Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 139

=Sarell Gately.= Shrewd, "capable" girl who "lives out" on the Heybrook farm.

"She was a young woman to take up responsibilities as she went along. She liked them. She became naturally a part of whatever was happening in her Troy; and wherever her temporary Troy might be, there was pretty sure to be something happening."--A. D. T.

Whitney, _Odd or Even?_ (1880).

=Sa.s.senach=, a Saxon, an Englishman. (Welsh, _saesonig_ adj. and _saesoniad_ noun.)

I would, if I thought I'd be able to catch some of the Sa.s.senachs in London.--_Very Far West Indeed._

=Satan=, according to the _Talmud_, was once an archangel, but was cast out of heaven with one-third of the celestial host for refusing to do reverence to Adam.

In mediaeval mythology, Satan holds the fifth rank of the nine demoniacal orders.

Johan Wier, in his _Praestigiis Daemonum_ (1564), makes Beelzebub the sovereign of h.e.l.l, and Satan leader of the opposition.

In legendary lore, Satan is drawn with horns and tail, saucer eyes, and claws; but Milton makes him a proud, selfish, ambitious chief, of gigantic size, beautiful, daring, and commanding. He declares his opinion that it is "better to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven." Defoe has written a _Political History of the Devil_ (1726).

_Satan_, according to Milton, monarch of h.e.l.l. His chief lords are Beelzebub, Moloch, Chemos, Thammuz, Dagon, Rimmon, and Belial. His standard-bearer is Azaz'el.

He, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower. His form had not yet lost All her original brightness; nor appeared Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured ... but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek ... cruel his eye, but cast Signs of remorse.

Milton, _Paradise Lost_, i. 589, etc. (1665).

? The word Satan means "enemy;" hence Milton says:

To whom the arch-enemy, ... in heaven called Satan.

_Paradise Lost_, i. 81 (1665).

=Satanic School= (_The_), a cla.s.s of writers in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, who showed a scorn for all moral rules and the generally received dogmas of the Christian religion. The most eminent English writers of this school were Bulwer (afterwards Lord Lytton), Byron, Moore, and P. B. Sh.e.l.ley. Of French writers: Paul de k.o.c.k, Rousseau, George Sand, and Victor Hugo.

=Satire= (_Father of_), Archilochos of Paros (B.C. seventh century).

_Satire_ (_Father of French_), Mathurin Regnier (1573-1613).

_Satire_ (_Father of Roman_), Lucilius (B.C. 148-103).

=Satiro-mastix=, or _The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet_, a comedy by Thomas Dekker (1602). Ben Jonson, in 1601, had attacked Dekker in _The Poetaster_, where he calls himself "Horace," and Dekker "Cris'pinus."

Next year (1602), Dekker replied with spirit to this attack, in a comedy ent.i.tled _Satiro-mastix_, where Jonson is called "Horace, junior."

=Sat.u.r.day.= To the following English sovereigns from the establishment of the Tudor dynasty, Sat.u.r.day has proved a fatal day:--

HENRY VII. died Sat.u.r.day, April 21, 1509.

GEORGE II. died Sat.u.r.day, October 27, 1760.

GEORGE III. died Sat.u.r.day, January 29, 1820, but of his fifteen children only three died on a Sat.u.r.day.

GEORGE IV. died Sat.u.r.day, June 26, 1830, but the Princess Charlotte died on a Tuesday.

PRINCE ALBERT died Sat.u.r.day, December 14, 1861. The d.u.c.h.ess of Kent and the Princess Alice also died on a Sat.u.r.day.

? William III., Anne, and George I., all died on a Sunday; William IV.

on a Tuesday.

=Saturn=, son of Heaven and Earth. He always swallowed his children immediately they were born, till his wife, Rhea, not liking to see all her children perish, concealed from him the birth of Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, and gave her husband large stones instead, which he swallowed without knowing the difference.

Much as old Saturn ate his progeny; For when his pious consort gave him stones In lieu of sons, of those he made no bones.

Byron, _Don Juan_, xiv. 1 (1824).

_Saturn_, an evil and malignant planet.

He is a genius full of gall, an author born under the planet Saturn, a malicious mortal whose pleasure consists in hating all the world.--Lesage, _Gil Blas_, v. 12 (1724).

The children born under the sayd Saturne shall be great jangeleres and chyders ... and they will never forgyve tyll they be revenged of theyr quarrell.--Ptholomeus, _Compost_.

=Satyr.= T. Woolner calls Charles II. "Charles the Satyr."

Next flared Charles Satyr's saturnalia Of lady nymphs.

_My Beautiful Lady._

? The most famous statue of the satyrs is that by Praxiteles, of Athens, in the fourth century.

=Satyrane= (_Sir_), a blunt, but n.o.ble knight, who helps Una to escape from the fauns and satyrs.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, i. (1590).

And pa.s.sion erst unknown, could gain The breast of blunt Sir Satyrane.

Sir W. Scott.

? "Sir Satyrane" is meant for Sir John Perrot, a natural son of Henry VIII., and lord deputy of Ireland, from 1583 to 1588; but, in 1590, he was in prison in the Tower for treason, and was beheaded in 1592.

=Satyr'icon=, a comic romance in Latin, by Petro'nius Ar'biter, in the first century. Very gross, but showing great power, beauty, and skill.

=Saul=, in Dryden's satire of _Absalom and Achitophel_, is meant for Oliver Cromwell. As Saul persecuted David, and drove him from Jerusalem, so Cromwell persecuted Charles II., and drove him from England.