SPLENT, n. s. Or perhaps splint. Italian spinella; Belg. solint. See SPLINTER.

in extract

Defined Splents s a callous hard substance, or an insensible swelling, which breeds on or adheres to the shankbone of a horse, and, when it grows big, spoils the shape of the leg. When there is but one, it is called a single splent; but when there is another opposite to it, on the outside of the shank-bone, it is called a pegged or pinned splent.

Farrier's Dictionary. SPLICING, in the sea language, is the untwisting the ends of two cables or ropes, and working the several strands into one another by a fidd, so that they become as strong as if they were but one rope.

SPLINT, or SPLINT'ER, n. s., v. a., & v. n. Belg. splinter; Dan. splint. A fragment of any thing broken with violence: to break into splints or fragments; to secure by means of them: to be broken in this way.

This broken joint intreat her to splinter, and this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before. Shakspeare. Othello.

He was slain upon a course at tilt, one of the splinters of Montgomery's staff going in at his bever.

Bacon.

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball, And now their odours armed against them fly; Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall, And some by aromatic splinters die.

Dryden.

A plain Indian fan used by the meaner sort, made of the small stringy parts of roots, spread out in a round flat form, and so bound together with a splinter hoop, and strengthened with small bars on both sides. Grew's Museum.

The ancients after the seventh day used splints which not only kept the members steady, but straight, and of these some are made of tin, others of scab bard and wood, sewed up in linen cloths.

Wiseman's Surgery. SPLIT, v. a. & v.n. Į Pret. and part. pass. SPLITTER, n. s. (split. Belg. spletten, splitten. To cleave; rive; to divide longitudinally; dash to pieces; break: to burst asunder; part; be broken against a hard substance: the noun substantive corresponds.

Do 't, and thou hast the one-half of my heart; Do 't not, thou splittest thine own.

Shakspeare. Winter's Tale. After our ship did split, When you, and the poor number saved with you, Hung on our driving boat. Shakspeare. God's desertion, as a full and violent wind, drives him in an instant, not to the harbour, but on the rock where he will be irrecoverably split.

Decay of Piety. Wert thou served up two in one dish, the rather To split thy sire into a double father! Cleaveland. A huge vessel of exceeding hard marble split asunder by congealed water. Boyle.

Cold winter split the rocks in twain. Dryden. Those who live by shores with joy behold Some wealthy vessel split or stranded nigh; And from the rocks leap down for shipwrecked gold, And seek the tempests which the others fly. A skull so hard that it is almost as easy to split

a helmet of iron as to make a fracture in it.

Id.

Ray on the Creation. In states notoriously irreligious, a secret and irresistible power splits their counsels, and smites their most refined policies with frustration and a curse.

S

The road that to the lungs this store transmits, Into unnumbered narrow channels splits. Blackmore. He instances Luther's sensuality and disobedience, two crimes which he has dealt with; and, to make the more solemn shew, he split 'em into twenty. Atterbury.

Pope.

Each had a gravity would make you split, And shook his head at My as a wit. Oh! would it please the gods to split Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit, No age could furnish out a pair Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair; With half the lustre of your eyes, With half your wit, your years, and size. Swift.

The seamen spied a rock, and the wind was so strong that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split.

How should we rejoice, if, like Judas the first, Those splitters of parsons in sunder should burst.

Id.

Id.

SPODUMENE, in mineralogy, prismatic triphane spar.-Mohs. Color between greenishwhite and mountain-gray. Massive, disseminated, and in large gramlar concretions. Glistening, pearly. Cleavage, threefold. Fracture fine grained uneven. Translucent As hard as felspar. Most easily frangible. Specific gravity 3.0 to 3.1 Before the blowpipe it first separates into small gold yellow colored folia; and, if the heat is continued, they melt into a greenish-white colored glass. Its constituents are, silica 64.4, alumina 24-4, lime 3, potash 5, oxide of iron 2-2. Vauquelin. It was first discovered in the island of Uton in Sudermannland, where it is associated with red felspar and quartz. It has been lately found in the vicinity of Dublin by Dr. Taylor. It contains the new alkali lithia, by some recent analyses.

eminent German physiologist, was born at. DortSPOHN (Frederic Augustus William), ar mund in 1792, and studied at the university of Wittemberg. His house and part of his library having been destroyed at the bombardment of that place, in 1813, he removed to Leipsic, where he was nominated in 1817 extraordinary professor of philosophy, and in 1819 professor of ancient literature. He died January 16th, 1824, in consequence of disease brought on by his exwere numerous and important. In 1815 he cessive application to study. His literary labors Carminibus Homeri Descripto, 8vo., and Compublished a dissertation De Agro Trojano it mentarius de extrema Parte Odyssiæ indè à Raphsod. v. v. 297, Evo recentiori orta quam Homerica; and in the last year of his life he printed three pieces under the title of Lectiones heocriteæ. He left a large quantity of MSS.

Psalm xliv. 14.

Col. ii. 8.

Beware lest any man spoil you, through philosophy and vain deceit. Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven an enduring substance. Hebrews. England was infested with robbers and outlaws, which, lurking in woods, used to break forth to rob and spoil. Spenser. Yielding themselves upon the Turks' faith, for the safeguard of their liberty and goods, they were most injuriously spoiled of all that they had.

Knolles's History of the Turks. Having oft in battle vanquished Those spoilful Picts, and swarming Easterlings, Long time in peace his realm established.

Faerie Queene.

Go and speed!

Id.

Havock, and spoil, and ruin are my gain. Id. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples had thereby a property in them: he was only to look that he used them before they spoiled, else he robbed others. Locke.

Providence, where it loves a nation, concerns itself to own and assert the interest of religion, by blasting the spoilers of religious persons and places. South. Thou shalt not gain what I deny to yield, Nor reap the harvest, though thou spoilest the field.

But grant our hero's hopes long toil And comprehensive genius crown,

Each science and each art his spoil,

Yet what reward, or what renown?

Prior.

Bentley.

wise furnish most instances of an eminent and exalted piety.

conquer,

Law.

Came you then here, thus far, through waves, to To waste, to plunder, out of mere compassion? Is it humanity that prompts you on? Happy for us, and happy for you spoilers, Had your humanity ne er reached our world!

A. Philips.

The SPOIL, among the ancient Greeks, was ral's share was largest ; but among the Romans, divided among the whole army; only the genethe spoils belonged to the republic.

SPOKE, n. s. Sax. rpaca; Teut. speiche; Belg. spaak. The bar of a wheel that passes from the nave to the felly.

letium.

SPOLETIUM, in ancient geography, a city of Italy, in Umbria, which bravely withstood Hannibal, when in Italy. An inscription over the gates still commemorates this defeat of the great Carthaginian. Water was conveyed into the city from an adjacent mountain, by an aqueduct 230 yards above the foundation, relics of which still exist. It is now called Spoleto. See SPOLETO.

SPOLETO, a town of the ecclesiastical state, the capital of a duchy of the same name, situated on a hill near the Mareggia. The streets are extremely steep; and, though the houses are in general well built, there is no edifice either public or private that has any claim to distinction. The cathedral, occupying a comman ling situation, presents a front of five Gothic arches, supported by Grecian pillars; but the decorations of the interior display little taste. The castle, situated on a high hill which overlooks the town, is a vast stone building, surrounded with a rampart, and connected with the town by a bridge and aqueduct, thrown over a deep dell, and supported by arches of surprising height; the boldness of their construction has made them be attributed to the Romans. Spoleto is a place of great antiquity, and was in vain attacked by the Carthaginians, after their victory at the lake Thrasymene. Its antiquities are two of the town gates, the ruins of a theatre, and those of a temple. The only manufacture is of hats. Fifteen miles S. S. E. of Foligno, and fifty-five N. N. E. of Rome.

SPOLIA OPIMA, Lat., in Roman antiquity, the richest and best of the spoils, which Romulus first set the example of dedicating to Jupiter. See ROME.

SPOLIATION, in ecclesiastical law, is an injury done by one clerk or incumbent to another, in taking the fruits of his benefice under a pretended title. It is remedied by a decree to account for the profits so taken. This injury, when the jus

patronatus, or right of advowson, doth not come in debate, is cognizable in the spiritual court; as if a patron first presents A to a benefice, who is instituted and inducted thereto; and then, upon pretence of a vacancy, the same patron presents B to the same living, and he also obtains institution and induction. Now, if A disputes the fact of the vacancy, then that clerk who is kept out of the profits of the living, whichever it be, may sue the other in the spiritual court for spoliation or taking the profits of his benefice. And it shall there be tried, whether the living were or were not vacant; upon which the validity of the second clerk's pretensions must depend. But if the right of patronage comes at all into dispute, as if one patron presented A, and another patron presented B, there the ecclesiastical court has no cognizance, provided the tithes sued for amount to a fourth part of the value of the living, but may be prohibited at the instance of the patron by the king's writ of indicavit. So also if a clerk, without any color of title, ejects another from his parsonage, this injury must be redressed in the temporal courts; for it depends upon no question determinable by the spiritual law (as plurality of benefices or no plurality, vacancy or no vacancy), but is merely a civil injury.

SPOLTORO, a town of Naples, in Abruzzo Ultra; twelve miles south-east of Teramo.

SPON (Charles), M. D., a learned French physician, son of a merchant, and born at Lyons, in 1609. He showed a peculiar genius for Latin poetry, so early as his fourteenth year. He studied at Ulm; graduated at Montpelier in 1632; and became a member of the college of physicians at Lyons, where he practised with great success. He was made honorary physician to Louis XIV. in 1645. He published the Prognostics of Hippocrates, under the title of Sibylla Medica, in hexameter verse; and some Latin iambics. He maintained a learned correspondence with professor Guy Patin, and their letters were published after his death. He died 21st of February, 1684.

SPON (James), M. D., son of the doctor, was born at Lyons, in 1647. After a liberal education, he graduated at Montpelier in 1667, and joined the Faculty at Lyons in 1669. In 1675 and 1676 he made a voyage to Dalmatia, Greece, and the Levant, of which he wrote a fine account. He published many valuable works; as, 1. Recherches des Antiquités de Lyon, 1674, 8vo. 2. Ignotorum atque obscurorum Deorum Aræ, 1677, 8vo. 3. Voyage de la Grece, et du Levant, 1677, 3 vols. 12mo. 4. Histoire de la ville, et de l'état de Geneve, 1680, 2 vols. 12mo. &c. Being a Protestant, he was obliged to leave France, in 1685, on the repeal of the edict of Nantes, and set out for Zurich; but died at Vevay in 1686. He was a member of the academy of the Ricovrati, at Padua.

Henry IV. and the Great of France. He also published Aristotle's Logic, Greek and Latin with notes, at Basil, 1583. In 1593 he followed the bad example of the Great Henry, by turning Papist, and published his Reasons; but they surely could not be half so weighty as those of Henry, as the peace of a kingdom did not depend on his abjuration of Protestant principles. died in Biscay, in 1595.

He

SPONDANUS, or SPONDE (Henry), younger brother of John, was born in 1568, and educated at the College of the Reformers at Ortez, where he made a rapid progress in the languages and the canon and civil law. Henry IV. made him master of requests at Navarre. He also turned Catholic, in 1595. In 1600 he went to Rome, where he took orders, and was promoted by Paul V.; but in 1626 he was recalled to France by Louis XIII. and made bishop of Pamiers. He abridged and continued Baronius's Ecclesiastical Annals, from 1197 to 1640, and published in folio Annales Sacri a Mundi Creatione, ad ejusdem Redemptionem; with some other works. He died at Thoulouse in 1643. SPON'DEE, n. s. Fr. spondée; Lat. spondaus. A foot of two long syllables.

We see in the choice of the words the weight of the stone, and the striving to heave it up the mountain: Homer clogs the verse with spondees, and leaves the vowels open.

Broome.

SPONDIAS, Brasilian, or Jamaica plum, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of decandria, and order of pentagynia. The calyx is quinquedentate. The corolla pentapetalous. The fruit contains a quinquelocular kernel. There are only two species; viz. S. mombia, and myrobalanus. But they are so much confounded in the description of different botanists that we cannot venture to describe them.

SPONDYLE, n. s. Fr. spondile; Lat. spondylus; Gr. σnovovλog. A vertebra; a joint of the spine.

substance, without any spondyles, processes, or proIt hath for the spine or back-bone a cartilaginous

tuberances.

SPONGE, n. s., v. a. & v. n.~
SPONGER, n. s.
SPONGINESS,
SPON'GIOUS, adj.
SPONG'Y.

Browne.

Lat. spongia. A soft porous substance, supposed by some the nidus of

animals. It is remarkable for sucking up water. Too often written spunge as a verb active to blot; wipe away: as a verb neuter suck in like

:

a sponge a sponger is a sucker of this kind: spongy and spongious, full of cavities like a sponge.

They opened and washed part of their sponges.

Sandys.

SPONGE, in zoology. See SPONGIA. SPONGIA, sponge, in zoology, a genus of animals belonging to the class of vermes, and order of zoophyta. It is fixed, flexible, and very torpid, growing in a variety of forms, composed either of reticulated fibres, or masses of small spines interwoven together, and clothed with a living gelatinous flesh, full of small mouths or holes on its surface, by which it sucks in and throws out the water. So early as the days of Aristotle sponges were supposed to possess animal life; the persons employed in collecting them having observed them shrink when torn from the rocks, thus exhibiting symptoms of sensation. The same opinion prevailed in the time of Pliny. But no attention was paid to the subject till count Marsigli examined them, and declared them vegetables. Dr. Peysonell, in a paper which he sent to the Royal Society in 1752, and in a second in 1757, affirmed they were not vegetables, but the production of animals; and accordingly described the animals, and the process which they performed in making the sponges. Mr. Ellis, in 1762, was at great pains to discover these animals. For this purpose he dissected the spongia urens, and was surprised to

find a great number of small worms of the genus of nereis or sea-scolopendra, which had pierced their way through the soft substance of the sponge in quest of a safe retreat, That this was really the case, he was fully assured, by inspecting a number of specimens of the same sort of sponge, just fresh from the sea. He put them in a glass filled with sea water; and then, instead of seeing any of the little animals which Dr. Peysonell described, he observed the papillæ, or small holes with which the papillæ are surrounded, contract and dilate themselves. He examined another variety of the same species of sponge, and plainly water. He therefore concluded that the sponge perceived the small tubes inspire and expire the is an animal, and that the ends or openings of receives its nourishment, and discharges its excrethe branched tubes are the mouths by which it ments. Fifty species have already been discovered, of which ten belong to the British coasts.

1. S. botryoides, grape sponge, is very tender and branched, as if in bunches; the bunches are hollow, and are made up of oblong oval figures having the appearance of grapes; and each bunch is open at top. The species is of a bright, shining color. The openings at the top are evidently the mouths by which the animal imbibes and discharges moisture. When the surface is very much magnified, it appears covered with little masses of triple, equidistant, shining spines.

2. S. coronata, coronet sponge, is very small, consisting of a single tube surrounded at top by a crown of little spines. The tube is open at the top. The rays that compose the little crown are of a bright, shining, pearl color; the body is of a pale yellow. It has been found in the harbour of Emsworth, between Sussex and Hampshire.

3. S. cristata, or cock's-comb sponge, is flat, erect and soft, growing in the shape of cocks'combs, with rows of little holes along the tops, which project a little. It abounds on the rocks to the eastward of Hastings in Sussex, where it may be seen at low-water. It is commonly about three inches long, and two inches high, and of a pale yellowish color. When put into a glass vessel of sea water, it has been observed to suck in and squirt out the water through little mouths along the tops, giving evident signs of life.

4. S. dichotoma, dichotomous or forked sponge, is stiff, branched, with round, upright, elastic branches, covered with minute hairs. It is found on the coast of Norway, and also, according to Berkenhout, on the Cornish and Yorkshire coasts. It is of a pale yellow color, and full of very minute pores, guarded by minute spines.

5. S. fluviatilis, river sponge, is green, erect, brittle, and irregularly disposed in numerous branches. It abounds in many parts of Europe, in the fresh rivers of Russia and England, particularly in the river Thames. It scarcely exhibits any symptoms of life; is of a filthy smell: its pores or mouths are sometimes filled with green gelatinous glóbules. It differs very little from the lacustris.

6. S. lacustris, creeping sponge, has erect, cylindrical, and obtuse branches. It is found in lakes in Sweden and England.