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SCARRINGTON, a hamlet of England, in Notting¬ 
hamshire; 11J miles east-by-north of Nottingham. 
SCARRON (Paul), was born at Paris in 1611. His 
father obliged him, against his own inclination, to enter 
into the ecclesiastical state. At the age of 24 he visited 
Italy, where he freely indulged in licentious pleasures. 
After his return to Paris he persisted, notwithstanding the 
habit which he wore, in a life of dissipation, till a long 
and painful disease convinced him that his constitution 
was completely undermined. In the year 1638 he was 
attending the carnival at Mons, of which he was a canon. 
Having one day put on the dress and appearance of a 
savage, he was followed by a troop of boys into a morass, 
where he was kept so long, that the cold penetrated his 
debilitated limbs, which became contracted in such a 
manner, that he used to compare his body to the shape of 
a Z. Notwithstanding his loss of the use of those legs that 
had been accustomed to dance so gracefully, and of those 
hands that could formerly play the lute and paint so well, 
he continued gay and cheerful; and his turn for pleasantry 
and wit not only supported him under his calamities, 'but 
drew to him the best company of the French metropolis. 
The loss of his fortune by a law-suit was added to his other 
misfortunes, and he was under the necessity to flatter car¬ 
dinal Mazarin to obtain a pension. He was also recom¬ 
mended to the notice of the queen, of whom he requested 
the title of “ Valetudinarian” to her majesty : she smiled at 
the conceit, and he ever afterwards assumed the title of 
“ Scarron, by the grace of God, unworthy valetudinarian 
to the queen.” Some time after this he offended Mazarin, 
and lost his pension. He then attached himself to the prince 
of Conde, and .celebrated his victories. He at length 
formed the resolution of marrying Mademoiselle d’Aubigne, 
afterwards the celebrated Madame de Maintenon, who was 
at that time only 16 years of age. It was then, says Vol¬ 
taire, considered as a great acquisition for her to gain for 
ahusband, a man disfigured by nature and disease, who had 
rendered himself impotent by excess, and who was almost 
destitute of fortune. On his marriage, the notary asked 
what dowry he would settle on his wife ? he replied, “ Im¬ 
mortality : the names of the wives of kings die with them, 
but the name of Scarron’s wife shall live for ever.” He 
was in one respect a true prophet, but her immortality de¬ 
pends on her later title of Madame de Maintenon, and not on 
her relationship to Scarron. After marriage, Scarron be¬ 
came a new man: he was more decent in his manners and 
conversation; and his gaiety, when tempered with modera¬ 
tion, was still more agreeable. But, in the mean time, he 
lived with so little economy, that his income was soon re¬ 
duced to a small annuity, and what is called his marquisate 
of Quinet, by which he meant the revenue which he derived 
from his publications, that were printed by a person of the 
name of Quinet. He was accustomed to talk to his su¬ 
periors with great freedom, and in a very jocular style. In 
a dedication to the king, he thus addressed his majesty: 
“ I shall endeavour to persuade your majesty, that you 
would do yourself no injury, were you to do me a small 
favour; for in that case I should become gay. If I should 
become more gay, I should write sprightly comedies; and 
if I should write sprightly comedies, your majesty would 
be amused, and thus your money would not be lost. All 
this appears so evident, that I should certainly be convinced 
of it, if I were as great a king as I am now a poor unfor¬ 
tunate man.” The constitution of Scarron was too much 
broken to admit of a long life, and he seems to have been 
pleased in the prospect of a release from his miseries, “ My 
children," said he to his friends who surrounded his dying 
bed, “ I shall never make you weep so much as I have made 
you laugh •” and just before he expired, he said, “I could 
never have thought it was so easy to make a jest of death.” 
He died in 1660, near the age of 50. In his epitaph, made 
by himself, he desires, in a mixture of the comic with the 
pathetic, that the passengers would not awaken, by their 
no se, poof Scarron from the first good sleep he had ever 
enjoyed. 
jVoi,. XXII, No. 1538. 
His works have been collected and published by Bruzen 
de la Martiniere, in 10 vols. 12mo. 1737. These are, 
1. The Eneid, travestied in eight books. 2. Typhon, or 
the Gigantomachia. 3. Comedies. 4. A Comic Romance 
in prose, which is said to be the only one of his works that 
deserves attention. 5. Spanish novels translated into French. 
6. A volume of letters. 7. Poems, consisting of songs, 
epistles, stanzas, odes, and epigrams. Scarron took plea¬ 
sure in reading his works to his friends, as he composed 
them : he used to call it trying them, Segrais and another 
person coming to him one day, “ Take a chair,” he said, 
“ and sit down, that I may examine my Comic Romance.” 
When he saw them laugh very heartily, he said he was sa¬ 
tisfied : “ my book will be -well received, since it makes 
persons of such delicate taste laugh.” He was not dis¬ 
appointed in his expectations: the Romance had a great run. 
SCARSDALE, a rich and fruitful track of England, in 
the north-east part of Derbyshire, surrounded by barren rocks 
and mountains. 
SCARSDALE, a township of the United States, in West 
Chester county. New York. Population 259. 
SCARTHINGWELL, a village of England, West Riding 
of Yorkshire; 5 miles south-by-east of Tadcaster. 
SCARTHO, a parish of England, in Lincolnshire; 2 
miles south-by-west of Great Grimsby. 
SCARVAY, a small island of the Hebrides, near Harris. 
SCARUS, in Ichthyology, a genus of fishes of the order 
Thoracici, of which the Generic Character is as follows:— 
instead of teeth, it has strong bony processes, crenate at the 
edges; the gill-membrane is five-rayed, the covers are very 
entire; the lateral line is most branched. Gmelin has enu¬ 
merated and described eight species, but Dr. Shaw has given 
a large number. 
1. Scams rivulatus..—The jaws of this fish are continuous, 
smooth, serrate, with the most minute teeth at the edges; 
the teeth are approximate, filiform, growing a little less 
from the middle of the lip. It is described by Dr. Shaw as 
the blueish scams, spotted with black, and marked by lon¬ 
gitudinal yellow undulations.—It inhabits the Red Sea, and 
is said to arrive at a great size: the scales are small; the dor¬ 
sal and anal fin occasionally recumbent in a channel; the 
tail is forked; and it is supposed to feed principally on the 
different kinds of fuci; it is considered as an edible fish, 
though the spines of the rays will occasion wounds that 
produce a temporary inflammation. The first and last rays 
of the ventral fins are spinous; it has a spine before the 
dorsal fin. 
2. Scarus stellatus.—-The body of this species is oval, 
stellate, with contiguous nearly hexagonal spots.—-It inhabits 
Arabia, among the banks of coral; is about six inches long; 
it feeds on herbs; the scales are round and small. The fish 
is edible. The crown is flatfish, with two longitudinal 
obtuse ridges, converging on the fore part; the eyes are 
more remote, the iris yellow ; the nostrils on each side are 
double; the lips are equal; the gill-covers scaly, striate 
behind; the vent is covered with the ventral fins; the lateral 
line is not conspicuous; the pectoral fins are obtuse, yellow¬ 
ish, the rest are black; the dorsal and anal are obtuse 
behind; the tail is two-lobed, obtuse, with yellow blotches 
at the side. 
3. Scarus ghobban,—The tail of this fish is even ; the jaws 
are whitish ; the head is marked with patches, and the outer 
edges of the fins are of a greenish-blue.—It inhabits Arabia. 
The body is whitish; the scales have each a transverse 
blueish stripe in the middle, and one at the base, also with 
brown longitudinal streaks. 
The lips are yellowish at the edge, at the base they are of 
a greenish-blue; the lateral line is double, one near the back, 
and the other commencing before this finishes, and running 
straight through the middle of the tail; the pectoral fins are 
obtuse and hyaline, the upper edge at the base only blue, 
the rest are of a reddish-violet: the dorsal and anal fins have 
a greenish-blue longitudinal stripe at the base; the tail is 
truncate and greenish behind. 
4. Scarus ferrugineus.—.This, at its name denotes, is of a 
9 G rusty 
