804- 



STOURBRIGE--SUGAR. 



was there a less assuming or more disinterested in- 

 dividual. He hated all collision with bustling arro- 

 gant men, and took care to avoid them. His voice 

 was low and not unmusical: he abounded in anec- 

 dote; and with those to whom he could unbosom 

 himself was one of the most agreeable companions 

 breathing, for his observations on men and manners 

 were always shrewd and intelligent. He was an 

 early riser, loving to walk into the streets to look 

 at the various classes of the toiling community 

 hurrying to their work : this was one of his places of 

 study; he made sketches of labourers andartisans, 

 singly and in groups ; nor did he fail to include 

 flower-girls, and all such moving dealers as London 

 finds employment for. 



When young, he studied with great diligence at 

 the royal academy. The first picture he exhibited 

 was Ajax defending the body of Patroclus ;" 

 and the walls of Somerset house were subsequently 

 enriched during a long course of years by his 

 works. He was elected an associate of the royal 

 academy in 1785, and a royal academician in 1794. 

 In 1810 he was appointed deputy librarian ; and on Mr 

 Burch's death, in 1812, succeeded him as librarian. 

 On becoming a painter by profession, he took apart- 

 ments in the Strand, opposite Somerset House, 

 but for above the last forty years of his life he re- 

 sided at No. 28, Newman street. He died on the 

 29th of April, 1834, in the seventy-ninth year of 

 his age. He left a large family of children, some 

 of whom have distinguished themselves in the arts. 



STOURBRIDGE; a town in the county of 

 Worcester, 122 miles N.W. from London. It 

 derives its name from its situation on the Stour, 

 over which is a bridge, connecting this county 

 with that of Stafford. The manufactures of 

 Stourbridge are considerable, particularly in glass, 

 iron, cloth, and bricks. The glass manufacture 

 was established here when it was first introduced 

 from Lorraine, in 1557- Drinking glasses, win- 

 dow-glass, bottles, and fine stone pots and cruci- 

 bles of superior excellence are here made. The 

 iron manufactures consist chiefly of the making of 

 nails, agricultural implements, &c. ; and the quar- 

 terly general meetings of traders in iron are held 

 at Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Stourbridge, 

 on their respective market days. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of this place are several mines, which 

 produce coal, iron, stone, and clay ; which last, 

 from its use and excellence in the manufacture of 

 glass, is considered the best in the world. At the 

 free grammar-school of Stourbridge, Dr Johnson 

 received the rudiments of his education. Popula- 

 tion in 1841. 7481. 



STOWELL, the right Hon. William Scott, 

 LOUD, judge of the high court of admiralty, was 

 the eldest son of William Scott, a coal merchant 

 of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and was born in 1745, 

 the year of the Scottish Rebellion, at Heworth, in 

 the county of Durham, his mother having been 

 conveyed to that place on account of the alarm 

 occasioned by the approach of the rebels to New- 

 castle. Lord Stovvell, as did his younger brother 

 John (afterwards the earl of Eldon, and lord chan- 

 cellor of England), received the rudiments of his 

 classical education at the grammar school in New- 

 castle. He was graduated, in 1764, A.B. at Cor- 

 pus Christi college, Oxford; in 1765, was ad- 

 mitted fellow of university college, also the same 

 year appointed a tutor; in 1773, was elected reader 

 of ancient histories ; in 1779, he took the degree 

 of D. C. L., and soon after he commenced his career 



as an advocate in the civil law court?, and rapidly 

 rose to the highest eminence. He was knighted 

 in 1788; in 1798, he hecame judge of the high 

 court of admiralty ; in 17*'0, he was elected M.I', 

 for Downton, and in 1801, for the university of 

 Oxford, which office he continued to fill till he 

 was called to the house of Lords; and in 1821, he 

 was created a peer by the title of baron Stowi-ll. 



In 1828, lord Stowell retired from his station H;-. 

 judge of the court of admiralty, having perfoimed 

 the duties of the office for thirty years with great 

 ability and reputation. He died on the 28th Jan. 

 1836, aged ninety-one. Devoting his brilliant 

 talents and extraordinary acumen to the nol.-li-t 

 branch of his profession, the study of international 

 law, and living in times when a general war callid 

 all this knowledge into action, his decisions have 

 passed into precedents equal, if not superior, in 

 authority to those of the venerable founders of the 

 science, Puffendorf, Grotius, Vattel, &r. Lord 

 Stowell was intimately associated with several 

 very eminent men of the past age. In 1778, he 

 became a member of the " Literary Club," which 

 then numbered among its members Dr Siinniel 

 Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Edmund Burke ; 

 and Dr Johnson, just before his death, in 1784, 

 appointed him one of his three executors, the other 

 two being Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir John Haw- 

 kins. Lord Stovvell is represented to have been 

 the charm and ornament of every society of which 

 he formed a part. 



SUDBURY, formerly called Soutbborough, a 

 town in the county of Suffolk, situated on the 

 river Stow. It was the first place occupied by the 

 Flemings, who came over to this country at the in- 

 vitation of Edward III., and who were the first who 

 introduced the woollen manufactory into England. 

 The town contains three handsome churches, and 

 its houses are tolerably well built. Before the 

 reformation, it had a priory of Benedictine monks, 

 subordinate to the Abbey of Westminster; a pri- 

 ory for canons of the order of St Augustine, 

 founded by Simon, the archbishop ; and a hospital 

 for poor people, founded in the reign of king John ; 

 but no remains of these ancient edifices are now to 

 be seen. Population in 1841, 8085. 



SUGAR (a.) The commercial and economical 

 importance of sugar is of modern date. It was 

 known to the Greeks and Romans, as a medicinal 

 substance, but not as food or a condiment. Hero- 

 dotus informs us, that the Zygantes, a people of 

 Africa, had, "besides honey of bees, a much greater 

 quantity made by men." This was probably sugar, 

 but not brought to a state of crystallization. 

 Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander, " discovered 

 concerning canes, that they make honey without 

 bees." Megasthenes, quoted by Strabo, speaks, 

 300 B.C., of " India stone, sweeter than figs and 

 honey." Theophrastus, in a fragment preserved 

 by Photius, describes sugar as " a honey contained 

 in reeds." Eratosthenes, also cited by Strabo, and 

 after him, Terentius Varro, are supposed to have 

 meant sugar-canes by " roots of large reeds growing 

 in India, sweet to the taste, both when raw and 

 when boiled, and affording, by pressure, a juice 

 incomparably sweeter than honey." 



Near the commencement of the Christian era, 

 sugar was first mentioned under an appropriate 

 name and form. "In India and Arabia Felix," writes 

 Dioscorides, " a kind of concrete honey is called 

 saccharon. It is found in reeds, and resembles salt 

 in solidity, and in friableness betwixt the teeth." 



