SLAGS-SLATE. produce as fine wheat as any grown in the archipelago. The only town in the island is Skyro, or St George, which is built on a high peak on the eastern coast, the broad summit of which is occupied by the ruins of a castle, and was the site of the lofty Scyros' of Homer. There are several relics of antiquity in the island. Pop. 2620. SLAGS, called otherwise Scoria or Cinders, are fused compounds of silica in combination with lime, alumina, or other bases; and result as secondary products from the reduction of metallic ores. More or less of the metal always remains in a slag; in the early days of iron-smelting, the proportion of metal thus wasted was so great, that some old slags have been profitably smelted in recent times. Slags being silicates, are of the nature of glass, and externally have a glassy, crystallised, or stone-like character. Beautifully crystallised specimens are occasionally to be met with at smelting-works. They vary very much in colour, and are sometimes so prettily veined and marbled, that attempts have been made to apply them to ornamental purposes. Millions of tons of slag are annually produced at the iron-smelting works of Great Britain, but almost the only use to which it has yet been successfully applied is in the making of square blocks or bricks for building purposes. The slag is run into moulds, either as it issues from the blast-furnace, or after being remelted; and it is found to be a very durable material. Broken slag is also used as a covering for roads, but its brittleness and sharpness are objectionable qualities for this purpose. Several patents, beginning so far back as 1728, have been taken out for casting slag into articles of a more ornamental kind, but hitherto they have not been commercially successful. Slang is not exclusively of modern date. It was known in the classic ages of Greece and Rome, and abounds in the writings of Aristophanes,_Plautus, Terence, and Martial. Every modern European language has its slang. In England, the 'Rump, the Barebones Parliament,' the terms 'Roundheads,' 'Puritans,' 'Quakers,' all belonged to the slang of the 17th century. Hudibras and the dramatic works of last century abound in slang. Old English slang was coarser than that now in use, but the greater portion of its phraseology had a somewhat restricted circulation, not permeating every species of conversation to the extent that modern slang does. Towards the close of last century, the slang vocabulary received large additions from pugilism, racing, and 'fast life;' and its fashionable vulgarisms came into great favour during the minority of the Prince Regent. In the present century, the growth of refinement in manners and ideas has not banished slang, but given it a more familiar and utilitarian character, while it has been introduced in some measure into circles where it was formerly unknown. Slang consists in part of new words, and in part of words of the legitimate language invested with new meanings, such as are assigned to the verbs to cut, to do. Many slang expressions are derived from thieves' cant, and some from the gipsy tongue. Their derivations are often indirect, arising out of fanciful allusions and metaphors, which soon pass out of the public mind, the word remaining, while its origin is forgotten. The origin of much of the current slang may be traced to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the great public schools of England. There is not an institution connected with the university which has not its slang equivalent (e. g., ‘plucked,' little go’). There is a slang attached to various professions, In an archæological point of view, slags are interesting as pointing out the sites of ancient smelting-occupations, and classes of society. The slang of works, and as affording a clue to the primitive methods of obtaining the metals from their ores. English fashionable life and fashionable novels comprises a number of French words and phrases, whose application is often very different from what is current in France. The beau monde, expressions which, in their English sense, are utterly unknown in Paris. To the slang of mili tary life, Hindustani has contributed its quota of words, imported by officers who have resided long in India. We have also parliamentary slang, religious slang, literary slang, civic slang, and shopkeepers' slang.-Many curious details regarding slang in all its departments are to be found in Hotten's Slang Dictionary (Lond. 1865). SLANDER is an injury to a person's character and reputation caused by spoken words. It is diffi-a chaperon, a marriage being on the tapis, are cult to define what kind of injuries of this nature are actionable, but in general whatever imputes disgraceful, fraudulent, or dishonest conduct, or even tends to make a man contemptible in his private relations, and shunned by his friends and neighbours, is a slander. Thus, whatever imputes a crime or indictable offence, or a contagious disease, is a slander. There are some epithets, however, which are not actionable unless some special damage is directly caused thereby, as calling a inan a scoundrel, swindler, rogue, gambler, liar, &c. To call a woman a whore is also not actionable, unless she can shew that she has lost offers of marriage, &c. thereby, Words imputing gross ignorance or misconduct affecting one's trade or profession, are, however, actionable, as calling a man a bankrupt grocer, a quack doctor, &c. See also LIBEL. The remedy for slander is an action at law for damages. Though certain words when spoken will not amount to slander, yet, if printed or written, they will sometimes become so, as calling one a rogue, swindler, rascal, &c. SLANG, a word originally borrowed from the gipsy tongue, where it is used for the secret language of that tribe. In its usual signification, it denotes a burlesque style of conversational language, originally found only among the vulgar, but now more or less in use in both Great Britain and America among persons in a variety of walks in life. It is somewhat allied to, though not identical with, cant (in French argot), the language used for purposes of concealment by thieves and vagrants of all descriptions. SLATE, or CLAY-SLATE (Fr. esclat, a shiver or splinter), is a highly metamorphosed argillablue, gray, green, or black colour. It splits into ceous rock, fine-grained and fissile, and of a dull thin lamina or plates, that are altogether independent of the layers of deposit; though somecross them at different angles. times coinciding with them, they more frequently See CLEAVAGE. Some rocks that split into the thin plates of the original stratification, are popularly but erroneously named slate, as the thin bedded sandstones properly called flagstones or tilestones, the fissile shales of Cambrian and Silurian age, and the metamorphic, gneiss, and mica schist, whose planes of division correspond to their stratification. True slate is a very compact rock, little liable to be acted upon by atmospheric agencies. It is chiefly obtained from Palæozoic strata, but it is found also among more recent rocks. It is used for various purposes, being split into thin slabs of small size for the roofing of houses, and into larger slabs for fitting up dairies, &c., and even for making billiard-tables, and split and polished by means of pumice for writing-slates. There are extensive quarries of SLATE-PENCILS-SLAVERY. roofing-slate in Wales and in the Western Highlands of Scotland, and in the Ardennes in France, some of which have been wrought for a long time, and give employment to a great number of workmen. A hard compact slate is best for roofing; that which is porous imbibes water, the freezing of which splits it in winter, whilst it affords also a soil for mosses, which soon injure the roof. their condition somewhat resembling that of the serfs of the middle ages. They could not be sold out of the country, or separated from their families, and were even capable of acquiring property. Domestic slaves obtained by purchase were the unrestricted property of their owners, who could dispose of them at pleasure. In Athens, Corinth, and the other commercial states, they were very In roofing with slates, it is necessary to put on numerous, and mostly barbarians. They were emthe slates in two thicknesses, so that the sloping ployed partly in domestic service, but more as joints may be covered by the overlap of the bakers, cooks, tailors, or in other trades, and in course above. Besides this, the third course must mines and manufactories; and their labour was the also cover the first means by which the owner obtained profit for his by an inch or two, outlay in their purchase. These slaves were, for to prevent rain from the most part, purchased; but few were born in penetrating. Slates their master's family, partly from the general disare generally laid couragement of the cohabitation of slaves, and partly upon boarding, and from the small number of the female in comparibedded in lime, son with the male slaves. An extensive traffic in and nailed with slaves was carried on by the Greek colonists in malleable-iron nails, Asia Minor with the interior of Asia; and another japanned, so as to source of supply arose from the practice common prevent them from rusting. When large strong among Thracian parents of selling their children. slates are used, they may be nailed to strong laths In Greece in general, and especially at Athens, in place of boarding. Welsh slates are the cheapest slaves were mildly treated, and enjoyed a large and most generally used; but Easdale or Ballachu-share of legal protection. According to Demosthenes, lish slates, from the west of Scotland, are stronger a slave at Athens was better off than a free citizen and better when the roofs are liable to be injured. SLATE-PENCILS are either cut or turned sticks of slate, or they are made by pressing moistened slate-powder until it is firm enough to be made into pencils. SLAVE-COAST, a division of the coast of Upper Guinea, Africa, lying between the rivers Volta and Lagos. See GUINEA. SLAVERY. A slave is an individual who is the property, or at the disposal of another, who has a right to employ or treat him as he pleases. Such is the state of the slave in the most absolute sense of the term; but slavery has been subjected to innumerable limitations and modifications. Slavery probably arose at an early period of the world's history out of the accident of capture in war. Savages, in place of massacring their captives, found it more profitable to keep them in servitude. All the ancient oriental nations of whom we have any records, including the Jews, had their slaves. The Hebrews were authorised by their law to possess slaves, not only of other races, but of their own nation. The latter were generally insolvent debtors, who had sold themselves through poverty, or thieves who lacked the means of making restitution; and the law dealt with them far more leniently than with stranger slaves. They might be redeemed; and if not redeemed, became free in the space of seven years from the beginning of their servitude; besides which, there was, every fiftieth year, a general emancipation of native slaves. Slavery existed in ancient Greece: in the Homeric poems, it is the ordinary destiny of prisoners of war; and the practice of kidnapping slaves is also recognised-Ulysses himself narrowly escaping a fate of this kind. None of the Greek philosophers considered the condition of slavery objectionable on the score of morals. Aristotle defends its justice on the ground of a diversity of race, dividing mankind into the free and the slaves by nature; while Plato only desires that no Greeks should be made slaves. One class of Greek slaves were the descendants of an earlier and conquered race of inhabitants, who cultivated the land which their masters had appropriated, paid rent for it, and attended their masters in war. Such were the Helots in Sparta, the Penesta in Thessaly, the Bithynians at Byzantium, &c., who were more favourably dealt with than other slaves, in many other countries. The Roman condition of slavery differed in some particulars from that of Greece. All men were considered by the Roman jurists to be free by natural law; while slavery was regarded as a state contrary to natural law, but agreeable to the law of nations, when a captive was preserved, instead of being slain (hence the name servus, quasi servatus); or agreeable to the civil law, when a free man sold himself. In earlier times, there was no restriction on the master's power of punishing or putting to death his slave; and even at a later period, when the law on this head was much modified, slaves were used with considerable rigour. The estimation in which their lives were held is illustrated by the practice of gladiatorial combats, as also by the conduct of Vedius Pollio, who, in the polite age of Augustus, flung such slaves as displeased him into his fishponds, to feed his lampreys, and on the matter being brought under the emperor's notice, was visited with no severer punishment than the destruction of his ponds. Old and useless slaves were often exposed to starve in an island of the Tiber. Under the Empire, the cruelty of masters It was was in some degree restrained by law. enacted, that a man who put to death his own slave without cause should be dealt with as if the slave had been the property of another; and that if the cruelty of the master was intolerable, he might be compelled to sell the slave. A constitution of Claudius declared the killing of a slave to be murder, and it was also enacted, that in sales of slaves, parents and children, brothers and sisters, should not be separated. A slave could not contract marriage, and no legal relation between him and his children was recognised. The children of a female slave followed the status of their mother. There were various ways in which a slave might be manumitted, but the power of manumission was restricted by law. The harbouring of a runaway slave was illegal. The number of slaves in Rome, originally small, was increased much by war and commerce; and the cultivation of the soil came, in the course of time, to be entirely given up to them. During the later republic and empire, persons in good circumstances kept an immense number of slaves as personal attendants; and the possession of a numerous retinue of domestic slaves was matter of ostentation-200 being no uncommon number for one person. SLAVERY. A multitude of slaves were also occupied in the mechanical arts and the games of the amphitheatre. Originally, a slave was incapable of acquiring property, all his acquisitions belonging to his master; but when slaves came to be employed in trade, this condition was mitigated, and it became the practice to allow a slave to consider part of his gains, called his peculium, as his own, a stipulation being sometimes made that he should purchase his freedom with his peculium, when it amounted to a specific sum. Though the introduction of Christianity did not do away with slavery, it tended to ameliorate the condition of the slave. Justinian did much to promote the eventual extinction of slavery; and the church excommunicated slave-owners who put their slaves to death without warrant from the judge. But the number of slaves again increased; multitudes being brought with them by the barbarian invaders, who were mostly Slavonian captives (whence our word slave); and in the countries which had been provinces of the empire, slavery continued long after the empire had fallen to pieces, and eventually merged into the mitigated condition known as serfdom, which prevailed all over Europe in the middle ages, and has been gradually abolished in modern times. See SERF. But though the practice of selling captives taken in war as slaves ceased in the Christian countries of Europe, a large traffic in slaves continued among Mohammedan nations, by whom Christian captives were sold in Asia and Africa; and in the early middle ages, the Venetian merchants traded largely in slaves, whom they purchased on the coast of Slavonia, to supply the slave-markets of the Saracens. The negro slavery of modern times was a sequel to the discovery of America. Prior, however, to that event, the negroes, like other savage races, enslaved those captives in war whom they did not put to death, and a considerable trade in slaves from the coast of Guinea was carried on by the Arabs. The deportation of the Africans to the plantations and mines of the New World doubtless raised the value of the captive negro, and made slavery rather than death his common fate; while it may also have tempted the petty princes to make war on each other, for the purpose of acquiring captives, and selling them. The aborigines of America having proved too weak for the work required of them, the Portuguese, who possessed a large part of the African coast, began the importation of negroes, in which they were followed by the other colonisers of the New World. The first part of the New World in which negroes were extensively used was Hayti, in St Domingo. The aboriginal population had at first been employed in the mines; but this sort of labour was found so fatal to their constitutions that Las Casas, bishop of Chiapa, the celebrated protector of the Indians, interceded with Charles for the substitution of African slaves as a stronger race; the emperor accordingly, in 1517, authorised a large importation of negroes from the establishments of the Portuguese on the coast of Guinea. Sir John Hawkins was the first Englishman who engaged in the traffic, in which his countrymen soon largely participated, England having exported no fewer than 300,000 slaves from Africa between the years 1680 and 1700; and between 1700 and 1786, imported 610,000 into Jamaica alone. The slave-trade was attended with extreme inhumanity; the ships which transported the negroes from Africa to America were overcrowded to such an extent that a large proportion died in the passage; and the treatment of the slave after his arrival in the New World depended much on the character of his master. Legal restraints were, however, imposed in the various European settlements, to protect the slaves from injury; in the British colonies, courts were instituted to hear their complaints; their condition was to a certain extent ameliorated, and the flogging of women was prohibited. But while slavery was thus legalised in the British colonies, it was at the same time the law of England (as decided in 1772 in the case of the negro Somerset), that as soon as a slave set his foot on English soil he became free; though, if he returned to his master's country, he could be reclaimed. Before the idea of emancipation was contemplated, the efforts of the more humane portion of the public were directed towards the abolition of the traffic in slaves. In 1787, a society for the suppression of the slave-trade was formed in London, numbering Messrs W. Dillwyn, Thomas Clarkson, and Granville Sharp among its original members. The most active parliamentary leader in the cause was Mr William Wilberforce, whose views were seconded by Mr Pitt. In February 1788, an order of the crown directed that an inquiry should be made by a committee of the Privy Council into the state of the slave-trade; and an act was passed to regulate the burden of slaveships, and otherwise diminish the horrors of the middle-passage. A bill introduced by Mr Wilberforce for putting an end to the further importation of slaves was lost in 1791. Meanwhile, our conquest of the Dutch colonies having led to a great increase in the British slave-trade, an order in council, in 1805, prohibited that traffic in the conquered colonies; and in the following year, an act was passed forbidding British subjects to take part in it, either for the supply of the conquered colonies or of foreign possessions. In the same year, a resolution moved by Mr Fox for a total abolition next session, was carried in the Commons, and on Lord Granville's motion, adopted in the Lords; and the following year, the general abolition bill, making all slavetrade illegal after 1st January 1808, was introduced by Lord Howick (afterwards Earl Grey) in the House of Commons, was carried in both Houses, and received the royal assent on 25th March 1807. British subjects, however, continued to carry on the trade under cover of the Spanish and Portuguese flags; the slave-ships were more crowded than ever, from the necessity of avoiding capture, and the negroes were not unfrequently thrown overboard on a pursuit. The pecuniary penalties of the act were discovered to be inadequate to put down a traffic so lucrative as to cover all losses by capture. Mr Brougham therefore, in 1811, introduced a bill, which was carried unanimously, making the slavetrade felony, punishable with 14 years' transportation, or from three to five years' imprisonment with hard labour. An act of 1824 declared it piracy, and as such, a capital crime, if committed within the Admiralty jurisdiction; and the statute of 1837, mitigating the criminal code, left it punishable with transportation for life. Among the philanthropic projects due to the exertions of the Anti-slavery Society was the establishment of the colony of Sierra Leone, on the coast of Africa, which had been formed by the British government in 1787, in order to shew the possibility of obtaining colonial produce without slave-labour, and after the abolition of the slave-trade, became a settlement for the negroes captured by British cruisers. The United States of America abolished the slavetrade immediately after Great Britain, and the same was in the course of time done by the South American republics of Venezuela, Chili, and Buenos Ayres, by Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and during the Hundred Days after Napoleon's return from Elba, by France. Great Britain, at the peace, exerted her influence to induce other foreign powers to adopt a SLAVERY-SLAVES. sunilar policy; and eventually nearly all the states of Europe nave passed laws or entered into treaties prohibiting the traffic. The accession of Portugal and Spain to the principle of abolition was obtained by treaties of date 1815 and 1817; and by a convention concluded with Brazil in 1826, it was declared piratical for the subjects of that country to be engaged in the slave-trade after 1830. By the conventions with France of 1831 and 1833, to which nearly all the maritime powers of Europe have since acceded, a mutual right of search was stipulated within certain seas, for the purpose of suppressing this traffic. The provisions of these treaties were further extended in 1841 by the Quintuple Treaty between the five great European powers, subsequently ratified by all of them except France. The Ashburton treaty of 1842 with the United States provided for the maintenance by each country of a squadron on the African coast; and in 1845, a joint co-operation of the naval forces of England and France was substituted for the mutual right of search. All these efforts have not succeeded in altogether abolishing the slave-trade; and the encouragement which its continuance has given to the petty chieftains to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow-countrymen, has tended to retard the progress of civilisation in Africa. The flag of Portugal, and occasionally of Spain, is believed to have been used with connivance of the authorities for carrying on the traffic, and no small difficulty has been found in obtaining the sincere co-operation of either of these two countries. In 1857, a scheme was sanctioned by the French government for conveying free negroes to the colonies of Guadaloupe and Martinico; but it gave rise to abuses, and the seizure of two vessels engaged in this enterprise as slavers by the Portuguese, with the disclosures which followed, led to its being given up. The limitation of the supply of negroes naturally led, among other good results, to a greater attention on the part of the masters to the condition of their slaves. But the attention of British philanthropists was next directed towards doing away with slavery altogether in our colonies. Societies were formed with this end, an agitation was set on foot, and attempts were made, for some time without success, to press the subject of emancipation on the House of Commons. At length, in 1833, a ministerial proposition for emancipation was introduced by Mr. Stanley, then Colonial Secretary, and an emancipation bill passed both Houses, and obtained the royal assent, 28th August 1833. This act, while it gave freedom to the slaves throughout all the British colonies, at the same time awarded an indemnification to the slave-owners of £20,000,000. Slavery was to cease on 1st August 1834; but the slaves were for a certain duration of time to be apprenticed labourers to their former owners. Objections being raised to the apprenticeship, its duration was shortened, and the complete enfranchisement took place in 1838. While this measure reflects the highest credit on the humanity which prompted it, it is not to be denied that emancipation has failed to benefit the slave or raise his condition to the extent hoped for by its more enthusiastic supporters. The French emancipated their negroes in 1848; as did most of the new republics of South America at the time of the revolution; while the Dutch slaves had freedom conferred on them in 1863. In Hayti, slavery ceased as far back as 1791, its abolition having been one of the results of the negro insurrection of that year. Slavery still exists in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Of slavery in the United States it is recorded hat the first slaves introduced into the territory of the original colonies were sold from a Dutch vessel which landed twenty at Jamestown, Va., in 1620. Says the historian Bancroft, "It is not easy to conjecture how many negroes were imported into the English continental colonies * * * *. Previous to the year 1740 there may have been introduced into our country nearly one hundred and thirty thousand; before 1776, a few more than three hundred thousand." The importation of slaves was received with great disfavor by the colonists. Laws were passed by the colony of Virginia restraining the practice; but their wishes were disregarded by the king, who, on the 10th day of December, 1770, issued the governor, "under pain of the highest disan instruction, under his own hand, commanding pleasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect proIn April, 1772, this hibited or obstructed." rigorous order was solemnly debated in the Assembly of Virginia. A memorial to the king himself from the coast of Africa "a trade of great inhuwas prepared, declaring the importation of slaves manity and dangerous to the very existence of his majesty's American dominions," and praying that the interest of the few of his subjects in Great Britain who might "reap emolument from this sort of traffic" might be disregarded when placed in competition with the interests of the entire colonies. Their petition was of no avail; and with the further development of the country the institution of slavery, regarded at first as a moral and political evil, came to be recognized in the Southern States as a social necessity. In 1790 the slaves in the United States numbered 697,897; in 1810, 1,191,364; in 1820, 1,538,038; in 1830, 2,009,043; in 1840, 2,487,455; in 1850, 3,204,313; and in 1860, 3,952,801. In 1780 Pennsylvania provided for the gradual emancipation of her slaves. Massachusetts abolished slavery by the adoption of her constitution in 1780. Rhode Island and Connecticut gradually emancipated their slaves. In 1799 New York passed a gradual emancipation act, and in 1817 another act, declaring all slaves free on the 4th of July, 1827. New Jersey passed a gradual emancipation act in 1804, and in 1863 slavery was abolished in the states of the Union then in rebellion, and by Art. XIII. of the Constitution in 1865. SLAVES, or SLAVONIANS (native name Slowene or Slowane, derived by some from Slawa, fame, but better from Slowo, a word; thus meaning 'speaking' or 'articulate,' as distinguished from other nations, whom they called Niemetz, or 'Mutes'), the general name of a group of nations belonging to the Aryan family, whose settlements extend from the Elbe to Kamtchatka, and from the Frozen Sea to Ragusa on the Adriatic, the whole of Eastern Europe being almost exclusively occupied by them. They were settled in these regions before the dawn of history, and are comprehended by ancient writers under the designations of Sarmatians and Scythians. The original names of the Slavic tribes seem to have been Winds or Wends (Venedi) and Serbs. The writers, and later, in Jornandes, in connection with former of these names occurs among the Roman the commercial peoples of the Baltic Sea; the latter is spoken of by Procopius as the ancient name common to the whole Slavic stock. The earliest historical notices extant represent the S. as having their chief settlements about the Carpathians, from which they spread northward to the Baltic, westward as far as the Elbe and the Saal, and later, after the overthrow of the kingdom of the Huns SLAVIC LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE-SLAVONIA. southward beyond the Danube, and over the whole peninsula between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. These migrations ceased in the 7th c.; the division of the Slavic stock into separate branches became now more complete, and gradually they began to form into independent states. The various sections of the stock may be divided into two groups, the south-eastern and the western; the first comprehends-(1), Russians; (2), Bulgarians; (3), Illyrians (Serbs, Croats, Wends): the second-(1), Lechs (Poles, Silesians, Pomeranians); (2), Czechs or Bohemians (Czechs, Moravians, Slovaks); (3), Polabians, comprising the Slavic tribes of N. Germany, who are fast disappearing, by being absorbed in the Teutonic population. With the exception of Russia (to which may be added Servia and Montenegro, as maintaining a kind of independence), the once numerous Slavic kingdoms (Bohemia, Bulgaria, Moravia, Poland, &c.) have lost their sovereignty, and been incorporated in other states, chiefly Turkey, Austria, Prussia, and Saxony. The Polabians never attained any distinct political footing. The whole of the Slavic populations are estimated at upwards of 80 millions. The S. are represented by ancient writers as an industrious race, living by agriculture and the rearing of flocks and herds; as hospitable and peaceful, and making war only in defence. The feeling of nationality was strong among them. The government had a patriarchal basis, and chiefs or princes were chosen by assemblies. But contact with the feudal institutions of the Roman-German empire gradually altered this primitive constitution; the Slavic princes strove after unlimited power, like that of the emperors; and the chiefs sought to dominate over the people, like the feudal nobility. In the course of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, nobility became a hereditary privilege throughout the Slavic states. The worst kind of feudalism fairly took root, and the people sank into the condition of serfs. Between them and the nobles there was no third or middle class, as the peculiar privileges of the nobility prevented the growth of cities. See SERF, RUSSIA. The religion of the ancient S., like that of the Teutonic nations, seems to have been, in many of its features at least, a kind of nature-worship; not, however, without the idea of a One supreme power, to whom the other agencies were subordinate. From this, some authorities infer that the system was originally a monotheism, which in process of time had become obscured and confused by the infusion of foreign elements, and thus degenerated into polytheism, and finally pantheism. The chief deity, whose worship seems to have been common to all the Slavic tribes, was Swiatowit, with whom were associated, on a nearer footing of equality than the other gods, Perun and Radegast-if, indeed, these three names do not merely denote different personations or manifestations of the same power. In this trinity, Swiatowit is considered as most analogous to Mars and Zeus, Perun to Jupiter and Thor, and Radegast to Mercury and Odin. Of the numerous gods of an inferior order, we may name Prowe, god of justice; Prija (= Freya), Venus; Bjelbog, the White god, and Cernobog, the Black god; together with multitudes of demons and spirits good and bad. The images of the Slavic divinities (a stone statue of Swiatowit was in recent times discovered in Eastern Galicia) had a striking resemblance to those of India. Swiatowit had four heads, Rugewit (the god of war) had seven faces, and Peruu four, and so on. The S. seem to have been not without some crude notion of existence and retribution after death. Worship was performed in groves and temples, cattle and fruits being offered by the priests, whose office must have been originally performed by the head of the family or chieftain, as the common name for priest and prince (kniez) shews. -The eastern S. received Christianity from Byzantium in the 9th c., through the instrumentality of Cyril (q. v.) and Methodius; the western, from Rome and Germany.-See Schafarik, Slaw. Alterthümer (Ger. translation, Leip 1843). SLA'VIC LANGUAGE AND LITERA TURE. The term Slavic, as applied to language or race, is a generic name (like Celtic or Teutonic) for a group of kindred languages and peoples belonging to the great Indo-Germanic or Aryan family. In its roots and structure, the Slavic language exhibits a remarkable similarity to Sanscrit, but has become European, so to speak, in the course of a long literary development, begun before that of any of the other European families. Its peculiarities are quite marked. The leading characteristics of the Slavic tongues are the completeness of their system of declensions, the want of articles, the absence of pronouns in the conjugation of the verb, pure vowel-endings, the fixed quantity of the syllables, the free construction of sentences, and the richness of their vocabulary. The earliest dialect of Slavic that received a literary culture was the Old Bulgarian,' better known as the 'Church Slavic,' which, however, failed to become the literary vehicle for all the Slavic peoples, inasmuch as the special dialect of each gradually acquired a literAltogether, writers reckon ature of its own. eight distinct extant dialects of Slavic: 1. The 'New Bulgarian;' 2. The Russian; 3. The Servian or Illyrian; 4. The Polish; 5. The Bohemian The Slovak; 7. The Wendic; 8. The Polabic. Such of these as merit special treatment have received it. -See ВоHEMIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, POLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. In regard to Slavic literature, considering the articles just mentioned, it is only branch of the Slavic is the richest in the number of necessary to state that at present the Russian its published works; but as regards literary merit, the Polish ranks first, having cultivated with great success almost all sorts of literature, and The Bohemian and Servian literatures both conpossessing in particular a very exquisite poetry. tain many fine and distinctively original productions, worthy of being more widely known than they are. See Schafarik's History of the Slavic Lan guage and Literature (Ofen, 1816); and Mickiewicz's Lectures on the Slavic Literature (4 vols. Leip. 1849). ; 6. SLAVONIA, a province of Austro-Hungary, east of Croatia (q. v. ), with which it is now politically united. It is bounded on the N. by the Drave, on the E. by the Danube, on the S. by the long strip of marsh-land known as the Slavonian Military Frontier, which stretches between it and the Save. Area of the crown-lands of Croatia (q. v.) and Slavonia, 7074 sq. m.; pop. 1,023,858. The greater part of the surface consists partly of eminences clothed with vines and fruit-trees, and partly of fertile and swampy plains. The mountains are rich in coal, marble, and mineral springs. The principal products are all sorts of grain, particularly maize and wheat, leguminous plants, and fruit in abundance, apples, pears, plums, walnuts, chestnuts, melons, wine, &c. There is little manufacturing industry in Slavonia.-The inhabitants of S. belong to the Slavic family (see SLAVES), and call their land Slavonska; themselves Slavonaz. They speak the so-called Illyrian or Servian tongue. See SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The Slavonians proper are a handsome, tall, and |