SCAN'DAL, n. s. & v. a. Fr. scandale; Lat. scandalum; Greek σκανδαλον. Opprobrium; offence given by the faults of others; aspersion; calumny: to charge falsely; reproach: this is also sometimes the sense of scandalize; at others it means to offend by some supposed crime: the adjective, adverb, and nounsubstantive follow the senses of scandal. I demand who they are whom we scandalize by using harmless things! Among ourselves that agree in this use, no man will say that one of us is offensive and scandalous unto another. Hooker. Nothing scandalous or offensive unto any, especially unto the church of God: all things in order, and with seemliness. Id. It had the excuse of some bashfulness, and care not to scandalize others. Hammond on Fundamentals. Whoever considers the injustice of some ministers, in those intervals of parliament, will not be scandalized at the warmth and vivacity of those meetings. Clarendon. His lustful orgies he enlarged Even to the hill of scandal, by the grove Of Moloch homicide. Milton's Paradise Lost. My known virtue is from scandal free, And leaves no shadow for your calumny. Dryden. Many were scandalized at the personal slander and reflection flung out by scandalizing libellers. SCANDALUM MAGNATUM, in law, is a defamatory speech or writing, to the injury of a person of rank; for which a writ, that bears this name, is granted for the recovery of damages. SCANDERBEG, the surname of George Castriot, king of Albania, a province of Turkey in Europe. He was delivered up with his three elder brothers as hostages, by their father, to Amurath II., sultan of the Turks, who poisoned his brothers, but spared him on account of his youth, being likewise pleased with his juvenile wit and handsome person. In a short time he became one of the most renowned generals of the age; and, revolting from Amurath, he joined Hunniades, a most formidable enemy of the Turks. Ile defeated the sultan's army, took Amurath's secretary prisoner, obliged him to sign and seal an order to the governor of Croia, the capital of Albania, to deliver up the citadel and city to the bearer of that order, in the name of the sultan With this forced order he repaired to Croia; and recovered the throne of his ancestors, and maintained the independency of his country against the numerous armies of Amurath and his successor Mohammed II., who was obliged to make peace with him in 1461. He then went to the assistance of Ferdinand of Arragon, at the request of pope Pius II., and by his assistance Ferdinand gained a complete victory over his enemy the count of Anjou. Scanderbeg died in 1467. SCANDINAVIA, a general name for the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The inhabitants of these countries, in former times, were excessively addicted to war. From their earliest years they applied themselves to the military art, and accustomed themselves to cold, fatigue, and hunger. Even the very sports of youth and childhood were dangerous. They consisted in taking frightful leaps, climbing up the steepest rocks, fighting naked with offensive weapons, wrestling with the utmost fury; so that it was usual to see them terrible in the combat at the age of fifteen. At this early age the young men became their own masters; when they received a sword, a buckler, and a lance. This ceremony was performed at some public meeting. One of the principal men of the assembly named the youth in public; after which he was obliged to provide for his own subsistence, and was either now to live by hunting, or by joining in some incursion against the enemy. Great care was taken to prevent the young men from too early connexions with the female sex; and indeed they could have no hope to gain the affection of the fair, but in proportion to the conrage and address they had shown in their military exercises. Accordingly, in an ancient song, we find Bartholin, king of Norway, extremely surprised that his mistress should prove unkind, as he could perform eight different exercises. The children were generally born in camps; and, but arms, effusion of blood, and slaughter, they being inured from their infancy to beho'd nothing imbibed the cruel disposition of their tthers; and, when they broke forth upon other n tio s, behaved rather like furies than human creatures. The laws of this people, in some measure, resembled those of the ancient Lacedemonians. They knew no virtue but bravery, and no vice but cowardice. The greatest penalties were inflicted on such as fled from battle. The laws of the ancient Danes declared such persons infamous, and excluded them from society. Ainong the Germans, cowards were sometimes suffocated in mud; after which they were covered over with hurdles, to show, says Tacitus, that though the punishment of crimes should be public, there are certain degrees of cowardice and infamy which ought to be buried in oblivion. Frotho king of Denmark enacted, by law, that whoever solicited an eminent post, ought upon all occasions to attack one enemy, to face two, to retire only one step back from three, and never to make an actual retreat till assaulted by four. The rules of justice were adapted and warped to these prejudices. War was looked upon as a real act of justice, and force was thought to be an incon testable title over the weak, and a visible mark that God had intended them to be subject to the strong. Lastly, their religion, by annexing eternal happiness to the military virtues, gave the utmost possible degree of vigor to that propensity which these people had for war, and to their contempt of death, of which many instances are recorded. Harold, surnamed Blaatand, or Bluetooth, a king of Denmark, who lived in the beginning of the ninth century, had founded on the coasts of Pomerania a city named Julin or Jomsburg. In this colony it was forbidden to mention the word fear, even in the most imminent dangers. No citizen of Jomsburg was to yield to any number of enemies, however great. The sight of inevitable death was not to be an excuse for showing the smallest apprehension. Neither was this intrepidity peculiar to the inhabitants of Jomsburg; it was the general character of all the Scandinavians. To die with his arms in his hand was the ardent wish of every free man; and the high idea which they had of this kind of death led them to dread such as proceeded from old age and disease. The warriors who found themselves lingering in disease, often availed themselves of their few remaining moments to shake off life, by a way that they supposed to be more glorious. Some of them would be carried into a field of battle that they might die in the engagement; others slew themselves. Many procured this melancholy service to be performed by their friends, who considered it as a most sacred duty. SCANDIX, shepherd's needle, or Venus comb, in botany, a genus of the digynia order, and pentandria class of plants; natural order forty-fifth, umbellatæ: COR. radiating; the fruit subulated; the petals emarginated; the florets of the disc frequently male. The most remarkable species is the ber, hemp, and cordage, as well as horses, sheep, and cattle. The fisheries are productive. Scania was in remote ages independent; it was afterwards in the possession of Denmark, but was ceded to Sweden, along with the adjoining provinces of Blekingen and Halland, at the peace of Roschild, in 1658. The Danes attempted to re-conquer it after the adventures of Charles XII.; but an army of 50,000 peasants baffled their attempts. It is now divided into the provinces or læns of Christianstadt and Malmöhus. Population 260,000. S. odorata, with angular furrowed seeds. It is a native of Germany, and has a very thick perennial root, composed of many fibres of a sweet aromatic taste, like aniseed, from which come forth many large leaves that branch out somewhat like those of fern, whence it is named sweet fern. The stalks grow four or five feet high, are fistulous and hairy; the flowers are disposed in an umbel at the top of the stalk, are of a white color, and have a sweet aromatic scent. This species is easily propagated by seeds, which, if permitted to scatter, will supply an abundance of young plants, that may be put into any part of the garden, and require no care. SCANIA, or SCHONEN, a province of South Gothland, Sweden, bounded on the south by the Baltic, and on the west by the Sound. The latter separates it from Denmark. Its length from north to south is above sixty-five miles, its breadth from east to west above fifty. It comprises the most pleasant, as well as most fertile, country in Sweden; and consists of gentle eminences, which, in the interior, are covered with wood, and of fertile plains and valleys, producing abundance of corn and pasturage. Cattle and horses are considerably larger here than in the northern provinces of Sweden. The principal mineral products are alum, sulphur, coal, chalk, and lead. The inhabitants also export oak tim SCANNING, in poetry, the measuring of verse by feet, in order to see whether or not the quantities be duly observed. Thus an hexameter verse is scanned by resolving it into six feet; a pentameter, by resolving it into five feet, &c. SCANT, v. a., adj., & adv.) Sax. gerceanan, SCAN'TY, adj. SCAN'TILY, adv. SCAN TINESS, n. s. SCANT LET, SCANT LING, SCANTLY, adv. SCANT NESS, n. s. to break; Goth. skamt. To limit; straiten the ad jective signifies scarce ; limited: hence not liberal; wary as an adverb (obsolete), scarcely; hardly: scanty is narrow; confined; small: hence poor; not copious or full; sparing: the adverb and noun-substantive corresponding: scantlet and scantling signify a small piece or pattern; a small or given quantity: scantly is synonymous with scant, adverb, and scantness with scaniness. Milton. While the world was but thin, the ages of mankind were longer; and, as the world grew fuller, so their lives were successively reduced to a shorter scantlet, till they came to that time of life which they now have. Hale. Looking on things through the wrong end of the perspective, which scants their dimensions, we neglect Glanville's Scepsis. and contemn them. Did we but compare the miserable scantness of our capacities with the vast profundity of things, truth and modesty would teach us wary language. Id. I am scanted in the pleasure of dwelling on your Dryden. Virgil has sometimes two of them in a line; but the scantiness of our heroic verse is not capable of receiving more than one. actions. Id. A scantling of wit lay gasping for life, and groaning beneath a heap of rubbish. Id. Id. My eager love, I'll give myself the lye ; The very hope is a full happiness, Yet scantly measures what shall possess. 'Tis hard to find out a woman that's of a just Scantling for her age, hnmour, and fortune, to make a wife of. L'Estrange. In this narrow scantling of capacity, we enjoy but one pleasure at once. Locke. As long as one can increase the number, he will think the idea he hath a little too scanty for positive infinity Id. Their language being scanty and accommodated only to the few necessaries of a needy simple life, had no words in it to stand for a thousand. Id. Alexander was much troubled at the scantiness of nature itself, that there were no more worlds for him to disturb. South. There remained few marks of the old tradition, so they had narrow and scanty conceptions of Provi dence. Woodward. O'er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear. A. Patriots, alas! the few that can be found, What, have I scaped love-letters in the holyday time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Shakspeare. I spoke of most disastrous chances, Of hair-breadth scapes in the imminent deadly breach. In valley or green meadow, to way-lay Some beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene; Too long thou laid'st thy scapes on names adored. Id. Could they not fall unpity'd on the plain, But slain revive, and, taken, scape again? Dryden. which was set at liberty on the day of solemn SCAPE-GOAT, in Jewish antiquity, the goat expiation. For the ceremonies on this occasion, see Levit. xvi. 5, 6, &c. Some say that a piece of scarlet cloth, in form of a tongue, was tied on the forehead of the scape-goat.-Hoff. Lex. Univ. in voc. Lingua. Many have been the disputes among the interpreters concerning the meaning of the word scape-goat; or rather of Azazel, for which scape-goat is put in our version of the Bible. Spencer believes Azazel to be a proper name, viz. that of the evil spirit, to which he conceives the goat to have been devoted. He observes that the ancient Jews used to substithem have ventured to affirm that at the feast of tute the name Samael for Azazel; and many of expiation they were obliged to offer a gift to Samael to obtain his favor. Thus also the goat, sent into the wilderness to Azazel, was understood to be a gift or oblation. Some Christians have been of the same opinion. But Spencer thinks that the genuine reasons of the ceremony the people, and sent to Azazel, might be a symwere, 1. That the goat, loaded with the sins of of sinners. 2. God sent the goat thus loaded to bolical representation of the miserable condition the evil dæmons, to show that they were impure, thereby to deter the people from any conversation or familiarity with them. 3. That the goat sent to Azazel, sufficiently expiating all evils, the Israelites might the more willingly abstain from the expiatory sacrifices of the Gentiles. Le Clerc is of opinion that Azazel was the name of a place, either a mountain or a cliff, at which the goat waited, and thence, as the rabbins say, was cast down and slain. But the most common opinion is, that Azazel is a name given to the goat itself, on account of its being let go, as being derived from gnez or az, goat, and 18 azel, he hath gone away. Thus it was understood by our translators, who render it scapegoat; the Septuagint likewise render it anоnоμauoc, and the Vulgate emissarius. SCAPEMENT, in clock and watch work, a general term for the method, whatever it may be, of communicating the impulse of the wheels to the pendulum or balance. The ordinary scapements consist of the swing-wheel and pallets only; but modern improvements have added other levers or detents, chiefly for the purposes of diminishing friction, or for detaching the pendulum from the pressure of the wheels during part of the time of its vibration. See WATCHES. SCAPULA, n. s. Lat. scapula. The shoulder blade. The heat went off from the parts, and spread up higher to the breast and scapula. Wiseman. The humours dispersed through the branches of the axillary artery to the scapulary branches. Id. of Ulcers. The viscera were counterpoised with the weight of the scapular part. Derham. SCAPULA, in anatomy. See ANATOMY. SCAPULA (John), the reputed author of a Greek lexicon, noted only for a gross act of literary fraud. Being employed by Henry Stephens as a corrector to his press, while he was publishing his Thesaurus Linguæ Græcæ, Scapula extracted those words and explications which he reckoned most useful, comprised them in one volume, and published them as an original work, with his own name. The compilation and printing of the Thesaurus had cost Stephens immense labor and expense; but it was so much admired by those learned men to whom he had shown it, and seemed to be of such essential importance to the acquisition of the Greek language, that he reasonably hoped his labor would be rewarded by success, and the money he had expended would be repaid by a rapid and extensive sale. But, before his work came abroad, Scapula's abridgment appeared; which, from its size and price, was quickly purchased, while the Thesaurus itself lay neglected in the author's hands. The consequence was, a bankruptcy on the part of Stephens, while he who had occasioned it was enjoying the fruits of his treachery. Scapula's Lexicon was first printed in 1570, in 4to. It was afterwards enlarged and published in folio, and has gone through several editions. Its success is, however, not owing to its superior merit, but to its price and commodious size. Stephens charges the author with omitting many important articles. He accuses him of misunderstanding and perverting his meaning; and of tracing out absurd and trifling etymologies, which he himself had been careful to avoid. Doctor Busby would never permit his scholars at Westminster School to make use of Scapula's lexicon. SCAPULAR, in anatomy, the name of two pairs of arteries, and as many veins. SCAPULAR, OF SCAPULARY, a part of the habit of several religious orders in the church of Rome, worn over the gown as a badge of peculiar veneration for the Blessed Virgin. It consists of two narrow slips or breadths of cloth covering the back and the breast, and hanging down to the feet. The devotees of the scapulary celebrate their festival on the 10th of July. SCAR, n. s. & v. a. Fr. escarre; Gr. oxapa. A mark made by a hurt; a cicatrix: to mark in this way. Yet I'll not shed her blood, Nor scar that whiter skin of her's than snow, The soft delicious air, Milton. SCAR'AB, n. s. Fr. scarabée; Lat. scarabæus: A beetle; an insect with sheathed wings. A small scarab is bred in the very tips of elmleaves: these leaves may be observed to be dry and dead, as also turgid, in which lieth a dirty, whitish, rough maggot, from which proceeds a beetle. Derham's Physico- Theology. SCARABÆUS, the beetle, in zoology, a genus of insects of the coleoptera order. The antennæ are of a clavated figure, and fissile longitudinally: the legs are frequently dentated. See ENTOMOLOGY. The wing-cases prevent the various injuries their real wings might sustain by rubbing or crushing against the sides of their abode. These, though they do not assist flight, yet keep the internal wings clean and even, and produce a loud buzzing noise when the animal rises in the air. The scarabæus sacer is very often found on Egyptian monuments. It is represented on the Isiac table; and is frequent among hieroglyphics: it passed as the symbol of immortality, and as the emblem of the sun. Another species was consecrated to Isis, and indicated the moon; its two horns resembling the crescent of that planet. According to Caylus, the Egyptians were in the constant habit of giving the shape of the scarabæus to their amulets or rings. 1. S. capricornus, the small gilded capricorn, is of a true gold color, but in some lights has a cast of green and purple. It is often found among reeds by the banks of rivers (Lister). A variety of this species, but which Lister makes a distinct species, called the yellow capricorn, has a large black spot on each of the cases of the wings. It is found among the dry hay in April. 2. S. carnifex, which the Americans call the tumble-dung, is all over of a dusky black, and, though not much larger than the common black beetle, is the strongest of the beetle kind. Their excellent smell directs them in flights to excrements, which they form into round balls or pellets, in the middle of which they lay an egg. These pellets, in September, they convey three feet deep in the earth, where they lie till the approach of spring, when the eggs are hatched and burst their nests, and the insects find their way out of the earth. They assist each other with indefatigable industry in rolling these globular pellets to the place where they are to be buried. This they perform with the tail foremost by shoving along the ball with their hind feet. They are always accompanied by other beetles of a larger size, and of a more elegant structure and color. The breast of this is covered with a shield of a crimson color, and shining like metal; the head is of the like color, mixed with green; and on the crown of the head stands a shining black horn, bending backwards. Hence these are called the kings of the beetles, though they partake of the same dirty drudgery with the rest. 3. S. cerambyx, the musk beetle, is one of the is much smaller than the female, and is of a most beautiful of the English beetles. The male mixed color of purple and gold; the female is more of a green color; the horns of the males also consist of longer joints; and in both sexes the horns hang over the back, and are longer than the whole body. They are found among old willows, and often in the very wood. They are most numerous in July. They make a mournful sound when taken. See ENTOMOLOGY. 4. S. Hercules, the elephant beetle, is the largest of this kind hitherto known; and is found in South America, particularly in Guinea and Surinam, as well as about the river Oronooko. SCAR'AMOUCH, n. s. Fr. escaramouche, A buffoon in motley dress. It makes the solemnities of justice pageantry, and the bench reverend puppets, or scaramouches in scarlet. Collier. It SCARBOROUGH, a town of Yorkshire, in the North Riding, seated on a steep rock, almost inaccessible except towards the west. On the top of this rock is a large green plain, with two wells of fresh water springing out of the rock. The town is well built; the principal streets are spacious and welt paved, and the houses in general have a handsome appearance. A fine range of buildings on the cliff, commands a charming view. There is a commodious quay, and one of the finest harbours in the kingdom; to which belong many ships employed in the coal trade, from Newcastle to London. The harbour is protected by vast piers, extending a considerable way into the sea. A barrack has been erected here, with a strong battery of eighteen-pounders to protect the shipping. Scarborough has an excellent hospital for the widows of poor seamen, maintained by a rate on vessels, and a small deduction from seamen's wages; also an asylum for aged and infirm persons; an amicable society for clothing and educating about seventy boys and girls; a Lancasterian school, and numerous other benevolent institutions. is a town corporate, governed by two bailiffs, a recorder, two coroners, four chamberlains, and thirty-six common councilmen, and has sent two members to parliament since the reign of Edward I. who are elected by the corporation. It has been principally frequented on account of its mineral waters, called the Scarborough Spa. The spring was under the cliff, part of which fell down in 1737, and the water was lost; but, in clearing away the ruins to rebuild the wharf, it was recovered. These waters are chalybeate and purging. When they are poured out of one glass into another, they throw up a number of air bubbles; and if they are shaken for some time in a phial close stopped, and the phial be suddenly opened before the commotion ceases, they emit an elastic vapor, with an audible noise, which shows that they abound in carbonic acid gas. At the fountain they have a brisk, pungent, chalybeate taste; but they lose their chalybeate virtues by exposure and by keeping. A person resides at the spa during the season, and receives a subscription from each person, one-eighth of which goes to the water servers, &c., and the rest to the corporation. Assemblies and balls are held at Scarborough as at Tunbridge. See MINERAL WATERS. SCARCE, adj. & adv. Ital. scarso; of Lat. careo. Scanty; not plentiful; rare: scantily; hardly; with They that find fault with our store, should be least willing to reprove our scarcity of thanksgivings. Id. When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes. Shakspeare. Scarcity and want shall shun you; Ceres' blessing so is on you. Id. You neither have enemies, nor can scarce have any. Dryden. He scarcely knew him, striving to disown His blotted form, and blushing to be known. Id. Raphael writes thus concerning his Galatea :To paint a fair one, 'tis necessary for me to see many fair ones; but, because there is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained to make use of one certain idea, which I have formed in my fancy. Id. Dufresnoy. silver, because you tell him silver is scarcer now in A Swede will no more sell you his hemp for less England, and therefore risen one-fifth in value, than a tradesman of London will sell his commodity cheaper to the Isle of Man, because money is scarce there. Locke. Corn does not rise or fall by the differences of more or less plenty of money, but by the plenty and scarcity that God sends. Id. |