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limbs; nor will refuse to acknowledge that there is more of 
beauty, sublimity and variety in the face than in all the rest 
of the body. Yet the same poor taste that prefers as the 
higher order of art a group of naked graces, or some savage 
butchery, as of Priam or Duncan, to the portrait of a Can¬ 
ning, painted by a Lawrence, or that of a Hunter, by a Rey¬ 
nolds, presumes to talk of busts or figures sculptured from 
the life as the second branch of sculpture. It is this vain 
admiration for the hyperbolical that has filled our cathedrals 
with Britannias, Victories, Valours and the like, to the ruin 
of the artist’s lime and marble, and the people’s taste. It 
would be well, indeed, if these gauges of English invention 
were removed, and their places were supplied with faithful 
resemblances of the heroes they commemorate. And what 
could be more agreeable, or more useful than to behold the 
face, the head, perhaps the figure of the man which bled for 
us in war, or thought for us in peace ? Nor would such an 
assemblage be without beauty; not indeed the beauty of 
Grecian regularity, the long nose and its continuous fore¬ 
head, but a beauty that passeth this; that which speaks to 
the intellect and satisfies the imagination. For our parts, 
we should prefer one bust of Shakspeare or Newton from 
such hands as now urge the chisel to the Farnese Hercules, 
the Apollo, or the Medicean Venus. 
The time may come when the costume of mankind, al¬ 
ready less absurd than a century back, shall revert to its 
natural and pristine simplicity: then sculpture may trace 
the influence of the mind on the general form. At present 
this must be left in part to the imagination, and the sculptor 
must confine himself to that infinite volume, the language of 
the countenance. It may happen that circumstances may 
compel him to prostitute his art to the perpetuation of the 
countenances of the foolish or vain ; but even this will not 
quite be useless, and he may be consoled in the many he will 
find who deserve his toils, and whose names will add another 
source of immortality to his works. An ephemeral taste may 
prize the supernatural style; but he may be assured, that the 
time will never come, when our posterity shall look with 
indifference on the countenances of the men of this age— 
shall prefer the uninspired copies of Grecian sculpture, to 
the truth and beauty of nature itself. 
To SCU'LPTURE, v. a. To cut; to engrave. 
Gold, silver, ivory vases sculptur'd high. 
There are who have not. Pope. 
SCULTETUS, or Schultz (John), a distinguished sur¬ 
geon, was born in the year 1595 at Ulm, where his father 
was a waterman; yet he was enabled to afford his son a 
good education, and sent him to Padua, where he studied 
medicine under Spigelius, and took the degree of doctor in 
philosophy, surgery and physic, in the year 1621. He ap¬ 
pears to have practised surgery extensively, and to have been 
very bold in his operations, especially in those of bronchoto- 
my, of the trephine, and for empyema. His principal work is 
entitled “ Armamentarium Chirurgicum, 43 Tabulis aere 
incisis Ornatum;” and was published after his death at Ulm, 
in 1653. 
SCULTHORPE, a parish of England, in Norfolk; 2 
miles north-west of Fakenham. 
SCUM, s. \escume, French; schiuma, Italian; s/cum, 
Danish; schuym , Dutch. Dr. Johnson.] That which 
rises to the top of any liquor. 
The rest had several offices assigned; 
Some to remove the scum as it did rise; 
Others to bear the same away did mind; 
And others it to use according to his kind. Spenser. 
The dross; the refuse; the recrement; that part which is 
to be thrown away.—-There flocked unto him all the scum 
of the Irish out of all places, that ere long he had a mighty 
army. Spenser. 
To SCUM, v. a. To clear off the the scum: commonly 
written and spoken skim. 
A second multitude 
Severed each kind, and scumm'd the bullion dross. Milton. 
s c u 
SCUMA, a word used by some of the chymists for squama , 
the scales of any metal. 
SCU'MBER, s. The dung of a fox. Ainsworth. Ob¬ 
solete. 
SCU'MMER, s. [escumoir, Fr.] A vessel with which 
liquor is scummed, commonly called a skimmer .—The salt, 
after its crystallizing, falls down to the bottom, and they 
take it out by wooden scummers, and put it in frails. 
Ray. 
SCUNTHORPE, a village of England, in Lincolnshire, 
near Glandford Bridge. 
SCU'PPER HOLES, s. [schoepen , Dutch, to draw off.] 
In a ship, small holes on the deck, through which water is 
carried into the sea. The leathers over those holes are called 
scupper leathers, and the nails with which they are fastened 
scupper nails. Bailey. —The blood at scupper holes run 
out. Ward. —Simply, scuppers. —Her scuppers may be 
left unset, whereby the water runs down her timbers years 
together. Maydman. 
SCUR, s. a precipice faced with rock. Provincial. 
SCURF, s. [pcupp, Saxon ; skurf, Dan. schorft, Teut. 
skorf, Su. Goth, from skorpa , crusta, according to Serenius.] 
A kind of dry military scab. 
Her crafty head was altogether bald. 
And, as in hate of honourable eld. 
Was overgrown with scurf and filthy scald. Spenser. 
A soil or stain adherent. 
Then are they happy, when by length of time 
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime. 
No speck is left. Dry den. 
Any thing sticking on the surface. 
There stood a hill, whose grisly top 
Shone with a glossy scurf. Milton. 
SCURFF, in Ichthyology, an English name for a 
species of salmon, called also in some places the bull-trout . 
See Salmo. 
SCU'RFINESS, s. The state of being scurfy. 
In wretched beggary, 
And maungy misery, 
In lousy lothsumnesse, 
And scabbed scorffynesse. Skelton. 
SCU'RFY, adj. Having scurf or scabs. Johnson. 
SCURRA, a name by which the ancients have called the 
common jackdaw. See Corvus. 
SCU'RRILE, adj. [scurrilis, Latin.] Low; mean; 
grossly opprobrious; lewdly jocose. 
With him, Patroclus, 
Upon a lazy bed, the live-long day 
Breaks scurril jests. Shakspeare. 
Scurril talk, obscene actions. Burton. 
SCURRFLITY, s. [ scurrilite , Fr.; scurrilitas, Lat.] 
Grossness of reproach; lewdness of jocularity; mean buf¬ 
foonery.—Good master Holofernes, purge; so it shall please 
you to abrogate scurrility. Shakspeare. 
SCU'RRILOUS, adj. [scurrilis, Lat.] Grossly oppro¬ 
brious ; using such language as only the license of a buffoon 
can warrant; lewdly jocular; vile; low.— Scurrilous and 
more than satyrical immodesty. Hooker. 
SCU'RRILOUSLY, adv. With gross reproach; with 
low buffoonery; with lewd merriment. 
SCU'RRILOUSNESS, s. Scurrility; baseness of man¬ 
ners. 
SCU'RVILY, adv. Vilely; basely; coarsely. It is 
seldom used but in a ludicrous sense. 
Look i’ your glass now. 
And see how scurvily that countenance shews; 
You would be loth to own it. B. Jonson 
SCU'RVINESS, s. State of being scurvy. Sherwood. 
SCURVOGEL. the name of an American bird, called by 
some the nhender-apoa , and by the Brasilians jabiruguaca. 
See Mycteria. 
SCU'RVY, 
