy ami 

 vitally. When bloqd continues to ooze from the socket of a ' 

 it is a useful plan to plug-it with a sponge-tent, which, as it expands, 

 quite fills up the socket, and restrains the haemorrhage. 



A few drops of collodion upon a leech-bite, or the nap from a hat, or 

 a spider's web, may be used. 



STYRAC1N. [STYRONE.] 



STYHACONE. [STYRONE.] 



STYKAX OFFICINALIS is the source of the officinal storax, 

 although an article is occasionally vended under this name, which is 

 obtained from the Liyitidamljar styran'Jtua, and perhaps other 

 of Lujuidambar, yet in the London Pharmacopeia, it is said to lie tin; 

 produce of an unknown plant. Of genuine storax there are several 

 varieties, and of those known to the ancients many are now altogether 

 unascertainable, while of those mentioned by even recent writers 

 several are very rare, and not of commercial importanee. Tin' tn e 

 grows in Greece and Asia Minor. Asiatic Turkey supplies whatever in 

 met with in commerce. It is procured by incisions in the bark, or 

 perhaps from the punctures of insects. Wliat flows from these openings 

 is a liquid resinous substance, which concretes into small tears, about 

 the size of peas ; these, aggregated into masses, constitute the ,<///ra.<: 

 alb us, which is of extreme rarity. Another form is that called mni/i/- 

 daluules, also of great rarity and extravagant price. It is BOmetunea 

 termed calamlta vtra. The commercial article is of various de^; 

 purity and excellence. One kind is called etoru.r calumit'i i uli/m-l.t, or 

 Sc(tbs storacina. This always contains more or less sawdust, mixed 

 with variable quantities of resin. It is generally in large round cakes, 

 of a brown colour, verging to red or black, with fragrant odour, brittle, 

 and friable, but softens in the mouth, and has a bitter taste. It burns 

 with a light flame. It is considered to be an artificial compound, 

 prepared chiefly in Venice and Trieste. Liquid Btorax contains 

 volatile oil (styrol), a trace only; resin, both soft ami hard, from 32 

 to 53 per cent, in different specimens ; benzoic acid, from 1 to 2 per 

 cent. ; guru, 7 to 1 4 ; woody fibre, 20 to 27 ; ammonia, an inappreciable 

 quantity ; cinnamic acid and styracin. 



Storax is stimulating in a degree dependent on its purity. For 

 medical purposes it is directed to be purified by solution in alcohol, 

 straining, and afterwards distilling off the spirit. The residuum is 

 then used in a few preparations, such as tinctures and pills. It 

 formerly entered into a multitude of compounds, but it might be 

 altogether supplanted by benzoin. It is much used to form pastilles, 

 and for fumigations. The bark is called mrtex tkyHMmatit, or cortex 

 tliurts, from which, by boiling, liquid storax is procured, as well as from 

 the Li'i>iidambar. There is a storax from Bogota, but its source is 

 unknown, though Geiger ascribes it to a styrax. 



STYROL (C 18 H 8 ). An essential oil existing in the gum resin, or 

 balsam, of storax. [BALSAMS.] It is obtained on distilling a mixture 

 of three parts of storax and one of carbonate of soda with water ; and 

 is purified by rectification after drying over chloride of calcium. It is 

 colourless and limpid, has a persistent aromatic odour, and boils at 

 293 Fahr. It is isomeric with cinnamol or cinnamene, but is dis- 

 tinguished by being entirely solidified when heated suddenly to 400 

 Fahr. The solid is a polymerido of styrol and is termed metastyrol, or 

 draconyl, the latter in allusion to another source, namely, dragon's 

 blood resin (Di-aciena draco). 



Styrol is miscible in all proportions with alcohol or ether ; is neutral, 

 and has a density of 0'924. Sulphur and phosphorus are soluble iu 

 it. Nitric acid converts it into benzoic and nitrobcn/.oic acids ; oily 

 and resinous bodies being simultaneously formed. Chlorine and 

 bromine form with styrol chloride and bromide of cinnamene. 



Mttagtyrul is insoluble in water or alcohol, is only slightly soluble in 

 ether, and has neither colour, odour, nor taste. It softens on the 

 ipplication of heat, and at a high temperature is reconverted into 

 styrol. Nitric acid transforms it into nitrometattyrol, 



STYRONE (C,,H 10 0, = Cl H H " j 0,). Cinaamlc al-,,1,,.!. ,sv,,, 



/ C H \ \ 



l'<!-i<r'ntc, < 1 innamyl'8tyroneor8tyracin t ormttacinnaninc (,, ', * J O 2 ) 



Vv/jgtijlJj * "/ 



s found in liquid storax and in balsam of Peru. On distilling either 

 of the latter with strong caustic potash or soda, the styrono | 



