STOWSTRAFFORD. 



419 



pipes, displaces that which was previously in the 

 room, and the air blows out at the crevices and key- 

 holes, instead of blowing in, as it does in rooms 

 with common fire-places. 



STOW, JOHN; an English historian and anti- 

 quary, bora about 1525, in London. His father, a 

 tailor, brought him up to his own business; but his 

 mind early took a bent towards antiquarian re- 

 searches. About the year 1560, he formed the de- 

 sign of composing the annals of English history, for 

 the completion of which he quitted his trade. For 

 the purpose of examining records, charters, and 

 other documents, he travelled on foot to several 

 public establishments, and purchased old books, 

 manuscripts, and parchments, until he had made a 

 valuable collection. Being thought to be favour- 

 able to the ancient religion, an information was laid 

 against him, in 1568, as a suspicious person, who 

 possessed many dangerous books. The bishop of 

 London accordingly ordered an investigation of his 

 study, in which, of course, were found many popish 

 books among the rest ; but the result has not been 

 recorded. Two years afterwards, an unnatural 

 brother, having defrauded him of his goods, sought 

 to take away his life by preferring one hundred and 

 forty articles against him, before the ecclesiastical 

 commission ; but he was acquitted. He had pre- 

 viously printed his first work, entitled a Summarie 

 of the Englyshe Chronicles, compiled at the instance 

 of Dudley, afterwards earl of Leicester, which was 

 published in 1565, and afterwards continued by 

 Edmond Howes, who printed several editions. He 

 contributed to the improvement of the second edi- 

 tion of Holinshed, in 1587, and gave corrections 

 and notes to two editions of Chaucer. At length, 

 in 1598, appeared his Survey of London, the work 

 on which he had been so long employed, and which 

 came to a second edition during his life-time. He 

 was very anxious to publish his large chronicle, or 

 history of England, but lived only to print an ab- 

 stract of it, entitled Flares Historiarum, or Annals 

 of England. From his papers, Howes published a 

 folio volume, entitled Stow's Chronicle, which does 

 not, however, contain the whole of the larger work, 

 which he had left, transcribed for the N press, and 

 which is said to have fallen into the possession of 

 Sir Symonds Dewes. A license was granted him 

 by James I., " to repair to churches or other places, 

 to receive the charitable benevolence of well-dis- 

 posed people," in the seventy-eighth year of his age. 

 He died, afflicted by poverty and disease, in 1605, 

 at the age of eighty. Stow's Survey has run through 

 six editions, the last in 1754, with considerable ad- 

 ditions, and a continuation of the useful lists. 



STOWE; a parish in Buckinghamshire, Eng- 

 land, two miles north-west of Buckingham, con- 

 taining the celebrated seat, garden and pleasure- 

 grounds of the duke of Buckingham. The house, 

 situated on an eminence rising from a lake, mea- 

 sures 916 feet from east to west : the saloon, 

 sixty feet long, forty-three feet broad, and fifty-six 

 and a half feet high, cost about 13,500; the 

 state drawing-room, fifty feet by thirty-two, and 

 twenty-two feet high, contains a collection of fine 

 pictures, mostly by the old masters. The library 

 consists of 10,000 printed volumes, with many 

 valuable manuscripts. The house is approached 

 through a Corinthian arch, sixty feet high by sixty 

 wide. The gardens comprise four hundred acres 

 of highly decorated grounds. Temples, obelisks, 

 statues, grottoes, &c., scattered around in great 

 profusion, seem to realize the descriptions of en- 



chanted gardens. The Elysian fields, watered by a 

 small rivulet, issuing from a grotto, and emptying 

 into a lake, contain the figures of heroes, poets and 

 philosophers. In the temple of Ancient Virtue, a 

 circular building of the Ionic order, stand the 

 statues of Homer, Lycurgus, Socrates, and Enami- 

 nondas. The temple of British worthies contains 

 busts of Shakspeare, Milton, Pope, Newton, Bacon, 

 Locke, Sic. The temple of Concord and Virtue is 

 a handsome building, of an oblong shape, surrounded 

 with twenty-eight fluted Ionic columns. Lord 

 Cobham's pillar is a column 115 feet high, sur- 

 mounted by a statue. The Gothic temple, a 

 triangular building, with a tower at each end, is 

 richly adorned with old painted glass. 



STRABO, a distinguished Greek geographer, 

 was born at Amasia, in Cappadocia, about 19 A. D. ( 

 studied rhetoric and the Aristotelian philosophy, 

 and afterwards embraced the Stoic doctrines. He 

 travelled through Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Asia, 

 endeavouring to obtain the most accurate informa- 

 tion in regard to the geography, statistics and poli- 

 tical conditions of the countries which he visited. 

 The time of his death is unknown. His great 

 geographical work, in seventeen books, contains a 

 full account of the manners and governments of dif- 

 ferent people ; his materials were derived from his 

 own observations and inquiries, or from the geo- 

 graphical works of Hecatseus.Artemidorus.Eudoxius, 

 and Eratosthenes, now lost, and the writings of his- 

 torians and poets. His work is invaluable to us. 

 The last editions are those of Sieberikees (continued 

 by Tzschucke, but not completed, Lcipsic, 1796 

 1811, 7 vols.) and of Coray (4 vols., Paris, 1819.) 

 Those of Casaubon (1620, fol.) and Almeloveen 

 (Amsterdam, 1707, 2 vols., fol.) are also highly 

 esteemed. 



STRADA, FAMIANUS ; an Italian historian, and 

 elegant writer of modern Latin poetry, born at 

 Rome, in 1572. He entered into the society of the 

 Jesuits in 1592, and became professor of rhetoric 

 at the Roman college, where he resided till his 

 death, in 1649. His most famous works are a His- 

 tory of the Wars in the Netherlands, in Latin, and 

 Prolusiones Academicce, which have been repeatedly 

 published. In one of these prolusions, he has in- 

 troduced ingenious imitations of the style of the 

 most celebrated Roman poets, of which there are 

 many translations, including those published by 

 Addison, in the Guardian. 



STRAFFORD, SIR THOMAS WENTWORTH, 

 earl of, an eminent minister and statesman, was the 

 eldest son of Sir William Went worth, of an ancient 

 family in Yorkshire. He was born in London, in 

 1593, and entered of St John's college, Cambridge. 

 After leaving the university, he travelled, and, on 

 his return, received the honour of knighthood. 

 The death of his father, in 1614, gave him posses- 

 sion of a large fortune ; and he was soon after ap- 

 pointed custos rotulorum of the \\-est riding of York- 

 shire, in lieu of Sir John Savile. In 1621, he was 

 chosen member of parliament for the county of 

 York ; and when Charles I. asserted that the com- 

 mons enjoyed no rights but by royal permission, Sir 

 Thomas Wentworth, already distinguished for abi- 

 lity, strenuously called upon the house to maintain 

 that their privileges were rights by inheritance. In 

 1622, he lost his first wife, of the noble family of 

 Clifford, and in 1625, married Arabella, second 

 daughter of Holies, earl of Clare. On the conven- 

 ing of the new parliament, in the same year, he was 

 one of the six popular members who were prevented 

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