400 



STEELYARD STENOGRAPHY. 



object was now to obtain a scat in parliament, for 

 which purpose he resigned his place in the stamp 

 office, and a pension. He was accordingly elected 

 for Stockbridge, but was soon afjter expelled the 

 house for an alleged libel in the last number of the 

 Englishman, and in another paper, called the Crisis. 

 His expulsion being purely the result of ministerial 

 resentment, he regained favour on the accession of 

 George I., and received the appointments of surveyor 

 of the royal stables, and governor of the king's 

 comedians, and was knighted. He also again 

 entered the house of commons as member for 

 Boroughbridge, and received 500 from Sir Robert 

 Walpole, for special services. On the suppression 

 of the rebellion of 1715, he was appointed one of 

 the commissioners for the forfeited estates in Scot- 

 land, when he busied himself in an abortive scheme 

 for a union between the churches of England and 

 Scotland. Devoid of all prudential attention to 

 economy, although he married two wives succes- 

 sively with respectable fortunes, he was uniformly 

 embarrassed in his circumstances. Always engaged 

 in some scheme or other, few or none of which suc- 

 ceeded, he wasted his regular income in the antici- 

 pation of a greater, until absolute distress was the 

 consequence. A/scheme for bringing fish to market 

 alive, in particular, involved him in much embar- 

 rassment, which was heightened by the loss of his 

 theatrical patent, in consequence of his opposition 

 to the peerage bill. He appealed to the public, in 

 a paper called the Theatre, and, in 1720, honour- 

 ably distinguished himself against the famous South 

 sea scheme. He was restored, the following year, 

 to his authority over Drury-lane theatre, and soon 

 after wrote his Comedy of the Conscious Lovers, 

 on a hint from Terence, first acted in 1722, and 

 dedicated to the king, who rewarded the author 

 with 500. His pecuniary difficulties, however, 

 increasing, he retired to a seat in Wales, where a 

 paralytic stroke impaired his understanding, and 

 finally terminated his life, in 1729. Besides the 

 works already mentioned, Sir Richard Steele pub- 

 lished two periodical papers, called the Lover, and 

 the Reader, as well as numerous political pieces. 



STEELYARD; a kind of balance, called also 

 the Roman balance, by means of which the gravities 

 of different bodies are found, by a single weight 

 being placed on the lever or beam, so as to secure 

 an equilibrium, the notches and figures marked on 

 it denoting the number of pounds. 



STEEN, JAN, a distinguished painter, was born 

 at Leyden, in 1636. He studied under Brouwer 

 and Van Goyen, and married the daughter of the 

 latter. Being imprudent and intemperate in his 

 habits, he neglected all the advantages which lay 

 in his way, until finally reduced to paint for a mere 

 subsistence. He had a strong, manly style of exe- 

 cution, the result of native talent rather than of 

 application, which, together with a fine feeling of 

 humour, conducted him to a high degree of profes- 

 sional excellence. Among his capital pictures are 

 a Mountebank surrounded with Spectators, a 

 Quaker's Funeral, and a Marriage Contract. His 

 works did not obtain an extraordinary price during 

 his life; but, after his death, being far from nu- 

 merous, they so rose in value as to become some 

 of the highest priced of his peculiar school. His 

 death is generally dated in 1689, but by Houbraken 

 eleven years earlier. 



STEENKERKE, OR STEINKIRCHE, OR 

 STEENKERQUE; a village of Belgium, in Hai- 

 naut, thirteen miles north of Mons. Here a bloody 



battle was fought between the allies, commanded 

 by William III., king of England, and the French, 

 under the duke of Luxembourg, the 24th of July, 

 1692, in which the latter were victorious. 



STEERAGE; an apartment before the great 

 cabin, from which it is separated by a partition or 

 bulk-head. In merchant-ships, it is generally the 

 habitation of the inferior officers and crew; but in 

 ships of war, it serves only as a hall or anti-chamber 

 to the great or captain's cabin. Steerage is also 

 used to express the effort of the helm. Steerage- 

 way implies a sufficient degree of motion communi- 

 cated to a ship for her to become susceptible of 

 the effects of the helm in governing her course. 



STEERING. See Helm. 



STEEVENS, GEORGE, a dramatic critic and bio- 

 grapher, was born at Stepney, where his father, an 

 East India director, resided, and educated at Cam- 

 bridge. In 1766, he published twenty of the plays 

 of Shakspeare, with notes, in 4 vols., 8vo. The 

 skill which he displayed as a commentator induced 

 doctor Johnson to take him as a coadjutor in his 

 edition of the works of the great dramatist (1773, 

 10 vols., 8vo.) A new edition of the Shakspeare 

 of Johnson and Steevens appeared in 1785; and, in 

 1793, Mr Steevens produced an enlarged and im- 

 proved edition of the same work, in 15 vols., 8vo. 

 He was one of the contributors to Nichol's Biogra- 

 phical Anecdotes of Hogarth ; and he also assisted 

 in the Biographia Dramatica. His death took 

 place at Hampstead, January 22, 1800. Mr 

 Steevens left a valuable library of dramatic and 

 other English literature, of which a catalogue ap- 

 peared after his decease. 



STEGANOGRAPHY. See Cryptograph,. 



STEIERMARK, OR STEYERMARK. ' See 

 Stiria. 



STEIN, JOHN ANDREW, a distinguished organ 

 and piano-forte maker, was born, in 1728, in the 

 Palatinate, and died in 1792. He invented several 

 musical instruments. His piano-fortes were sent 

 all over Europe. 



STEINKOPF, JOHN FREDERIC, professor and 

 court painter at Stuttgart, died in 1825, ninety-four 

 years old. Many of his paintings, particularly 

 horses, are in the royal castles. 



STELLIONATE,in Roman law; the deceiving 

 others to their pecuniary disadvantage. The Ro- 

 mans frequently used stellionatus to express all 

 kinds of deceits that had no proper names. 



STEM; a circular piece of timber, into which 

 the two sides of a ship are united at the fore end: 

 the lower end of it is scarfed to the keel, and the 

 bowsprit rests upon its upper end; the ends of the 

 wales and planks of the sides and bottom are let 

 into a groove or channel cut in the middle of its 

 surface from top to bottom. The outside of the 

 stem is usually marked with a scale of feet answer- 

 ing to a perpendicular from the keel. The use of 

 this scale is to ascertain the draught of water. 

 From stem to stern; from one end of the ship to 

 the other. 



STEM, in botany. See Botany. 



STEMMATA, in the history of insects, are 

 three smooth, hemispheric dots, placed generally 

 on the top of the head, as in most of the hymeno- 

 ptera and other classes. 



STENOGRAPHY (from -TM, narrow, and 

 y^Ktfu, I write) ; the art of writing in abbreviations 

 and with many arbitrary signs to denote whole 

 syllables, words, and phrases, so that the writing 

 may occupy but little room, and be executed with 



