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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moratín, Leandro Antonio Eulogio Melitón Fernandez de

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​MORATÍN, LEANDRO ANTONIO EULOGIO MELITÓN FERNANDEZ DE (1760–1828), Spanish dramatist and poet, the son of N. F. de Moratín, was born at Madrid on the 10th of March 1760. Though his poetical tastes were early developed, his father apprenticed him to a jeweller. At the age of eighteen Moratín won the second prize of the Academy for a heroic poem on the conquest of Granada, and two years afterwards he attracted more general attention with his Lección poética, a satire upon the popular poets of the day. He was appointed secretary to Cabarrús on a special mission to France in 1787. On his return to Spain, Moratín was tonsured and presented to a sinecure benefice in the diocese of Burgos, and in 1786 his first play, El Viejo y la niña, was produced at the Teatro del Principe. Owing to the opposition of the clerical party, it was speedily withdrawn. The prose comedy, El Café ó la comedia nueva, given at the same theatre six years afterwards, at once became popular. On the fall of Florida Blanca, Moratín found another patron in Godoy, who provided him with a pension and the means for foreign travel; he accordingly visited England, where he began a prose translation of Hamlet, printed in 1798 but never performed. From England he passed to the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and on his return to the Peninsula in 1796 was appointed official translator to the foreign office. In 1803 he produced El Barón in its present form; originally written (1791) as a zarzuela, it was shamelessly plagiarized by Andrés de Mendoza, but the recast, a far more brilliant work, still keeps the stage. It was followed in 1804 by La Mogigata, written between 1797 and 1803. This piece was favourably received, and an attempt to suppress it on religious grounds failed. Moratín’s crowning triumph in original comedy was El Sí de las Niñas (1806), which was performed night after night to crowded houses, ran through several Spanish editions in a year, and was soon translated into a number of foreign languages. In 1808 Moratín was involved in the fall of Godoy, but in 1811 accepted the office of royal librarian under Joseph Bonaparte—a false step, which alienated from him all sympathy and compelled him to spend his last years in exile. In 1812 his Escuela de los maridos, a translation of Molière’s École des maris, was produced at Madrid, and in 1813 El Médico á Palos (a translation of Le Médecin malgré lui) at Barcelona. From 1814 to 1828 Moratín lived in Italy and France, compiling a work on the early Spanish drama (Orígenes del teatro español). He died at Paris on the 21st of June 1828.
The most convenient edition of his works is that given in vol. ii. of the Biblioteca de autores españoles; this is supplemented by the Obras póstumas (3 vols., Madrid, 1867–1868).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moratín, Nicolás Fernandez de

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​MORATÍN, NICOLAS FERNANDEZ DE (1737–1780), Spanish poet and dramatist, was born at Madrid in 1737. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Calatayud and afterwards studied law at the university of Valladolid. In 1772 he was called to the bar; four years afterwards he was nominated to the chair of poetry at the imperial college. He died on the 11th of May 1780. A partisan of French methods, Moratín published in 1762 his Desengaño al teatro español, a severe criticism of the national drama, particularly of the auto sacramental; and his protests were partly responsible for the prohibition of autos three years afterwards (June 1765). In 1762 he also published a play entitled La Petimetra. Neither the Petimetra nor the Lucrecia (1763), an original tragedy still more strictly in accordance with French conventions, was represented on the stage, and two subsequent tragedies, Hormesinda (1770) and Guzmán el Bueno (1777), were played with no great success. In 1764 Moratín published a collection of pieces, chiefly lyrical, under the title of El Poeta, and in 1765 a short didactic poem on the chase (Diana ó arte de la caza). His “epic canto” on the destruction of his ships by Cortés (Las Naves de Cortés destruidas) failed to win a prize offered by the Academy in 1777, and was published posthumously (1785). But a better idea of Moratín’s talent is afforded by his anacreontic verses and by his Carta histórica sobre el origen y progresos de las fiestas de toros eu España.
His works are included in the Biblioteca de autores españoles, vol. ii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Morar

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​MORAR, a town of Central India, in the native state of Gwalior, 3 m. E. of Gwalior city. Pop. (1901), 19,179. It was formerly a British military cantonment and residence of a political agent, but in 1886, when the fortress of Gwalior was restored to Sindhia, the troops at Morar were withdrawn to Jhansi, and the extensive barracks were likewise made over to Sindhia. In the Mutiny of 1857 Morar was the scene of the most serious uprising in Central India, It is a centre for local trade, and has an important tanning industry.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moratalla

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​MORATALLA, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Murcia, 40 m. W.N.W. of the city of Murcia. Pop. (1900), 12,689. Moratalla is built on a mountainous peninsula, almost surrounded by the Grande and Benamor, small rivers which meet and flow eastward to join the Segura. The town is a labyrinth of narrow, crooked streets, and some of its houses are Moorish in character. Its chief buildings are the modern hospital and theatre, and the 17th-century church. It has manufactures of coarse cloth, spirits and soap. The nearest railway station is Calasparra, 6 m. east, on the Murcia-Albacete railway.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Saxe, John Godfrey

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​SAXE, JOHN GODFREY (1816–1887), American poet, was born at Highgate, Vermont, on the 2nd of June 1816. He graduated at Middlebury College in 1839, and was admitted to the bar at St Albans, Vermont, in 1843. From 1850 to 1856 he edited the Burlington (Vermont) Sentinel, in 1859 and in 1860 was the candidate of the Democratic party for governor of Vermont, in 1860 removed to New York, and after 1872 edited the Evening Journal at Albany, New York, where he died on the 31st of March 1887. He was best known as a writer of humorous verse and a lecturer. His travesties and satires found many readers or listeners, and some of his love lyrics and other poems combine sparkle with real feeling. His “ Rhyme of the Rail,” “ The Proud Miss McBride,” “ I'm Growing Old ” and “ Treasures in Heaven ” were once very popular. Among his published collections are Humorous and Satirical Poems (1850), The Times, The Telegraph, and other Poems (1865), and Leisure Day Rhymes (1875).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sawtrey, William

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​SAWTREY, WILLIAM (d. 1401), English Lollard, was a priest at Lynn who was summoned before the bishop of Norwich for heresy in 1399. He does not appear at this time to have been seriously punished, and at the beginning of 1401 he is found in London, where his preaching again attracted the notice of the ecclesiastical authorities. The statute De heretic comburendo had just been introduced for the purpose of stamping out heresy, but it had not become law when Sawtrey was summoned to St Paul's and was charged with denying transubstantiation, with refusing to adore the cross except as a symbol, and with six other heresies. He defended himself ably against Archbishop Thomas Arundel, but in February he was condemned and was degraded from the priesthood. Being the first Lollard to be put to death he was burned at St Paul's Cross in March 1401.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sawyer, Sir Robert

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​SAWYER, SIR ROBERT (1633–1692), English lawyer, a younger son of Sir Edmund Sawyer, auditor of the city of London, was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself in classical learning, being the first Craven Scholar in 1648. He acquired a good practice at the bar, and in 1673 he was elected to the House of Commons, where for a short time in 1678 he was speaker. He inclined to the side of the court in politics, but was a strong opponent of concession to the Roman Catholics, and was one of the draftsmen of the Exclusion Bill. About the same time he began to appear as counsel in important state trials; he prosecuted Sir George Wakeman and others accused of complicity in the Popish plot in 1679; in 1681, having been in that year appointed attorney-general, he appeared for the crown in the prosecutions of Stephen College and Lord Shaftesbury; in the following year in the proceedings against the charter of the city of London; and in 1683 against Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney for complicity in the Rye House plot; and he conducted the case against Titus Oates for perjury in 1685. Although James II. retained him as attorney-general, he proved himself by no means a complacent instrument of the royal prerogative; he advised the king against the legality of the dispensing power, and objected to signing the patents appointing Roman Catholics to office from which they were excluded by law. He was dismissed from the attorney-generalship in 1687, and in the following year he appeared as leading counsel for the defence of the seven bishops, whose acquittal he secured. On the flight of James II., Sawyer maintained that the throne had thereby been abdicated, and took a prominent part in the debates on the constitutional questions then brought to the front. Owing to an attack upon him in 1690 in relation to his conduct in the case of Sir Thomas Armstrong in 1684, Sawyer was expelled from the House of Commons, but was returned again for Cambridge University shortly afterwards. He died on the 30th of July 1692. Sawyer's only daughter married Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke.
See State Trials, vols. vii.-xii.; Laurence Eachard, History of England (3 vols., London, 1707–1718), especially for Sawyer's defence of the seven bishops; Narcissus Luttrell, Brief Relation of State Affairs, 1678–1714 (Oxford, 1857); Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Times (6 vols., Oxford, 1833); and the Histories of England by Hallam and Lord Macaulay.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Saxhorn

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​SAXHORN, the generic name of a family of brass wind instruments (not horns but valve-bugles) with cup-shaped mouthpieces, invented by Adolphe Sax and in use chiefly in French and Belgian military bands and in small wind-bands. The saxhorns came into being in 1843, when Sax applied a modification of the valve system invented in Germany in 1815 to the keyed bugle. The saxhorn consists of a conical tube of a calibre greater than that of French horn and trumpet, but smaller than that of the tubas or bombardons, and capable therefore of producing by overblowing the members of the harmonic series from the 2nd to the 8th, in common with the cornets, bugles, valve-trombones and the Wagner tubas.
The saxhorns are furnished with three valves, by means of which the compass is rendered chromatic, and which act as in other valve instruments, lowering the pitch of the instrument when depressed, respectively 1 tone, a semitone and 1½ tones; and further, when used in combination, 2 tones, 2½ tones and 3 tones. The Flügelhorns, the euphonium, the bombardon and the tubas are sometimes erroneously classed as saxhorns. The difference between saxhorns and bombardons or tubas consists in the calibre of the bore, which in the latter is sufficiently wide in proportion to the length to produce the fundamental note of the harmonic series an octave below the lowest note of the saxhorns. The consequence of this structural difference is important, for whereas the tube of the tubas is theoretically of the same length as an open organ pipe of the same pitch, the saxhorns require a tube twice that length to produce the same scale. For instance, a euphonium sounding 8 ft. C only needs a tube 8 ft. long, whereas the corresponding bass saxhorn requires one 16 ft. long. In Germany these structural differences have given rise to a classification of brass wind instruments as whole or half instruments (Ganze or Halbe), according to whether the whole or only the half of the length of tubing is of practical use. The members of the saxhorn family are the small saxhorn in E♭, the soprano in B♭, the alto in E♭, the tenor in B♭, the bass in B♭ (an octave lower), the low bass in E♭, the contrabass in B♭, three octaves below the soprano. All the saxhorns are treated as transposing instruments. A similar family, constructed with rotary valves and conical tubes of larger calibre than the saxhorns, but having the same harmonic scale, is known in Germany as Flügelhorn. (K. S.)
* ↑ See Dr Emil Schafhäutl's article on musical instruments in sect. iv. of Bericht der Beurteilungscommission bei der allg. deutschen Industrieausstellung, 1854 (Munich, 1855), pp. 169-170.
* ↑ Georges Kastner, in Manuel général de musique militaire (Paris, 1848), gives full information on the saxhorns, pp. 230 et seq., 246-247, and Pls. xxii. and xxiii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sax, Antoine Joseph

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​SAX, ANTOINE JOSEPH, known as Adolphe (1814–1894), maker of musical instruments, was born at Dinant in Belgium on the 6th of November 1814 and died in Paris in 1894. In 1835 he perfected a bass clarinet superior to any that had preceded it. He came to Paris in 1842 and succeeded in interesting many eminent men, including Berlioz and Halévy. He set up a workshop in the Rue St Georges and studied acoustics, discovering a new principle in the manufacture of wind instruments, viz. that it is the proportions given to a column of air vibrating in a sonorous tube, and these alone, that determine the character of the timbre produced: the material of the walls of the tube is not of the slightest importance so long as it offers enough resistance. Together with his genius for mechanical invention Sax seems to have combined a knowledge of self-advertisement, and his name was often prefixed to successful types of instrument for the invention of which he was not primarily responsible. In 1845 he patented his saxhorn and a family of cylinder instruments called saxotrombas. On the 22nd of June 1846 he registered the saxophone. He also effected various improvements in piston instruments, of which the most important was the substitution of a single ascending piston for a number of descending ones.
See J. P. O. Cornettant, Histoire d'un inventeur (1860); C. Pilard, Les Inventions Sax (1869).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ricotti-Magnani, Cesare

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​RICOTTI-MAGNANI, CESARE (1822–), Italian general and knight of the Annunziata, was born at Borgo Lavezzaro on the 30th of June 1822. As artillery lieutenant he distinguished himself and was wounded at the siege of Peschiera in 1848, and in 1852 gained further distinction by his efforts to prevent the explosion of a burning powder magazine. After serving from 1856 to 1859 as director of the Artillery School, he became general of division in 1864, commanding the 5th division at the battle of San Martino. In the war of 1866 he stormed Borgoforte, to open a passage for Cialdini's army. Upon the death of General Govone in 1872 he was appointed minister of war, and after the occupation of Rome bent all his efforts to army reform, in accordance with the lessons of the Franco-German War, He shortened the period of military service; extended conscription to all able-bodied men; created a permanent army, a mobile militia and a reserve; commenced the renewal of armaments; and placed Italy in position to put 1,800,000 men on a war footing. Ricotti fell from power with the Right in 1876, but returned office with Depretis in 1884, and amended his previous scheme of reform. Resigning in April 1887, he became a member of the senate in 1890, but took little part in public life until 1896, when, after the battle of Adowa, he was entrusted by King Humbert with the formation of a cabinet. Having constructed his ministry, he made over the premiership to the marquis di Rudini, retaining for himself the portfolio of war, and seeking to satisfy popular demands 'for the reduction of military expenditure by consolidating .the tactical structure of the army without weakening its fighting power. Rudini, however, finding that Ricotti's ideas, Which he himself shared, were not acceptable at court, obliged him to resign office. His prestige. as creator of the modern Italian army remained unimpaired, and his views on army consolidation enjoyed a large measure of technical and public favour.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ridding, George

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​RIDDING, GEORGE (1828–1904), English headmaster and bishop, was born at Winchester College, of which his father, the Rev. Charles Ridding, vicar of Andover, was a fellow, on the 16th of March 1828. He was educated at Winchester and at Balliol College, Oxford. He became a fellow of Exeter College and was a tutor from 1853 to 1863. In 1853 he married Mary Louisa Moberly, who died within a year of her marriage. He was appointed second master of Winchester College in 1863, and on the retirement of his father-in-law, Dr Moberly, he succeeded to the headmastership. During the tenure of this office (1867-1884) he carried out successfully a series of radical reforms in the organization of the school, resulting in a great increase both in its reputation and numbers. In 1884 he became the first bishop of Southwell, and brought his powers of organization and conspicuous tact and moderation, to bear on the management of the new diocese. He took an active share in its educational and social work, and was materially assisted in these respects by his second wife, Lady Laura Palmer, daughter of the 1st earl of Selborne. He resigned his see a short time before his death, which took place on the 30th of August 1904.,
See Church Quarterly Review (July 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ricochet

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​RICOCHET, a military term expressing the rebound of a projectile that strikes on a hard surface. The origin of the French word ricochet, is unknown. Its earliest known use (14th and 15th centuries) was in the sense of “ repetition,” e.g. chanson du ricochet, “ an oft-told tale.” Hence it came to be applied to the rebound of a flat stone skimmed along the surface of water, known familiarly in English as “ ducks and drakes,” and so finally in the military sense defined above, which found its way into the English language. The use of the now obsolete “ ricochet fire ” in war is well illustrated by “ducks and drakes.” The shot, striking the ground at a small angle, described for the remainder of its course a succession of leaps and falls. The discovery of this species of fire, usually attributed to Vauban (siege of Ath in 1697), had the greatest influence both on sieges and on operations in the field. In siege warfare, ricochet, especially when combined with enfilade, i.e. when directed along the enemy's line of defence, soon became the principal weapon of the besieger, and with the system of parallels (q.v.) gave the attack a superiority so complete that a siege came to be considered as the most ​certain operation of war. Enfilade fire by itself was neutralized by traverses (q.v.) in the defences, but by the new method a shot could be so aimed as to skip over each successive traverse and thus to search ground that was immune from direct fire. The application of ricochet fire to operations in the field came somewhat later. In the 18th century field artillery, which was not, before Napoleon's time, sufficiently mobile to close with the enemy, relied principally upon the ricochet of round shot, which, sweeping a considerable depth of ground, took effect upon several successive lines of hostile troops. But once artillery was able to gallop up to the enemy and to use its far more terrible close-range projectile, case-shot, ricochet fire came to be used less and less, until finally, with the general adoption of shell (which, of course, burst at the first contact with the ground), the round shot disappeared altogether from the battlefield. Similarly in siege warfare, as soon as high-angle fire with shells became sufficiently accurate, there was no further need of round shot and ricochet.
The term “ ricochet ” is now only applied, in modern rifle shooting, to the graze of a bullet that has struck short. A modern bullet-that has ricochetted inflicts a very severe wound, as its nickel or other hard envelope is torn and jagged by its contact with the ground. With its high remaining velocity it is dangerous even after more than one ricochet, except at extreme ranges.