Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 138

=Sansculottes= (3 _syl._), a low, riff-raff party in the great French Revolution, so shabby in dress that they were termed "the trouser-less."

The _culotte_ is the breeches, called _braeck_ by the ancient Gauls, and _hauts-de-chausses_ in the reign of Charles IX.

=Sansculottism=, red republicanism, or the revolutionary platform of the Sansculottes.

The duke of Brunswick, at the head of a large army, invaded France to restore Louis XVI. to the throne, and save legitimacy from the sacrilegious hands of sansculottism.--G. H. Lewes, _Story of Goethe's Life_.

_Literary Sansculottism_, literature of a low character, like that of the "Minerva Press," the "Leipsic Fair," "Hollywell Street," "Grub Street," and so on.

=Sansfoy=, a "faithless Saracen," who attacked the Red Cross Knight, but was slain by him. "He cared for neither G.o.d nor man." Sansfoy personifies infidelity.

Sansfoy, full large of limb and every joint He was, and cared not for G.o.d or man a point.

Spenser, _Faery Queen_, i. 2 (1590).

=Sansjoy=, brother of Sansfoy. When he came to the court of Lucifera, he noticed the s.h.i.+eld of Sansfoy on the arm of the Red Cross Knight, and his rage was so great that he was with difficulty restrained from running on the champion there and then, but Lucifera bade him defer the combat to the following day. Next day, the fight began, but just as the Red Cross Knight was about to deal his adversary a death-blow, Sansjoy was enveloped in a thick cloud, and carried off in the chariot of Night to the infernal regions, where aesculapius healed him of his wounds.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, i. 4, 5 (1590).

(The reader will doubtless call to mind the combat of Menalaos and Paris, and remember how the Trojan was invested in a cloud and carried off by Venus under similar circ.u.mstances.--Homer, _Iliad_, iii.)

=Sansloy= ("_superst.i.tion_"), the brother of Sansfoy and Sansjoy. He carried off Una to the wilderness, but when the fauns and satyrs came to her rescue, he saved himself by flight.

? The meaning of this allegory is this; Una (_truth_), separated from St. George (_holiness_), is deceived by Hypocrisy; and immediately Truth joins Hypocrisy it is carried away by Superst.i.tion. Spenser says the "simplicity of truth" abides with the common people, especially of the rural districts, it is lost to towns and the luxurious great. The historical reference is to Queen Mary, in whose reign Una (_the Re__formation_) was carried captive, and religion, being mixed up with hypocrisy, degenerated into superst.i.tion, but the rural population adhered to the simplicity of the Protestant faith.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, i. 2 (1590).

=Sansonetto=, a Christian regent of Mecca, vicegerent of Charlemagne.--Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_ (1516).

=Santa Klaus= (1 _syl._), the Dutch name of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of youth.

=Santiago= [_Sent.yah'.go_], the war-cry of Spain; adopted because St.

James (_Sant Iago_) rendered, according to tradition, signal service to a Christian king of Spain in a battle against the Moors.

=Santiago for Spain.= This saint was James, son of Zebedee, brother of John. He was beheaded, and caught his head in his hands as it fell. The Jews were astonished, but when they touched the body they found it so cold that their hands and arms were paralyzed.--Francisco Xavier, _a.n.a.les de Galicia_ (1733).

_Santiago's Head._ When Santiago went to Spain in his marble s.h.i.+p, he had no head on his body. The pa.s.sage took seven days, and the s.h.i.+p was steered by the "presiding hand of Providence."--_Espana Sagrada_, xx. 6.

_Santiago had two heads._ One of his heads is at Braga, and one at Compostella.

_Santiago lead the armies of Spain._ Thirty-eight instances of the interference of this saint are gravely set down as facts in the _Chronicles of Galicia_, and this is super-added: "These instances are well known, but I hold it for certain that the appearances of Santiago in our victorious armies have been much more numerous, and in fact that every victory obtained by the Spaniards has been really achieved by this great captain." Once when the rider on the white horse was asked in battle who he was, he distinctly made answer, "I am the soldier of the King of kings, and my name is James."--Don Miguel Erce Gimenez, _Armas i Triunfos del Reino de Galicia_, 648-9.

The true name of this saint was Jacobo.... We have first shortened Santo Jacobo into _Santo Jac'o_. We clipped it again into _Sant'

Jaco_, and by changing the _J_ into _I_ and the _c_ into _g_, we get _Sant-Iago_. In household names we convert Iago into _D'iago_ or _Diago_, which we soften into _Diego_.--Ambrosio de Morales, _Coronica General de Espana_, ix. 7 sect. 2 (1586).

=Santons=, a body of religionists, also called _Abdals_, who pretended to be inspired with the most enthusiastic raptures of divine love. They were regarded by the vulgar as saints. Olearius, _Reisebeschreibung_, i.

971 (1647).

=Sapphi'ra=, a female liar.--_Acts_ v. 1.

She is called the village Sapphira.--Crabbe.

=Sappho=, Greek poetess of the sixth century B.C., called "The Tenth Muse." Fragments of her verse remain which are very beautiful. She was the victim of unrequited love, and leaped to her death from the Leucadian Rock into the sea.

_Sappho_ (_The English_), Mrs. Mary D. Robinson (1758-1800).

_Sappho_ (_The French_), Mdlle. Scuderi (1607-1704).

_Sappho_ (_The Scotch_), Catherine c.o.c.kburn (1679-1749).

=Sappho of Toulouse=, Clemence Isaure (2 _syl._), who inst.i.tuted, in 1490, _Les Jeux Floraux_. She is the auth.o.r.ess of a beautiful _Ode to Spring_ (1463-1513).

=Sapskull=, a raw Yorks.h.i.+re tike, son of Squire Sapskull, of Sapskull Hall. Sir Penurious Muckworm wishes him to marry his niece and ward, Arbella, but as Arbella loves Gaylove, a young barrister, the tike is played upon thus: Gaylove a.s.sumes to be Muckworm, and his lad, Slango, dresses up as a woman to pa.s.s for Arbella; and while Sapskull "marries"

Slango, Gaylove, who a.s.sumes the dress and manners of the Yorks.h.i.+re tike, marries Arbella. Of course, the trick is then discovered, and Sapskull returns to the home of his father, befooled but not married.--Carey, _The Honest Yorks.h.i.+reman_ (1736).

=Saracen= (_A_), in Arthurian romance, means any unbaptized person, regardless of nationality. Thus, Priamus, of Tuscany, is called a Saracen (pt. i. 96, 97); so is Sir Palomides, simply because he refused to be baptized till he had done some n.o.ble deed (pt. ii.).--Sir T.

Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_ (1470).

=Sara Carroll.= Devoted daughter of Major Carroll and firm ally of her dainty stepmother, Madame Carroll, in the latter's renewal of intercourse with her eldest son and concealment of his existence from her husband. Sara contrives that the mother shall be with the young man when he dies, and by becoming the go-between for the two, incurs the suspicions of her lover.--Constance Fenimore Woolson, _For the Major_.

=Saragossa= (_The Maid of_), Augustina Saragossa or Zaragoza, who, in 1808, when the city was invested by the French, mounted the battery in the place of her lover who had been shot. Lord Byron says, when he was at Seville, "the maid" used to walk daily on the prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the junta. Southey, _History of the Peninsular War_ (1832).

Her lover sinks--she sheds no ill timed tear; Her chief is slain--she fills his fatal post; Her fellows flee--she checks their base career; The foe retires--she heads the sallying host.

... the flying Gaul, Foiled by a woman's hand before a battered wall.

Byron, _Childe Harold_, i. 56 (1809).

=Sardanapa'lus=, king of Nineveh and a.s.syria, noted for his luxury and voluptuousness. Arbaces, the Mede, conspired against him, and defeated him; whereupon his favorite slave, Myrra, induced him to immolate himself on a funeral pile. The beautiful slave, having set fire to the pile, leaped into the blazing ma.s.s, and was burnt to death with the king, her master (B.C. 817).--Byron, _Sardanapalus_ (1619).

=Sardanapa'lus of China= (_The_), Cheo-tsin, who shut himself up in his palace with his queen, and then set fire to the building, that he might not fall into the hands of Woo-wong (B.C. 1154-1122).

(Cheo-tsin invented the chopsticks, and Woo-wong founded the Tchow dynasty.)

=Sardanapa'lus of Germany= (_The_), Wenceslas VI. or (IV.), king of Bohemia and emperor of Germany (1359, 1378-1419).