SMITHFIELD-SMOKE-NUISANCE.

and this completed his round of ecclesiastical preferments. He sighed for a mitre, but it never came; and Lord Melbourne is said to have regretted this omission in his career as Prime Minister. The writings of S. subsequent to 1800 were his contributions to the Edinburgh Review, which he collected and republished, with other miscellaneous works, in 1839; Peter Plymley's Letters, written in 1807, to promote the cause of Catholic emancipation, and abounding in wit and irony worthy of Swift; Sermons in two volumes, 1809; Speeches on the Catholic Claims and Reform Bill, 1825-1831; Three Letters to Archdeacon Singleton on the Ecclesiastical Commission, 1837-1839; The Ballot, a political pamphlet, 1837; Letter to Lord John Russell on the Church Bills, 1838; Letters on Railways, 1842; Letters on American Debts, 1843; &c. Though gay, exuberant, and witty to the last, S. suffered from periodical attacks of gout and other complaints, and he died on the 22d of February 1845. Ten years afterwards, his daughter, wife of Sir Henry Holland, physician, published a Memoir of her father, with a selection from his letters.

and Finsbury, one southward to Ludgate and Blackfriars, and one north-westward to King's Cross and the north of London. In convenient proximity to these, will be a magnificent Dead-meat Market, from the designs of Mr Horace Jones, the city archi tect; it will be an architectural pile 620 feet long by 240 broad, traversed by numerous avenues, and having 200 shops for dealers in meat, mostly countrykilled. This arrangement will enable the city authorities to abolish Newgate and Leadenhall markets, which have became serious obstructions to city traffic. At another part of S., will be a circular spiral road, to give descent to an underground goods-station. The remainder will be laid out in well-paved carriage and foot ways, with possibly a small ornamental green or enclosure opposite St Bartholomew's Hospital.

SMITHSO'NIAN INSTITUTION, at Washington, District of Columbia, U. S., was organised by act of Congress in 1846, in accordance with the will of James Smithson, who bequeathed the reversion of an estate amounting to $515,169 to the United States of America, to be devoted to 'the increase and The works of S. were mostly written on temporary diffusion of knowledge among men.' He was an topics and controversies, yet they bid fair to take a Englishman, a natural son of Hugh, third Duke of permanent place in our literature as specimens of Northumberland, and Mrs Elizabeth Macie, a niece clear and vigorous reasoning, rich unctuous humour, of Charles, Duke of Somerset. He devoted his life and solid good sense. His jokes, exaggeration, and ridicule are all logical, driving home his argument; at Genoa in 1829. The Institution is governed by reto scientific pursuits, especially to chemistry, and died and his wit was sportive, untinctured with malice. gents appointed by the Federal government, and has His views on political and social questions were erected a spacious edifice, with museum, library, cabmoderate, wise, and practical; and he lived to see inets of natural history, and lecture-rooms, which most of them realised. He erred at times in treat- occupies a prominent situation at Washington, the caping sacred subjects with levity and seeming irrever-ital of the United States. It has long been a very valuence; but this fault was one of natural temperament, and had no root in infidelity. He was a sincere, benevolent, and good man, a true patriot, and a happy Christian philosopher.

SMITHFIELD. This name has become so celebrated, in connection with a cattle-market in London, that it has been applied to similar establishments elsewhere. S., in the 12th c., was an open spot which served the citizens as a playground and a place for a stroll. Being a little north of Newgate, and west of Aldersgate, it was outside the city walls. It was in S. that the rebel Wat Tyler met his death in 1381. Several noted tournaments were held here; and the place is associated with trials by battle, the burnings of martyrs, public executions during many centuries, and a variety of incidents connected with the history of the metropolis. The most celebrated fair in England, Bartholomew Fair (q. v.), was always held in Smithfield.

A cattle-market was held in S. at least seven centuries ago, for Fitzstephen mentioned it in 1150. The corporation had official control over the market for more than 500 years, dating from 1345; and the city authorities have never to this day relaxed their hold over the one only live-cattle market in the metropolis. At one time, there was a project for removing the market to a field near Sadlers" Wells, at another, to a spot near the north end of Gray's Inn Lane; while a spirited projector spent £100,000 in building a new market at Islington; but powerful influences prevented the removal of the cattlemarket until 1855. The last market-day in the old spot was on June 11th in that year; after which, the trade was transferred to the large and very complete establishment built by the corporation at Pentonville. Since that day, S. has been of very little practical use. Many conflicting propositions have been made for its appropriation during the last ten years; but it is only now (January 1866) that the plans are definitely arranged. Three railways, sunk deeply below the ground level, occupy parts of the area-one going eastward to Aldersgate

able medium for exchanges with other countries, and its museum is enriched with the gatherings of national exploring expeditions. A portion of its funds is devoted to scientific researches, and the publication of works too expensive for private enterprise. It procures and distributes to students throughout the world collections illustrative of all natural sciences, and when investigated divides the collections with a long list of institutions. Under the management of Professor Joseph Henry, the secretary, have been organised departments of Astronomy, Ethnology, Meteorology, and Terrestrial Magnetism. Among the publications already issued are the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 16 vols. 4to, distributed gratis to libraries; Annual Reports, and Miscellaneous Collections. The courses of public lectures by eminent scientific men are among the attractions of the American capital.

SMOKE-NUISANCE, in London, is punishable with fine. The act applies to every furnace employed in working engines by steam, and every furnace in any mill, factory, printing-house, dyehouse, distillery, bake-house, &c., which is not constructed so as to consume its own smoke, or which is so negligently used that the smoke is not consumed. The penalty is from two to five pounds. The statute only applies to the metropolis and to the river Thames.-In Scotland, a similar act is not confined to the Scotch metropolis.

Experience has already demonstrated that it is not impracticable, with skilful construction of furnaces, and careful management of fuel, to reduce the evil to such small proportions as to be scarcely worthy of notice; but, excepting in those towns where the law has been rigorously asserted, the nuisance continues to be a disgrace to the sanitary condition of our towns, and to our national The first conditions for character for cleanliness. smoke-consumption are such an arrangement of the furnace as to insure a supply of atmospheric air sufficient for complete combustion, and a judicious

781

SMOKE-STACK-SMOLLETT.

SMOLT SMUT.

SMORZA TO, or SMORZANDO (Ital. dying away), a musical term, indicating a gradual diminution in tone, till the sound altogether fades away.

The

in Glasgow. He is said to have wished to enter the like Fielding, and though less of a literary artist army, and being disappointed, to have avenged than his great English rival, his works are read with himself on his grandfather, who thwarted his inclina- more intense interest. He had, in fact, greater imations, by describing Sir James under the unamiable gination and poetical sensibility. He added largely character of the old Judge in Roderick Random. to our stock of original characters and humorists This is related by Scott and all the biographers, but Strap, Tom Bowling, Morgan the Welshman, it must be wrong; for Sir James, the grandfather, Lismahago, and Matthew Bramble are still unsurdied in 1731, when Tobias was only in his tenth passed. Delicacy of taste was denied to both year. The duty of attending to the education and Fielding and S., and perhaps the latter is the more settlement of the youth would naturally devolve on gross and sensual of the two. But the novelist his widowed mother and on the Laird of Bonhill, his lived in a coarse age, and possessed an exuberant cousin. It is certain, however, that S. inherited no fancy. There is a good deal to regret and to con fortune; and in his 18th year, he went to London demn; but to an author who has conferred so with a tragedy which he had written on the assas- much true, healthy pleasure and enjoyment on sination of James I. of Scotland, and which he countless generations of readers, forgiveness is easily trusted would lead to distinction, if not wealth. He extended, and is soon lost in admiration. was grievously disappointed, and was glad to accept SMOLT. See SALMON. the post of surgeon's-mate on board one of the ships in the unfortunate expedition to Carthagena, in 1741. He soon quitted the service in disgust, although not before he had seen enough of naval life and character to be of inestimable value to him as a novelist; and returning to London, he commenced, and for the remainder of his life followed, the profession of an author. He made, indeed, repeated attempts to obtain practice as a physician, and in 1750, got a diploma of M.D. from Aberdeen; but his hasty irritable temper and independent spirit, joined to his natural propensity to satire, were fatal to his hopes. Even his literary career was a ceaseless warfare. In 1748, in his 27th year, he produced his Roderick Random, which was read with the utmost avidity, and seemed at once to place its author very near, if not in the actual rank of Fielding as a novelist. In 1751, appeared Peregrine Pickle, a more ambitious and not less successful work; and in 1753, Ferdinand Count Fathom, an inferior production, though containing scenes of striking adventure and eloquent description. S. next translated Don Quixote (1755), in which, it is admitted, he was surpassed by Motteux and Jarvis. He then undertook the editorship of a new Tory journal, The Critical Review, which was the most unfortunate of all his engagements, as it involved him in endless quarrels and personalities. For one article, an attack on Admiral Knowles, he suffered three months' imprisonment, and was fined £100. In 1758, he published his History of England, 4 vols. quarto-a history from the descent of Julius Cæsar to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, but which was begun and completed in 14 months, realising for its author a sum of £2000. Though superficial and inaccurate, this history has passages of fine animated writing and masterly delineation of character. We next find S. involved in political controversy with Wilkes and others, and defending Lord Bute's administration; but he wanted tact and temper for work of this description, and reaped no laurels as a politician. Another novel appeared in 1760-1761, The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves; in 1766, two volumes of querulous Travels in France and Italy; in 1769, The Adventures of an Atom, a political satire unworthy of its author; and in 1771, only a few months before his death, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, the best of all the novels of S.; and in the opinion of the late Mr Thackeray, one of the very best in the whole range of imaginative literature. Worn out with literary cares, private misfortunes, anxiety, and ill-health, the novelist retired to Italy, and died at Leghorn, October 21, 1771, in the 51st year

of his age.

As a novelist, S. is distinguished by his broad humour and burlesque, the great variety of his incidents and characters, and the excellence of his easy, picturesque style of narrative. He is often careless, but rarely dull. He does not indulge in digressions,

SMUGGLING is the offence of importing or exporting goods prohibited, or without paying the duties imposed on goods not prohibited. offence in general leads to forfeiture of the goods. If goods are imported to defraud the revenue, treble value of the goods is forfeited. Many of the offences connected with smuggling are felonies, and punished with severity under the Customs' Consolidation Act. Where high protective tariffs separate the industry of adjoining countries, smugglers are certain to abound; no prohibitory decrees can keep the goods out. It was in vain that Napoleon fulminated the Berlin and Milan decrees for closing all continental ports against British shipping; British goods were landed at Salonica, passed on horseback through Hungary to Vienna, and thence distributed in all directions. Similarly, French manufactures reached England, often most circuitously: some a year in transit by way of Smyrna; others, viâ Archangel, after two years' journey. A vast cost was incurred in England in maintaining a Coast Guard and Preventive Service; but so long as smuggled goods could be sold at much lower prices than those at which they could be lawfully imported, so long would it be absolutely impossible wholly The duties on French to suppress the traffic. goods evaded in 1831, by the aid of smuggling, were estimated at £800,000. The true remedy for smuggling is a free, or, at least, very liberal tariff, without any prohibitive rates. Since the adoption of free trade by Great Britain, its Coast-guard has ceased to have any preventive duties to perform, and has been converted into the far better institution of a defence for the coasts from foreign foes, a reserve of trained men for the sea-service, last, though far from least, a branch of skilful auxiliaries ready to aid any ship thrown in distress upon the British coast. The leading instances of smuggling still remaining are the execrable trade in slaves, and the great amount of contraband traffic from Gibraltar into Spain.

and

SMUT, the popular name of certain small fungi of the section Coniomycetes, and group or family Uredineæ, parasitical on plants, particularly on grasses, and notable for the great abundance of dark-coloured spores which they throw off. The name S., although somewhat variously used, is now very generally limited to the genus Ustilago, in which the character just mentioned, of the profusion of dark-coloured spores, is very remarkable. The name S. is often given to Ustilago segetum, or Uredo segetum, also called DUST-BRAND, a species very common and destructive, parasitic on wheat, barley, oats, and rye (see ERGOT), at the base of the germen and glumes, causing the death of the inner parts of

SMYRNA-SNAIL.

SNAIL SNAKE.

do to garden-crops is too well known; and gar- the 17th c.; but this is very doubtful. It has a deners lay down cabbage-leaves and the like to shell about two inches in diameter and two inches attract them, in order that they may be destroyed; | in height, whitish or pale tawny, with four darker any greasy substance increasing the attractiveness of the bait.-Snails delight in warm moist weather; in dry weather, their chief time of activity is during the night, and they hide themselves by day; but after rain, they come forth at any hour in

bands, often not very distinct. It was much esteemed as an article of food by the ancient Romans, who fattened their snails in enclosures (cochlearia) made for the purpose, feeding them delicately on meal and boiled wine. It is still in much esteem for the table in various parts of Europe, and is occasionally used in England. Nor is it the only species so used; the common garden-snails are pruh ably equally good, although not so large, and the glassmen at Newcastle once a year have a snail-feast; they generally collect the snails themselves in the fields and hedges the Sunday before the feast-day.'Turton's British Land and Fresh-water Shells. Snails* of different species are also an article of exportation on a small scale from England to the United States, packed in old casks, in which they are conveyed very well, fixing themselves one upon another to the cask, and leaving a vacant space in the centre. Snails boiled in milk are popularly regarded as a remedy for diseases of the chest, and for this purpose they are brought to Covent Garden market. If any due to their nutritious qualities.-Some of the benefit results from the use of them, it is probably tropical species of Helix are very large, and some have very beautiful shells.

SNAKE, a term synonymous with serpent.-The name COMMON S. is very generally given in England to a species very abundant in most parts of that country, and throughout Europe from the south of Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, although there is only one doubtful instance of its having been found in Scotland. Its range extends also over great part of the north of Asia. This species (Natrix torquata or Tropidonotus natrix) is also known as the

quest of food. At the approach of winter, or in very dry weather, they close the mouth of the shell with a membrane (epiphragm), formed by the drying of the mucous substance which they secrete, and become inactive and torpid. Some, as the Edible S. (H. pomatia), make a succession of such membranes; the outer one of which is also strengthened by a quantity of calcareous matter, the secretion being at first a white viscid fluid, but quickly hardening like plaster of Paris. When this is to be removed, a fresh secretion of fluid mucus softens it at the edges. Snails retreat into crevices for the winter, or into holes which they make in the earth, and which are roofed over with earth, dead leaves, &c., agglutinated by secreted mucus.-Snails are hermaphrodite, but mutual impregnation takes place, and when they are about to copulate, they excite each other by pricking or even piercing with a sharp calcareous glass-like style, affixed to a peculiar muscular sac which serves for its protrusion, and which is produced by recent secretion, not being found in them on dissection, except at the season of reproduction. Extraordinary as this circumstance is, it has been the subject of much exaggeration, and in works on natural history not of very old date, we read of snails throwing darts (spicula amoris) at each other, all which appears to be merely fabulous, although it is probable that the calcareous style may be often broken off in its use. RINGED S. and the GRASS SNAKE. It belongs to the The eggs of snails are round, and enveloped in a family Colubrida, and to a section of it which some skin; they are generally deposited in little clusters. naturalists constitute into the family Natricide. It The eggs of the common garden-snails of Britain are grows to the length of four and even five feet, about the size of peas, and are deposited just under although specimens exceeding three feet are rare. the surface of the soil.-Snails possess in a very high The female, as in serpents generally, is much larger degree the power of repairing injuries, not only of than the male. The head is ovate, the muzzle rather the shell-although the removal of the whole shell narrow, the back part considerably broader than the is fatal to them--but also of the soft parts. When neck; the body thickens towards the middle, and the tentacles are cut off, they grow again; and even again tapers towards the tail, which is about oneif the head is cut off, a new head is produced.-We fifth of the entire length, tapering to a rather sharp de not think it necessary to describe any of the point; the gape is wide; the upper part of the common British species, as there is nothing of pecu-head covered with large plates; the scales of the liar interest connected with any of them; and the back have an elevated keel; those of the sides are rarer and smaller species have still less claim to larger, the keel merely rudimentary; the belly is notice. The EDIBLE S. (H. pomatia) of the south covered with broad oblong plates; the under part of Europe is the only one that deserves to be parti- of the tail has plates arranged in two rows. The cularly mertioned. It is found in the chalk and teeth are very small, directed backwards, and oolite districts of the south of England, where it is arranged in two rows on each side of the jaws. The said to have been introduced from the continent in upper parts are grayish brown, tinged with green;

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