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Their weeds been not so nighly were. 
Such simplesse mought them shend, 
They been yclad in purple and pall. 
They reign and rulen over all. Spenser. 
SI'MPLETON, s. A trifler, a foolish fellow. A low 
word. —Those letters may prove a discredit, as lasting as 
mercenary scribblers, or curious simpletons can make it. 
Pope. 
SIMPLI'CIAN, s. [Lat. simplex, simplicisi] An un¬ 
designing, unskilled person: opposed to politician, one of 
deep contrivance..—Sometimes the veriest simplicians are 
most lucky, the wisest politician least, especially where 
orders are unobserved. Archdeacon Arnway. 
SIMPLI'CITY, s. [simplicitas, Latin; simplicity, Fr.] 
Plainness; artlessness; not subtilty; not cunning; not 
deceit.—They keep the reverend simplicity of ancienter 
times. Hooker. 
In low simplicity. 
He lends out money gratis, and brings down 
The rate of usance. Shakspeare. 
Plainness; not subtilty; not abstruseness. Plainness; 
not finery.—They represent our poet, when he left Mantua 
for Rome, dressed in his best habit, too fine for the place 
whence he came, and yet retaining part of its sim¬ 
plicity. Dry den. —Singleness; not composition; state 
of being uncompounded.—Mandrakes afford a papa¬ 
verous unpleasant odour in the leaf or apple, discoverable 
in their simplicity and mixture. Brown. —Weakness; 
silliness.—How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, 
and fools hate knowledge ? Prov. 
SIMPLICIUS, a Greek philosopher of the sixth century, 
was a native of Cilicia. He was a disciple of Ammonius 
the Peripatetic, and Damascius the Stoic ; but in his own 
mode of philosophising, he endeavoured to unite the Platonic 
and Stoical doctrines with those established by Aristotle. 
Of this combination of heterogeneous tenets, his “ Com¬ 
mentary upon the Enchiridion of Epictetus” is said to be 
a good example. Of this work, Fabricius affirms there is 
nothing in pagan antiquity better calculated to form the 
morals, or afford juster views of divine providence. Sim¬ 
plicius wrote commentaries upon Aristotle. He was one 
of the philosophers who took refuge with Chosroes, king 
of Persia, from an apprehended persecution by Justinian; 
but they returned to Athens, upon a truce between the 
Romans and Persians in 549, having stipulated for a tolera¬ 
tion. His commentaries upon Aristotle have been several 
times published in Greek. Those on Epictetus were pub¬ 
lished in Greek and Latin, with the notes of Wolsius and 
Salmasius. They have been translated into the English and 
French languages. 
SIMPLIFICATION, s. Act of reducing to simplicity, 
or uncompounded state.—This simplification of the prin¬ 
ciples of languages renders them less agreeable to the ear. 
A. Smith. 
To SI'MPLIFY, v. a. [simplifier, Fr., simplex and facio, 
Lat.] To render plain; to bring back to simplicity.— 
Philosophers have generally advised men to shun needless 
occupations, as the certain impediments of a good and happy 
life -. they bid us endeavour to simplify ourselves, or to get 
into a condition requiring of us the least that cau be to do. 
Barrow. 
SIMPLIFYING, in Ecclesiastical Matters, is the taking 
away of a cure of souls from a benefice, and dispensing the 
beneficiary from residence. 
SI'MPLIST, s. One skilled in simples.—A plant so un¬ 
like a rose, it hath been mistaken by some good simplists 
for amomura, Brown. 
SIMPLOCE, in Rhetoric, a figure which comprehends 
both the anaphora and epistrophe. In this figure the 
several members begin and end with the same word. Thus 
St. Paul: Are they Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? 
So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham ? So am I. 2 
Cor. xi. 22. 
SIMPLON, or Simpeln, a great mountain in the south 
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of Switzerland, which separates the canton called the Valais, 
from the Piedmontese territory, and which, high as it is, 
forms the least difficult communication over the Alpine 
barrier. The old road across it being impracticable for 
heavy carriages, a new one was formed at the joint expence 
of France and the kingdom of Italy, in the reign of 
Buonaparte. This was a work of great labour, and occupied 
several years; to avoid steepness of ascent, it was made 
more circuitous than the preceding; and from the small town 
of Glis or Glys, near Brieg, where it begins, to Domo 
d’Ossola on the Italian side, where it ends, the distance is 
about 36 English miles, which may be travelled in 11 hours 
with a change of horses, or in 15 hours with the same, 
allowing an interval for rest. The breadth of the road is 
nowhere less than 25 feet, and parapets are erected along the 
brinks of these precipices, around which it frequently winds. 
The hazard to the traveller, particularly in spring, is from the 
occasional descent of avalanches from the higher part of the 
mountain. From this cause, and from the masses of earth 
and stone detached from the high grounds after heavy rains, 
the road is exposed to periodical injury, and an expence of 
from 2000/. to 3000/. a-year would be necessary to keep it 
in repair. But neither the Swiss nor the Piedmontese 
government seem inclined to make any sacrifice for preserving 
this, the only road over the Alps that can be passed by 
artillery. It forms the usual access to the cenlral part of 
Lombardy, in the same manner as Mont Cenis to the west of 
Piedmont. The traveller, on proceeding from Switzerland, 
sees little remarkable except forests and bridges over mountain 
streams, until arriving at the small village of Simpeln. The 
latter half of his journey is more picturesque. The scenery 
becomes awful, and the road goes through no less than six 
galleries or passages, cut through the superimpending rocks. 
Though the ascent is every where gradual, the highest point 
of the road is nearly 6000 feet above the level of the sea, and 
the top of the mountain is seen rising to 11,000 feet above 
the same level. 
SI'MPLY, ado. Without art; without subtilty; plainly; 
artlessly. 
Accomplishing great things by things deem’d weak; 
Subverting worldly strong and worldly wise, 
By simply meek. Milton. 
Of itself; without addition.—This question about the 
changing of laws concerneth only such laws as are positive, 
and do make that now good or evil, by being commanded 
or forbidden, which otherwise of itself were not simply the 
one or the other. Hooker. —Merely; solely. 
I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft 
As captain shall; simply the thing I am 
Shall make me live. Shakspeare. 
Foolishly: sillily. 
SIMPLUDIARIA, in Antiquity, a kind of funeral honours 
paid to the deceased at their obsequies. 
The word is formed from the Latin simplex, and ludus; 
whence simpludiaria, or simpliludaria, q. d. simple games. 
Some will have simpludiaria to be the funerals at which 
games were exhibited: such is the sentiment of Paulus Dia- 
conus. Festus says, they were those, in the games of which 
nothing was seen but dancers and leapers, called corvitores ; 
who, according to M. Dacier, were persons who run along 
the masts and yards of vessels or boats, called corbes. 
In other respects, those two authors agree as to the kind 
of funerals called simpludiaria; viz., that they were opposite 
to those called indictiva; in which, besides the dancers and 
leapers observed in the simpludiaria, there were desultores, 
or people who vaulted on horses; or perhaps horse-races, 
in which the cavaliers leaped from horse to horse at full 
speed. 
SIMPRIN, a parish of Scotland, in Berwickshire, united 
to that of Swinton in 1761. Also a small village in that 
parish. 
SIMPSON (Thomas), a celebrated self-taught mathema¬ 
tician, was born at Market Bosworth, in Leicestershire, 
in 
