SIN 
in monrnfng, dressed in vvliite cloth. He 
vvas of a cheeiftd disposition ; and though 
he did not make the first advances to ac- 
quaintance, had the most atfable manner, 
and strangers were at perfect ease in his 
company. He enjoyed ^ long course of 
Huinterriipted health •; but towards the 
close of life sutFered from an acute disease, 
and was obliged to employ an assistant in 
his professional labours for a few years pre- 
ceding his death, which happened in 1768, 
at the age of eighty-one. He left to the 
university his valuable library, which is 
now arranged apart from the rest of the 
hooks, and the public use of it is limited by 
particular ndes. It is considered as the 
most choice collection of mathematical 
hooks and manuscripts in the kingdom, 
and many of them are rendered doubly va- 
luable by Df. Simson’s notes.” For a more 
particular account of the life and writings of 
tills great man, tlie reader is referred to the 
article in tiie Encyclopedia Britannica, 
vol. xvii. 
SINAFIS, in botany, mustard, or char- 
lock, a genus of the Tetradynamia Siliquosa 
class and order. Natural order of Siliqposm 
or Crnciforraes. Cruciferte, Jussieu. Es- 
sential character: calyx spreading) corolla 
claws erect ; gland between the shorter sta- 
mens and pistil, and between the longer 
stamens and calyx. There are nineteen 
species. 
SINE, orright Sine of anarch, in trigono- 
metry; is a right line di awn from one end of 
that arch, perpendicular to the radius drawn 
to the other end of the arch ; being always 
equal to half the chord of twice the arch. 
See Trigonometry. 
SINECURES, ecclesiastical benefices 
without cure of souls. No church, where 
there is but one incumbent, can properly be 
a sinecure: ami though the church being 
down, or the parish being become destitute 
of parishioners, theinemnbentmay be there- 
by necessarily acquitted from the, actual 
performance of public duty ; yet he is still 
under an obligation to do it whenever a 
church shall be built, and there are a com- 
petent number of inhabitants : and in the 
mean time, if the ciiureh be presentative, 
as most such churches are, the incumbent ia 
instituted into the cure of souls; such bene- 
fices are ratlier depopulations than sine- 
cures, and it will be proper for the new in- 
cumbent to read the thirty-nine articles, 
and the liturgy in the ebbreh-yard, &c. and 
to do wliatever other incumbents usually do. 
But a rectory, or portion of it, may proper- 
glN 
ly be a sinecure, if there be a vicar nnefer 
tlie rector, endowed and charged with the 
cure, in w hich case it does not come withiir 
the statute 'of pluralities, 21 Henry VIII. 
c. 13. Here, therefore, no dispensation is 
necessary to hold the sinecure with a former 
living, nor need the incumbent read the 
articles, or divine service, as required by 
13 Elizabeth, c. 12, which extends only to 
a benefice with cure. By the above-men- 
tioned statute of Henry VIII. not only pre> 
bends and rectories, with vicarages endowed, 
but deaneries, and arch-deaneries, are de- 
clared to be benefices without cure. 
SINGING, the art of producing with 
the voice the sounds of any melody, toge- 
ther w’ith the words to which that melody is 
set. To perform this with justness and 
good eSect, a fine voice, sensible car, great 
natural taste, and a knowledge in the 
science of mnsie, are indispensable requi- 
sites. 
SINGULAR number, in grammar, that 
number of nouns and verbs which stand* 
opposed to plural ; and is used when we 
only speak of a single, or one, person, or 
thing. ' 
SINISTER, in heraldry. The sinister 
side of an escutcheon is the left hand side ; 
the sinister chiefj the. left angle of the chief ; 
the sinister base, the left hand part of ths 
base. 
SINKING FUND, a portion of the 
public revenue set apart .to be applied to 
the reduction or discharge of the public 
debts. The appropriation of a part of tli« 
revenue to this purpose is a measure wdiich 
had been adopted in other countries, lou,^ 
before any necessity for it existed in Eng- 
land ; a provision of this kind iiaving been 
established in Holland in 1 635, and in the 
Ecclesiastipal State in 1685. Both these 
funds originated in a reduction of the in- 
terest payable on the public debts, which 
was the means afterwards adopted for the 
estalilishment of a similar fund in this coun- 
try. 
At the commencement of the funding 
system, the loans were chiefly raised on 
terminable annuities, which are in them- 
selves a species of sinking fund ; but when 
tlie present mode of borrowing on perpetual 
annuities was preferred, it soon became 
evident that a continual accumulation of 
public debts would in time involve the go- 
vernmenr in much embarassmeut, if it was 
not attended with still worse consequences. 
Various projects were therefore oflered for 
the discharge of the public debts, or for 
