Sainte-Beuve

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

CHARLES AU- GUSTIN, a French writer, and one of the greatest of modern critics; born in Boulogne, France, in 1804. He studied medicine at Paris, but abandoned that science in favor of literature, his first work of importance being on the French literature of the 16th century. In 1837 he delivered some lectures in the School of Port Royal at Lausanne, and these laid the foundation of his elaborate work, "History of Port Royal." In 1840 he was ST. ÉTIENNE appointed conservator of the Mazarin Library, and in 1845 admitted a member of the French Academy. After 1848 he contributed a number of critiques to the Monday numbers of the "Constitutionnel" and then of the "Moniteur" ("Monday Talks," 15 vols.; "New Mondays," 13 vols.). In 1852 he was appointed Professor of Latin Poetry in the College of France, but his views in favor of Napoleon III. and imperialism rendered him unacceptable to a large section of the students, and he reon French literature at the École Normale Supérieure. The cross of the Legion of Honor was bestowed on him in 1859, and the senatorship in 1865. Most of his critical writings have been republished in various editions. He also wrote three volumes of poetry (1829-1837), under the pseudonym "Joseph Delorme," but these do not rank high. He died in Paris in 1869. ST. ELIAS, MOUNT. See ELIAS, SAINT. ST. ELIZABETH. See ELIZABETH, SAINT. ST. ELMO'S FIRE, a peculiar electrical phenomenon. Just preceding a storm the atmosphere often becomes charged with electricity which flows from the clouds. This makes itself visible in small, brush-like flames appearing on the sharp edges or points of different bodies. At sea, where it is a very common occurbeen regarded by sailors rence, it has with superstitious awe and dread from ST. DOMINGO. See SANTO DOMINGO. the earliest times. The Romans called the lights Castor and Pollux. If one apomen of danpeared, they said it was an ger; if two, it was an assurance of safety. Italian mariners of the Middle Ages regarded the light as a luminous emanation from the body of Christ, and the appearance is still called by the Portuguese Corpo Santo. In an account of the second voyage of Columbus they are described. Fournier, a writer of the 17th century, says the light was named after a saint, familiarly known as Saint Telme, but who was San Pedro Gonzales de Tuy, in Galicia, who had been a mariner, then was canonized, and became a patron saint of sailors. Galician sailors called the light San Pedro Gonzales. The phenomenon also has been known by the name of St. Hermes, St. Ermyn, St. Helen, St. Nicholas, St. Peter, St. Anne, or, indeed, by one of a hundred other saints. that of any ST. ÉTIENNE, one of the most important industrial towns in France, in the department of Loire, on a tributary of the Loire, 36 miles S. W. of Lyons and 312 S. S. E. of Paris. It is built in the midst of the second largest coal field of France. The town has a school of mines (1816), a national small arms factory (1764), a gallery of art, an artillery and a commercial museum. The chief industries are in iron and steel and in ribbons. Besides these branches of industry, hats, pottery, and hemp cables are made. The coal mines began to be worked in the 14th century, but only on an extensive scale in the end of the 18th. The town was twice captured by the Huguenots, in 1563 and 1570, and between this last date and 1629 it suffered terribly on three occasions from the plague. The first railways in France were built from St. Etienne, one in 1828 to Andrezieu, the other in 1831 to Lyons. Pop. about 149,000. ST. FRANCIS, a river of the United States, forming part of the boundary between Arkansas and Missouri, and entering the Mississippi. At high water it is navigable for about 150 miles; total length 450. CIS DE SALES, ST. ST. FRANCIS OF PAOLA. See FRAN- CESCO DI PAULA. ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, a Roman Catholic educational institution, formerly the College of St. Francis Xavier, but now a high school. The college department was transferred to Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1913, which gives degrees under the title of the College of St. Francis Xavier, N. Y. The high school has a library of about 130,000 volumes, and has about 400 students and 17 instructors. President, Thomas Fell, Ph.D. ST. GALL, the capital of the Swiss canton of the same name; on the Steinach; 2,196 feet above sea-level (the highest town in Europe), 53 miles E. of Zurich, and 9 from Rorschach on the Lake of Constance. The buildings of its famous Benedictine monastery are now used as government offices and schools, and for founded in housing the monastic library, fo 830, of 41,700 volumes and 1,800 MSS., several of these last of great antiquity and value. Other buildings are the old abbey church, thoroughly restored in 1756-1766, and made a cathedral in 1846; the Protestant Church of St. Lawrence (restored 1851-1853); the town library, in museumbraith collections of natural history, works of art, and antiquities. The city carries on a large trade in its staple commodity, emmuslin, etc.), broidered textiles (cotton, n and in agricultural products. The original nucleus of the place was the cell of St. Gall (about 550-645), an Irish follower of St. Columban, who settled here ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS in 614. Around this soon grew up a monastery of the Benedictine order, which was promoted by Charles Martel to the dignity of an abbey. The abbey gradually became one of the masterpieces of mediæval architecture; while the monks were indefatigable in the collection and transcription of MSS. - Biblical, patristic, historical (sacred an and profane, classical, liturgical, and legendary). Several of the classics, especially Quintilian, Silius Italicus, and Ammianus Marcellinus, have been preserved solely through the MSS. of St. Gall. Its monastic schools enjoyed the greatest reputation for learning from the 9th to the 12th century. In 1454 the town was admitted to the Swiss confederation, and in 1528, through the influence of the reformer Vadianus, it embraced the new doctrines. At the close, however, of the religious war, in 1531, the Catholic religion was re-established, and the abbot reinstated. At the French Revolution the abbey was secularized (1798), ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. See FRAN- and its revenues were soon afterward sequestrated (1805). By a later arrangement (1836) St. Gall was erected into a bishopric. The French republicans created the canton of Säntis out of the town and abbey lands, with others, in 1799; and in 1803 the existing canton of St. Gall was formed. Pop. of canton (1920) 294, 028; of city (1920) 69,733. SAINT GAUDENS, AUGUSTUS, an American sculptor; born in Dublin, Ireland, March 1, 1848; came to the United States in infancy; studied art at Cooper Institute, New York City, in 1861; at the National Academy of Design in 1865- 1866, and at Paris, where he attended the École des Beaux Arts in 1867. In 1871, while in Rome he produced his first figure, "Hiawatha," but returned to the United States in 1873. Among his works are the bas-relief, "Adoration of the Cross by Angels," statues of Admiral D. G. Farragut; Robert R. Randall, and President Lincoln; the Shaw monument in Boston, and the original Diana on the Madison Square Garden, N. Y. He assisted John La Farge in the decoration of Trinity Church, Boston, and in the modeling of the statue of Le Roy King, in Newport, R. I. He designed the Medal of Award of the Columbian Exposition, and a number of presentation medals authorized by Congress. He received a medal of honor at Buffalo in 1901. He died Aug. 3, 1907. ST. GENEVIÈVE. See GENEVIÈVE, ST. ST. GEORGE. See GEORGE, ST. GEORGE'S CHANNEL. See ST. GEORGE'S CHANNEL, ST. ST. GERMAIN - DES - PRÉS, named from Germanus; was a famous Bene Benedic- M-Cyc Vol 8 tine monastery near Paris. Its church (1001-1163) ranks as the oldest in that city. ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE. See GER- MAIN-EN LAYE, ST. ST. GOAR, a fortified town of Prussia, 15 miles from Coblentz. It is on the W. bank of the Rhine, under the stupendous rock and castle of Rheinfels, with which it surrendered to the French in 1794. On the opposite side of the river is the smaller town of St. Goarshausen, and on a mountain near it is the strong castle called Katz. St. Goar has a considerable trade in wines and hides. At the end of the World War American troops occupied the town in accordance with the armistice terms. ST. GOTTHARD, a mountain knot of the Alps, in the Swiss cantons of Uri, Grisons, Ticino, and Valais, 9,850 feet high. In its arms it holds the sources of the Rhine, Rhône, Ticino, Reuss rivers, and so sends the water from its melted snows to the German Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Adriatic. On its shoulder it bears one of the most celebrated of the Alpine passes from Switzerland to Italy. The road that crosses this pass (6,936 feet) leads from the shores of Lak Lucerne to the shores of Lago Maggiore. This route was first used by the Longobardi in the 6th century. Since 1882, 1882, a railway has climbed up the lower slopes of the St. Gotthard, and then burrowed through it in a tunnel. The making of this tunnel was begun in 1872 and finished in 1880; it extends from Göschenen (at a height of 3,639 feet) in Uri to Airolo (3,757 feet) in Ticino, measures 94 miles in length, is 26 feet wide, and 21 high, rises with a gradient that reaches on an average 26 in 100 feet, and cost $11,350,000 to make. The total cost of the St. Gotthard railway was $45,400,000. The line has proved very successful financially. ST. GREGORY. See GREGORY, ST. ST. HELENA, a lonely island in the Atlantic, 1,200 miles from the W. coast of Africa; length, 10 miles; width, 8 miles; area, 47 square miles. Pop. about 3,750. It is part of an old volcano and reaches 2,823 feet in High Hill. Its shores are perpendicular cliffs 600 to 2,000 feet high, and are in many places cleft by deep, narrow valleys. The climate is pretty constant and generally healthy. Whale-fishing and the growing of potatoes are the principal occupations of the inhabitants. Previous to the cutting of the Suez Canal St. Helena was a favorite port of call for vessels bound to and from India by the Cape of Good Hope, and the inhabitants did a large trade in furnishing these vessels with provisions and other supplies. But the shorter route afforded by the canal and the Red Sea has entirely destroyed this trade, and the island is speedily going from bad to worse. At Jamestown, the capital, a detachment of Royal Marines is stationed. St. Helena was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, and taken possession of by the British East India Company in 1651. They remained masters of the island down to 1834; since that time it has been administered by a governor and an executive council of four members. The island is chiefly celebrated as the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's imprisonment from 1815 to his death in 1821. His home was the farmhouse of Longwood, 3 miles inland from Jamestown; and the spot where he was first buried lies about 1 mile to the S. W. ST. HELENS, a town of Lancashire England, on the Sankey brook; 14 miles E. N. E. of Liverpool and 21 W. by S. of Manchester. Thanks to its railway and canal facilities, and to the immediate neighborhood of coal, it has grown from a small village to an important industrial center, and now is the great seat of the manufacture of crown, plate, and sheet glass, and also possesses extensive alkali, copper smelting, and iron works. It was constituted a municipal borough in 1868; a parliamentary borough in 1885; and a county borough in 1888. The handsome town hall, with a public library, was opened in 1876. Pop. (1919) 105,009. ST. HELEN'S MOUNTAIN, a volcanic peak of the Cascade range, at the N. W. angle of Skamania co., Wash.; height, about 13,400 feet. ST. HELIER, the capital of the island of Jersey; on the S. shore of the island, and the E. side of St. Aubin's Bay. It is defended by Elizabeth Castle (1551- 1586), on a rocky island off the shore, approached by a causeway at low water; and by Fort Regent, on the S. E. side of the town; built in 1806-1815 on a scarped granite rock, at a cost of $5,000,000. Victoria college (1852) is a handsome edifice; and one may also notice the court house (1647), the public library (1736), a gilt statue of George II. (1751), and the harbor, forming an outer and inner basin. An active trade is carried on with England, France, and India. Pop. about 30,000. See JERSEY. AUGUSTIN SAINT-HILAIRE, FRANÇOIS CÉSAR PROUVENÇAL DE, called AUGUSTE DE SAINT-HILAIRE, a French botanist; born in Orléans, France, Oct. 4. 1799; wrote: "Flora of Southern Brazil," and a series of four works, which included his travels, under the general title of "Journey in the Interior of Brazil," and issued in eight volumes, at intervals from 1830 till 1851. He traveled extensively in the S. and interior provinces of Brazil from 1816 till 1822. He died in Orléans, Sept. 30, 1853. ST. IVES, a seaport and watering place in England, on St. Ives Bay, on the N. coast of Cornwall; 57 miles W. S. W. of Plymouth. It is a popular winter resort, has an extensive pilchard fishery, and exports large quantities of tin, copper, and slate. Its harbor is protected by a pier built in 1770. It has beautiful churches and chapels, a custom house, and other public buildings, including a literary 1 institution. Pop. about 7,000. ST. JAMES'S PALACE, a palace in London, England. Originally a hospital dedicated to St. James, it was reconstructed and made a manor by Henry VIII., who also annexed to it a park, il to which he inclosed with a brick wall, to connect St. James's with Whitehall. all. The gateway and clock tower are from designs by Holbein. Here Queen Mary died (1558); Charles I. slept here the night before his execution; and here Charles II., the Old Pretender, and George IV. were born. When Whitehall was burned in 1697, St. James's became the regular London residence of the British sovereigns, and it continued to be so till Queen Victoria's time. Additions and improvements, gradually made, have totally changed the original palace, so that at the present time little, if any, of the old structure remains. In 1837 the royal household was transferred to Buckingham Palace, whither the drawing rooms were also removed at the death of the prince consort, and St. James's was used only for levees. The Court of St. James's is a frequent designation of the British court. St. James's Park lies S. of the palace, and extends over 93 acres. ST. JOHN, a city, seaport, and capital of St. John co., province of New Brunswick, Canada, on the St. John river, at its entrance into the Bay of Fundy, dy, and on the Intercolonial, the New Brunswick Southern, and the Canadian Pacific railroads, 481 miles E. of Montreal. It has an excellent harbor, protected by a breakwater 2,250 feet long. The tides here rise and fall from 25 to 35 feet every day. The city is built on rising ground, the elevated portion consisting wholly of solid rock, which in numerous places has been excavated to a considerable depth for new streets. Here are churches representing all of the principal denominations, and excellent schools. The public buildings include the post office, custom house, Odd Fellows' and Masonic Halls, Free Public Library, Mechanics' Institute, Provincial Insane Asylum, City Hospital, Sailors' Home, Home for Aged Females, Reformatory for Boys, Wiggin's Orphan Asylum for Sons of Seamen, Protestant and Roman Catholic orphan asylums, and the Dominion Savings Bank. St. John has large business interests. The principal industries include the manufacture of carriages, paint, sashes and doors, lead pipe, engines and boilers, nuts and bolts, furniture, nails, rolled iron, cotton goods, and lumber. The foreign trade is also very extensive, as the city is the shipping point of a rich agricultural, tim ber, and mineral region. In 1604 the site of St. John was visited by M. de Monts, and in 1635 Charles de la Tour erected a fort here. In 1735 the place became a British possession by the treaty of Utrecht. In the same year it was colonized by American royalists, and two years later was chartered as a city. Pop about 61,500. ST. JOHN, the largest river of New Brunswick, rising in the highlands in the N. of Maine, flowing N. E., and then S. E. 450 miles, and falling into the Bay of Fundy by an estuary 5 miles in width. Near the sea it is navigable for large vessels; while for craft of 120 tons it is practicable as far as Fredericton (86 miles), and for small steamers to Woodstock, 75 further up. Through most of its upper course the stream separates Maine from Canada. ST. JOHN. See JOHN, ST. ST. JOHN LATERAN, CHURCH OF. See LATERAN, CHURCH OF ST. JOHN. ST. JOHN'S, a city, capital of Newfoundland, and the extreme eastern seaport of North America; 1,076 miles N. E. of Montreal and 1,665 miles W. by S. of Galway, Ireland, the shortest distance between any two seaports of America anu Europe. It is on the Atlantic Ocean and the Newfoundland railway. The city is built on an acclivity. It has an excellent harbor, affording perfect shelter for vessels and having a drydock at its head, 600 feet long. The entrance to the har bor is called the Narrows, and is about 600 feet wide at the narrowest point. To! the N. of the Narrows is Signal Hill at which place Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless telegraph message, 510 feet above sea-level, and to the S. South Side Hill, nearly 650 feet. At the foot of the latter is Fort Amherst lighthouse. The city has numerous churches, of which St. John's Cathedral (R. C.), and the Anglican Cathedral, one of the most beautiful specimens of Gothic architecture in British America, are the most noteworthy. The institutions for higher education include Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic Colleges. Here also are several literary institutes, libraries, Government House, House of Assembly, Poorhouse, Penitentiary, Hospital, and several banks and public halls. The city has a number of foundries, tanneries, breweries, cabinet factories, biscuit factories, oil refineries, a net factory, boot and shoe plant, rope walk, nail factory, and gas works. There is a large trade in supplying fishermen for the cod and seal fisheries with fishing gear, clothing, and provisions. The city was visited by a disastrous fire in 1892, causing a total loss of $16,000,000. A water power generating plant lant nt at Petty Harbor, 8 miles distant, supplies the city with electricity for all purposes. Pop. (1918) 34,045. ST. JOHNSBURY, a town and county seat of Caledonia co., Vt.; on the Passumpsic river, and on the Portland and Ogdensburg, the Passumpsic, and the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain railroads; 34 miles E. N. E. of Montpelier. It contains a fine court house, St. Johnsbury Academy, St. Johnsbury Atheneum, waterworks, street railroad and electric light plants, National and savings banks, and two newspapers. It has foundries, machine shops, manufactories of farming implements, and scale works. Pop. (1910) 6,693; (1920) 7,163.