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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sharp, William (poet)

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SHARP, WILLIAM (1856-1905), Scottish poet and man of letters, was born at Paisley on the 12th of September 1856. His was a double personality, for during his lifetime he was known solely by a series of poetical and critical works of great, but not of outstanding merit, while from 1894 onwards he published, with elaborate precautions of secrecy, under the name of “Fiona Macleod,” a series of stories and sketches in poetical prose which made him perhaps the most conspicuous Scottish writer of the modern Gaelic renaissance. His early life was spent chiefly in the W. highlands of Scotland, and after leaving Glasgow University he went to Australia in 1877 in search of health. After a cruise in the Pacific he settled for some time in London as clerk to a bank, became an intimate of the Rossettis, and began to contribute to the Pall Mall Gazette and other journals. In 1885 he became art critic to the Glasgow Herald. He spent much time abroad, in France and Italy, and travelled extensively in America and Africa. In 1885 he married his cousin, Elizabeth Amelia Sharp, who helped him in much of his literary work and collaborated with him in compiling the Lyra Celtica (1896). His volumes of verse were The Human Inheritance (1882), Earth's Voices (1884), Romantic Ballads and Poems of Fantasy (1886), Sospiri di Roma (1891), Flower o' the Vine (1894), Sospiri d'Italia (1906). William Sharp was the general editor of the “Canterbury Poets” series. He was a discriminating anthologist, and his Sonnets of the Century (1886), to which he prefixed a useful treatise on the sonnet, ran through many editions. This was followed by American Sonnets (1889). He wrote biographies of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882), of Shelley (1887), of Heinrich Heine (1888), of Robert Browning (1890), and edited the memoirs of Joseph Severn (1892). The most notable of his novels was Silence Farm (1899). During the later years of his life he was obliged for reasons of health to spend all his winters abroad. The secret of his authorship of the “Fiona Macleod” books was faithfully kept until his death, which took place at the Castello di Manlace, Sicily, on the 12th of December 1905. As late as the 13th of May 1899 Fiona Macleod had written to the Athenaeum stating that she wrote only under that name and that it was her own. She began to publish her tales and sketches of the primitive Celtic world in 1894 with Pharais: A Romance of the Isles. They found only a limited public, though an enthusiastic one. The earlier volumes include The Mountain Lovers (1895), The Sin-Eater (1895), The Washer of the Ford and other Legendary Moralities (1896), &c. In 1897 a collected edition of the shorter stories, with some new ones, was issued as Spiritual Tales, Barbaric Tales and Tragic Romances. Later volumes are The Dominion
of Dreams (1899); The Divine Adventure: Iona: and other Studies in Spiritual History (1900), and Winged Destiny (1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sharpsburg

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​SHARPSBURG, a borough of Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Allegheny river, opposite the N.E. part of Pittsburg. Pop. (1900) 6842 (1280 foreign-born); (1910) 8153. Sharpsburg is served by the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio railways. Coal is mined in the vicinity. Among the manufactures are iron pipes, truck and bar iron, wire, stoves, paint and lubricating oil. Sharpsburg was settled in 1826, was named in honour of James Sharp, the original proprietor, and was incorporated in 1841.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shasi

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​SHASI, a city in the province of Hu-peh, China, on the left bank of the river Yangtsze, about 85 m; below Ich'ang. Pop. about 80,000. It was opened to foreign trade under the Japanese treaty of 1895. The town lies below the summer level of the Yangtsze, from which it is protected by a strong embankment. Formerly Shasi was a great distributing centre, but the opening of Ich'ang to foreign trade diverted much of the traffic to the last-named port. It is the terminus of an extensive network of canals which run through the low country lying on the north bank of the Yangtsze as far down as Hankow. Native boats, as a rule, prefer the canal route to the turbulent waters of the Yangtsze, their cargoes being transhipped at Shasi across the embankment into river boats. Foreign residents are few, and the trade passing through the maritime customs is comparatively insignificant. The place is still, however, a large distributing centre for native trade, and is the seat of an extensive manufacture of native cotton cloth. The British consulate was withdrawn in January 1899, British interests being placed under the care of the consul at Ich'ang.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sharpe, Daniel

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​SHARPE, DANIEL (1806–1856), English geologist, was born in Marylebone, London, on the 6th of April 1806. His mother was a sister of Samuel Rogers, the poet. At the age of 16 he entered the counting-house of a Portuguese merchant in London. At the age of 25, after spending a year in Portugal, he joined his elder brother as a partner in a Portuguese mercantile business. As a geologist he first became known by his researches (1832–1840) on the geological structure of the neighbourhood of Lisbon. He studied the Silurian rocks of the Lake District and North Wales (1842–1844), and afterwards investigated the structure of the Alps (1854–1855). He was elected F.R.S. in 1850. He published several essays on cleavage (1847–1852), and showed from the evidence of distortion of organic remains that the direction of the pressure producing contortions in the rocks was perpendicular to the planes of cleavage. Most of his papers were published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, but one “ On the Arrangement of the Foliation and Cleavage of the Rocks of the North of Scotland,” was printed in the Phil. Trans. 1852. He was author also of a Monograph on the Cephalopoda of the Chalk, published by the Palaeontographical Society (1853–1857). In 1856 he was elected president of the Geological Society, but he died in London, from the effects of an accident, on the 31st of May that year.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Verulamium

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​VERULAMIUM, a Romano-British town situated in the territory of the Catuvellauni, close to the modern St Albans (Hertfordshire). Before the Roman conquest it was probably a native capital: afterwards it received the dignity of a municipium (implying municipal status and Roman citizenship). Tacitus tells us that the town was burnt by Boadicea in A.D. 61, but it again rose to prosperity. Its site is still easily recognizable. Its walls of flint rubble survive in stately fragments, and enclose an area of 200 acres. Of the internal buildings little is known. A theatre was excavated in 1847, and parts of the forum were opened by Mr William Page in 1898; both indicate a civilized and cultivated town. The complete uncovering of the site was planned in 1910.
(F. J. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vertue, George

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​VERTUE, GEORGE (1684-1756), English engraver and antiquary, was born in St Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, in 1684. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to an heraldic engraver, a Frenchman, who failed in three or four years. Vertue then studied drawing at home, and afterwards worked for seven years as an engraver under Michael Vandergucht. He was patronized by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and was one of the first members of the Academy of Painting which that artist instituted in 1711. His plate of Archbishop Tillotson, after Kneller, commissioned by Lord Somers, established his reputation as an engraver; and he was soon in an'excellent practice, engraving portraits after Dahl, Richardson, Jervas and Gibson. In portraiture alone he executed over five hundred plates. In 1717 he was appointed engraver to the Society of Antiquaries, and his burin was employed upon many interesting statues, tombs, portraits and other subjects of an antiquarian nature. He died on the 24th of July 1756, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
From the year 1713 Vertue had been indefatigable in his researches on all matters connected with the history of British art, and had accumulated about forty volumes of memoranda on the subject. These were purchased by Horace Walpole, and form the basis of that author's Anecdotes of Painting in England, including an account of Vertue's life and a catalogue of his engravings. Vertue's own literary works include On Holbein and Gerard's Pictures (1740); Medals, Coins, Great Seals, Impressions, from the Elaborate Works of Thomas Simon (1753); Catalogue and Description of King Charles the First's Capital Collection of Pictures, Limnings, Statues, &c. (1757); Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures belonging to King James II., to which is added a Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings in the Closet of Queen Caroline (1758); Catalogue of the Curious Collection of Pictures of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1758); Description of the Works of that Ingenious Delineator and Engraver, W. Hollar (1745).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Versecz

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​VERSECZ (Ger. Werschetz), a town of Hungary, in the county of Temes, 235 m. S.S.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 25,199. It has a handsome parish church and is the seat of a Greek Orthodox bishop. Versecz is one of the principal wine-producing centres in Hungary, and the red wines and brandy produced here enjoy a great reputation. Near the town are remains of a Roman castle, and a Roman rampart and trench which extend for about 60 m. to the north. During the revolutionary period of 1848–49 the Hungarians defeated the Servians here on the 11th of July 1848, while on the 19th of January 1849 the town was occupied by the Austrian troops.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vertical

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​VERTICAL (from Lat. vertex, highest paint), the direction of the line of action of gravity, as determined by the plumb-line. The angle of the vertical is the angle between the direction of the plumb-line and that of the earth's centre (see Earth, Figure of the).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vertumnus

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​VERTUMNUS (or Vortumnus, "turning," "changing"), in Roman mythology, the god of the changing year with its seasons, flowers and fruits, probably of Italian origin, Like Proteus, he had the power of assuming any shape he pleased, which enabled him to win the love of Pomona (q.v.). His shrine and statue (see the well-known description in Propertius iv. 2) were in the Vicus Tuscus, and from his connexion with this busy street he was regarded as having a special interest in trade and barter. At another sanctuary on the slope of the Avetine, sacrifice was offered to him every year on the 13th of August. It is probable that he was of Etruscan origin (see Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 1902, p. 233).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sybaris

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​SYBARIS, a city of Magna Graecia, on the Gulf of Tarentum, between the rivers Crathis (Crati) and Sybaris (Coscile), which now meet 3 m. from the sea, but in ancient times had independent mouths, was the oldest Greek colony in this region. It was an Achaean colony founded by Isus of Helice (about 720 B.C.), but had among its settlers many Troezenians, who were ultimately expelled. Placed in a very fertile, though now most unhealthy, region, and following a liberal policy in the admission of citizens from all quarters, the city became great and opulent, with a vast subject territory and divers daughter colonies even on the Tyrrhenian Sea (Posidonia, Laus, Scidrus). For magnificence and luxury the Sybarites were proverbial throughout Greece, and in the 6th century probably no Hellenic city could compare with its wealth and splendour. At length contests between the democrats and oligarchs, in which many of the latter were expelled and took refuge at Crotona, led to a war with that city, and the Crotoniats with very inferior forces were completely victorious. They razed Sybaris to the ground and turned the waters of Crathis to flow over its ruins (510 B.C.). Explorations undertaken by the Italian government in 1879 and 1887 failed to lead to a precise knowledge of the site. The only discoveries made were (1) that of an extensive necropolis, some 8 m. to the west of the confluence of the two rivers, of the end of the first Iron age, known as that of Torre Mordillo, the contents of which are now preserved at Potenza; (2) that of a necropolis of about 400 B.C.—the period of the greatest prosperity of Thurii (q.v.)—consisting of tombs covered by tumuli (called locally timponi), in some of which were found fine gold plates with mystic inscriptions in Greek characters; one of these tumuli was over 90 ft. in diameter at the base with a single burial in a sarcophagus in the centre.
See F. Lenormant, La Grande-Grèce, i. 325 seq. (Paris, 1881); F. S. Cavallari, in Notizie degli Scavi (1879, passim; 1880, 68, 152); A. Pasqui, ibid. (1888), 239, 462, 575, 648; P. Orsi, in Atti del congresso di scienze storiche, v. 195 sqq. (Rome, 1904).  (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Syagrius

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​SYAGRIUS (d. 487), the last of the independent Roman administrators of Gaul, was the son of Aegidius, who had seized Gaul while Ricimer was master of Italy. From 464 to 486 he governed that part of Gaul which lies between the Maas, the Scheldt and the Seine, and was termed “king of the Romans” by the German invaders, Franks, Burgundians and Visigoths, who already occupied the rest of Gaul. Defeated in 486 by Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, at the battle of Soissons, Syagrius fled, leaving his land at the mercy of the Franks. He sought refuge with Alaric II., king of the Visigoths, at Toulouse, but Alaric imprisoned him instead of granting him refuge, and delivered him up to Clovis. He was executed in 487, secretly and by the sword, according to Gregory of Tours.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swynford, Catherine

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​SWYNFORD, CATHERINE (c. 1350–1403), wife of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, was a daughter of Sir Payne Roelt, a knight who came to England from Hainault in the train of Edward III.’s queen, Philippa. About 1367 she married Sir Hugh Swynford 1340–1372), a Lincolnshire man, by whom she had a son, Thomas (c. 1368–1433), who was a friend and companion of Henry IV. both before and after he came to the English throne. Soon after her husband’s death in 1372 Catherine became the mistress of John of Gaunt, and in 1396, nearly two years after the duke had become a widower for the second time, she was married to him at Lincoln. She died at Lincoln on the 10th of May 1403. By John of Gaunt Catherine had four children, all of whom were born before their marriage. They were declared legitimate in 1397 and took the name of Beaufort from one of their father’s castles in Anjou (see Beaufort).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rotumah

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​ROTUMAH (Rotuma, Rotuam or Grenville), an island of the South Pacific Ocean, in 12° 30′ S., 177° E., about 300 m. N. by W. of Fiji, of which British colony it is a dependency. Its area is 14 sq. m., and its extreme elevation 800 ft. It is surrounded by coral reefs, and is richly wooded. Several islets lie round it. The population is about 2200, the natives being Polynesian, though their language has been classified as Melanesian. They are Wesleyans or Roman Catholics. The chief product is copra. A European commissioner resides. Local laws, subject to approval by the legislative council of Fiji, are promulgated by a regulation board, composed of the commissioner, native chiefs of the seven districts into which the island is divided, and two native magistrates. Rotumah was discovered by Captain Edwards of the “Pandora” in 1791, and was annexed by Great Britain in 1881.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rouault, Joachim

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​ROUAULT, JOACHIM (d. 1478), French soldier, was a member of an old family of Poitou. He attached himself to the dauphin (afterwards Louis XI.) and became his premier squire. He followed Louis in his expedition against the Swiss in 1444, distinguished himself in the war against England in 1448, and received the posts of governor of Blaye and Fronsac and constable of Bordeaux. After taking an important part in the battle of Castillon (1453), which resulted in the defeat and death of John Talbot, 1st earl of Shrewsbury, he fought against John V., count of Armagnac, in 1455, and in the following year made a fruitless expedition into Scotland. He took part in the campaign in Catalonia, and became marshal of France in 1461, and governor of Paris in 1471. In 1471 and 1472 he defended Amiens and Beauvais against the Burgundians. Towards the end of his life he was disgraced by Louis XI., and sentenced to banishment and the confiscation of his property.  (M. P.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rotorua

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​ROTORUA, a town of Rotorua county, North Island, New Zealand. It lies in the midst of a remarkable volcanic district generally known as the Hot Spring district, or fancifully as the Wonderland, which covers an area of 660 sq. m. and extends 160 m. from N.E. to S.W. from White Island, an active volcanic cone in the Bay of Plenty to the mountains of Tongariro, Ngaruhoe and Ruapehu in the interior of the island, S.W. of lake Taupo. Rotorua attracts many visitors on account of the beauty and scientific interest of the locality and the bathing in its various medicinal springs. It is a scattered township lying on the south-western shore of lake Rotorua, amid hills reaching 2600 ft. in the immediate neighbourhood, and much of the volcanic soil supports a rich growth of forest or “bush.”
The springs are principally alkaline, alkaline and siliceous, acidic, or acidic and hepatic (sulphurous). The township includes the Maori village of Ohinemutu, an interesting collection of native dwellings, whose inmates constantly use the numerous rudely excavated baths which are fed by springs varying in temperature from 60° F. to the boiling-point, and are in some cases used for cooking. In the vicinity, on the lake-shore, is the government sanatorium. Two miles south of Rotorua is another native village, Whakarewarewa, where there are geysers as well as hot springs. Four miles from Rotorua, near the centre of the lake, the island of Mokoia rises to 1518 ft. It is partly under grass and partly wooded, and is inhabited by Maoris, by whom it is regarded as holy ground. A short channel connects lake Rotorua with lake Rotoiti to the N.E. At the eastern end steep cliffs rise from the water, and luxuriant vegetation covers the hills. Both this lake and the smaller ones to the east, Rotoehu and Rotoma, have deeply indented shores, and are set in exquisite scenery. The group is known collectively as the Cold Lakes. The waters of Rotoma are of a particularly vivid blue. To the south of Rotoiti is Tikitere, a sombre valley abounding in mud volcanoes, springs and other active volcanic phenomena. Mount Tarawera (16 m. S.E. of Rotorua) is noted for the eruption of June 1886, which changed the outline of several lakes, destroyed the famous Pink and White terraces on the adjoining lake Tarawera, and converted a region of great beauty into a desolate wilderness. A fissure was formed extending nearly 9 m. along the axis of the disturbance, and the mission station of Wairoa (8 m. from Rotorua) on the western shore of the lake was overwhelmed. A line of craters is seen to the south-west. The large lakes Okataina, Kahahi and Rerewhakaitu lie respectively N., W. and S.E. of lake Tarawera.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rottenburg

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​ ROTTENBURG, a town and episcopal see of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, situated on the left bank of the Neckar, which is here crossed by two bridges connecting the ​ town with the suburb of Ehingen, 7 m. by rail S.W. of Tübingen. Pop. (1905) 7554. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, and possesses the fine Gothic cathedral of St Martin; several other churches; an old castle now used as a prison; and a building, formerly a Jesuit monastery and now the residence of the bishop. The chief industries are the manufacture of machinery, screws, watches and beer, tanning and the cultivation of fruit and hops. Rottenburg passed into the possession of Austria in 1281 and into that of Württemberg in 1805. Near the town are the remains of the Roman station of Sumalocenna or Salmulocenae.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rottweil

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​ROTTWEIL, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, lying on a hill on the left bank of the Neckar, 46 m. S.W. of Tübingen by rail. Pop. (1905) 9008. It is partly surrounded by walls, and contains two fine churches, the Gothic Heilige-Kreuz-kirche, built in the 14th century and restored in 1840, and the Capellen-kirche with a Gothic spire 2430 ft. high. It has a medieval town hall, several schools and a museum of antiquities. Especially noteworthy is the collection of sculptures and pictures of old German art in the chapel of St Lawrence, where there is also a Roman mosaic, found in the vicinity, portraying Orpheus in the centre and, at the sides, Roman chariot-races and gladiators. The industries of the place ​embrace the manufacture of powder, locomotives, machinery, cotton, leather and beer. There is also a considerable trade in live stock, agricultural produce and wine.
Rottweil-Altstadt, which lies about ¾ m. to the south, was a Roman colony. It has an old church and a Cistercian nunnery founded in 1221 and dissolved in 1838. Near the town is Wilhelmshall, with saline springs. In the 13th century Rottweil became a free imperial city and was subsequently the seat of an imperial court of law, the jurisdiction of which extended over Swabia, the Rhineland and Alsace. The functions of this tribunal came to an end in 1784. In 1803 Rottweil passed into the possession of Württemberg.
See Ruckgaber, Geschichte der Stadt Rottweil (3 vols., Rottweil, 1835); and Greiner, Das ältere Recht der Reichsstadt Rottweil (Stuttgart, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rothwell

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​ROTHWELL, an urban district in the Normanton parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 4 m. S.E. of Leeds. Pop. (1901) 11,702. The church of the Holy Trinity, though largely restored, retains some good Decorated details. Rothwell soon after the Conquest was granted as a dependency of the castle of Pontefract to the Lacys, who erected here a baronial residence of which there are slight remains. Coal and stone are obtained in the neighbourhood, and the town possesses match-works and rope and twine factories in which the majority of the large industrial population is employed.