SOLOMON, king of Israel from 1015 to 977 B.C., second son of David and Bathsheba, and David's successor; in high repute far and wide for his love of wisdom and the glory of his reign; he had a truly Oriental pa.s.sion for magnificence, and the buildings he erected in Jerusalem, including the Temple and a palace on Mount Zion, he raised regardless of an expense which the nation resented after he was gone; the burden of which it would seem had fallen upon them, for when his successor, following in his courses, ascended the throne, ten of the tribes revolted, to the final rupture of the community, and the fall of first the one section and then the other under alien sway.

SOLOMON OF ENGLAND, an appellation conferred on Henry VII., and also satirically on James I., characterised by Sully as "the wisest fool in Christendom."

SOLOMON OF FRANCE, a t.i.tle bestowed on Louis IX.

SOLOMON ISLANDS (167), a large group of islands in the West Pacific, 500 m. E. of New Guinea, the N. islands of which belong to Germany, and the S. to Britain; are volcanic in origin, mountainous, wooded, and thickly populated by Melanesian savages, who are totem worshippers, and still practise cannibalism.

SOLOMON'S RING, a ring worn by Solomon, in which was a stone from which, according to the Rabbins, he learned whatever he wished to know.

SOLON, the great Athenian law-giver, and one of the seven sages of GREECE (q. v.), born in Athens, was of royal degree, and kinsman of Pisistratus; began life as a trader, and in that capacity acquired a large experience of the world, and he soon turned his attention to political affairs, and showed such wisdom in the direction of them that he was elected archon in 594 B.C., and in that office was invested with full power to ordain whatever he might deem of advantage for the benefit of the State; he accordingly set about the framing of a const.i.tution in which property, not birth, was made the basis of the organisation, and the t.i.tle to honour and office in the community; he divided the citizens into four cla.s.ses, gave additional power to the a.s.semblies of the people, and made the archons and official dignitaries responsible to them in the administration of affairs; when he had finished his work, he ordered the laws he had framed to be engraved on tablets and set up in a public place, then took oath of the people to observe them for ten years, after which he left the country and set out on travel; at the end of the ten years he returned, to find things lapsing into the old disorder, and Pisistratus ready to seize the sovereignty of the State, whereupon he withdrew into private life, and died the subject of a tyrant at the age of eighty (640-559 B.C.).

SOLSTICE, summer and winter, the two recurring periods of the year at which the sun is farthest distant N. or S. from the equator, which mark midsummer and midwinter, the times being the 21st of June and 22nd of December; also applied to the two points in the ECLIPTIC (q. v.), which the sun appears to reach on these two dates.

SOLWAY FIRTH, an arm of the Irish Sea, and in its upper part forming the estuary of the river Esk, separating c.u.mberland from the S. of Scotland (Kirkcudbright and Dumfries); stretches inland from Balcarry Point 36 m., and from 2 to 20 m. broad; receives the Annan, Dee, Nith, Eden, and Derwent, and has valuable salmon-fishings; the spring tides ebb and flow with remarkable rapidity, the "bore" often reaching a speed of from 8 to 10 m. an hour; is spanned near Annan by a railway viaduct 1960 yards long.

SOLWAY MOSS, a moss, now drained and cultivated, in c.u.mberland, on the Scottish border, that was the scene of the defeat of the Scotch army in 1542, a disaster which broke the heart of James V.

SOLYMAN II., surnamed THE MAGNIFICENT, the tenth and greatest of the Ottoman sultans, the son and successor of Selim I.; succeeded his father at 24; set himself at once to reform abuses and place the internal administration on a strict basis, and after making peace with Persia and allaying tumult in Syria, turned his arms westwards, captured Belgrade, and wrested the island of Rhodes from the Knights of St. John; he twice over led his army into Hungary; in connection with the latter invasion laid siege to Vienna, from which he was obliged to retire after the loss of 40,000 men, after which he turned his arms to the east, adding to his territory, and finally to the North of Africa, to the conquest of the greater part of it; he died at Szigeth while opening a new campaign against Hungary; _d_. 1566.

SOMA, the intoxicating juice of a plant offered in libation to a Hindu G.o.d, especially to INDRA (q. v.), to strengthen him in his war with the demons, and identified with the invigorating and inspiring principle in nature which manifests itself at once in the valour of the soldier and the inspiration of the poet; as a G.o.d Soma is the counterpart of AGNI (q. v.).

SOMAI, BRAHMO. See BRAHMO-SOMAJ.

SOMALILAND, a broad plateau of East Africa, bounded by the Gulf of Aden on the N. and the Indian Ocean on the SE.; inhabited by the Somalis, a pastoral people, who rear camels, sheep, and oxen, and are of the Mohammedan faith; are under chiefs, and jealous of strangers.

SOMERSET HOUSE, a handsome Government building in London, with a double frontage on the Strand and the Victoria Embankment, built on the site of the palace of the Protector Somerset, and opened in 1786; accommodates various civil departments of the Government--the Inland Revenue, Audit and Exchequer, Wills and Probate, Registry-General. The east wing is occupied by King's College and School.

SOMERSETSHIRE (484), a maritime county of England, fronting the Bristol Channel, between Devon (N.) and Gloucester (SW.), with Wilts and Dorset on the E. and S.; diversified by the Mendips (NE.), Quantock Hills, Exmoor (SW.), and other smaller elevations; is yet in the main occupied by wide level plains largely given over to pastoral and dairy farming; watered by the Bristol Avon, the Parret, and other lesser streams; its orchards rank next to those of Devon; is prolific in Roman, Saxon, and ancient British remains; Taunton is the county town, but Bath the largest.

SOMERVILLE, MRS. MARY, a lady skilled in mathematics and physics, born at Jedburgh; was brought up at Burntisland and Edinburgh; contributed to the _Transactions of the Royal Society_; wrote a book ent.i.tled the "Mechanism of the Heavens" on the suggestion of Lord Brougham, as a popularisation of Laplace's "Mechanique Celeste," which was followed by her "Connection of the Physical Sciences," "Physical Geography," and "Molecular and Microscopic Science," the last published in her ninetieth year; died at Naples (1770-1872).

SOMME, 1, a river of North France; rises in the department of Aisne, near St. Quentin, and flows 150 m. SW. and NW. to the English Channel; navigable as far as Abbeville. 2, A department (546) of North France, fronting the English Channel, between Seine-Inferieure (S.) and Pas-de-Calais (N.); one of the most prosperous agricultural and manufacturing districts of France; AMIENS (q. v.) is the chief town.

SOMNATH (7), an ancient maritime town of Oujarat, India, in the SW.

of the peninsula of Kathiawar; has interesting memorials of Krishna, who, it is alleged, is hurled in the vicinity; close by is a famous ruined Hindu temple, despoiled in the 11th century of its treasures, sacred idol, and gates; in 1842 Lord Ellenborough brought hack from Afghanistan gates which he thought to be the famous "Gates of Somnath,"

but doubt being cast on their authenticity, they were eventually placed in the a.r.s.enal of Agra.

SOMNATH, IDOL OF, "a mere ma.s.s of coa.r.s.e crockery," says Jepherson Brick, an imaginary friend of Carlyle's, "not worth five shillings, sat like a great staring G.o.d, with two diamonds for eyes, which one day a commander of the Faithful took the liberty to smite once as he rode up with grim battle-axe and heart full of Moslem fire, and which thereupon shivered into a heap of ugly potsherds, yielding from its belly half a waggon-load of gold coins; the gold coins, diamond eyes, and other valuables were carefully picked up by the Faithful; confused jingle of potsherds was left lying; and the idol of Somnath, once showing what it _was_, had suddenly come to a conclusion."

SOMNUS, the G.o.d of Sleep, a brother of Death, and a son of Night, represented, he and Death, as two youths sleeping or holding inverted torches in their hands; near the dwelling of Somnus flowed the river of Lethe, which crept along over pebbles, and invited to sleep; he was attended by Morpheus, who inspired pleasing dreams.

SONATA, a musical composition chiefly designed for solo instruments, especially the pianoforte, and consisting generally of three or four contrasted movements--the allegro, adagio, rondo, minuetto or scherzo; reaches its n.o.blest expression in the sonatas of Beethoven.

SONDERBUND, the name given to the union of the Catholic cantons (Lucerne, Zug, Freiburg, and Valais) of Switzerland, which led to the civil disturbances of 1845-1846, and the war of 1847.

SONNET, a form of poetical composition invented in the 13th century, consisting of 14 decasyllabic or hendecasyllabic iambic lines, rhymed according to two well-established schemes which bear the names of their two most famous exponents, Shakespeare and Petrarch. The Shakespearian sonnet consists of three four-lined stanzas of alternate rhymes clinched by a concluding couplet; the Petrarchan of two parts, an octave, the first eight lines rhymed abbaabba, and a sestet, the concluding six lines arranged variously on a three-rhyme scheme.

SONS OF THE PROPHETS. See NEBIIM.

SONTAG, HENRIETTA, a German singer, born at Coblenz; made her _debut_ at 15; had a brilliant career twice over (1806-1854).

SOOCHOO (500), a large city in China, 50 m. NW. of Shanghai; is intersected by ca.n.a.ls, walled all round, and manufactures fine silk.

SOPHERIM, THE, the name by which the SCRIBES (q. v.) are designated in Jewish literature.

SOPHIA, ELECTRESS OF HANOVER, youngest daughter of ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA (q. v.), and mother of George I. (1630-1714).

SOPHIA, ST., the personification of the Divine wisdom, to whom, as to a saint, many churches have been dedicated, especially the Church of Constantinople.

SOPHIE CHARLOTTE, wife of Friedrich I. of Prussia, born in Hanover, daughter of Electress Sophia; famous in her day both as a lady and a queen; was, with her mother, of a philosophic turn; "persuaded," says Carlyle, "that there was some n.o.bleness for man beyond what the tailor imparts to him, and even very eager to discover it had she known how"; she had the philosopher Leibnitz often with her, "eagerly desirous to draw water from that deep well--a wet rope with cobwebs sticking to it often all she got--endless rope, and the bucket never coming to view"

(1668-1705).

SOPHISTS, a sect of thinkers that arose in Greece, and whose radical principle it was that we have only a subjective knowledge of things, and that we have no knowledge at all of objective reality, that things are as they seem to us, and that we have no knowledge of what they are in themselves; "on this field," says SCHWEGLER, "they disported, enjoying with boyish exuberance the exercise of the power of subjectivity, and destroying, by means of a subjective dialectic, all that had been ever objectively established," such as "the laws of the State, inherited custom, religious tradition, and popular belief.... They form, in short, the German AUFKLaRUNG (q. v.), the Greek Illumination (q. v.). They acknowledged only _private_ judgment and ignored the existence of a judgment that is not private, and has absolute rights irrespective of the sentiments of the individual."

SOPHOCLES, Athenian tragic poet, born at Colonos, a suburb of Athens; when but 16, such was his musical talent, he was selected to lead the choir that sang the song of triumph over the victory of Salamis; his first appearance as a dramatist was in 488 B.C., when he had aeschylus as his rival and won the prize, though he was seven years afterwards defeated by Euripides, but retrieved the defeat the year following by the production of his "Antigone." That same year one of the 10 _strategi_ (or generals) and he accompanied Pericles in his war against the aristocrats of Samos. He wrote a number of dramas, over 100 it is alleged, but only 7 survive, and these in probable order are "Ajax," "Antigone," "Electra,"

"Oedipus Tyrannus," "Trachineae," "Oedipus Coloneus," and "Philoctetes."

Thus are all his subjects drawn from Greek legend, and they are all alike remarkable for the intense humanity and sublime pa.s.sion that inspires them and the humane and the high and holy resolves they stir up.