by the Divorce Act 1857 which substituted for it a claim for damages against the co-respondent in a divorce suit; but if a married woman were living apart from her husband in her father's house, and giving her services to her father in the slightest degree, an action for seduction would lie. Seduction in England is not as a rule a criminal offence. But a conspiracy to seduce is indictable at common law. And the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 (which extends to the United Kingdom) makes it felony to seduce a girl under the the age of thirteen, and misdemeanour to seduce a girl between thirteen and sixteen (§§ 4, 5). The same act also deals severely with the cognate offences of procuration, abduction and unlawful detention with the intent to seduce a woman of any age. The Children Act 1908 gave a further protection to young people, enacting that if any person having the custody, charge or care of a girl under the age of sixteen causes or encourages the seduction of that girl he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding two years.
United States.—In the United States state legislation has generally modified the common law. In some states the father brings the action as the representative of the family whose purity has been invaded; in others the woman herself may bring the action. In many states there is a criminal as well as a civil remedy. The penal codes of New York, New Jersey, Louisiana and other states make it a crime to seduce under promise of marriage an unmarried woman of good reputation. Subsequent intermarriage of the parties is in most cases a bar to criminal proceedings. The state legislation of the United States is in remarkable opposition to the rule of the canon law, by which the seduction of a woman by her betrothed was not punishable on account of the inchoate right over her person given by the betrothal.
SEDULIUS, Coelius or Caelius (a praenomen of doubtful authenticity), a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century, is termed a presbyter by Isidore of Seville and in the Gelasian decree. He must not be confused with Sedulius the Irish-Scot grammarian of the 9th century. His fame rests mainly upon a long poem, Carmen paschale, based on the four gospels. In style a bombastic imitator of Virgil, he shows, nevertheless, a certain freedom in the handling of the Biblical story, and the poem soon became a quarry for the minor poets. A hymn by Sedulius in honour of Christ, consisting of twenty-three quatrains of iambic dimeters, has partly passed into the liturgy, the first seven quatrains forming the Christmas hymn A solis ortus cardine, and some later ones the Epiphany hymn, Hostis Herodes impie. A Veteris et novi Testamenti collatio in elegiac couplets has also come down, but we have no grounds for ascribing to him the Virgilian cento, De verbi incarnatione.
Sedulius's works were edited by F. Arevalo (Rome, 1794), reprinted in P. Migne's Patrol. Lat. vol. xix.; and finally by J. Huemer (Vienna, 1885). See J. Huemer, De Sedulii poëtae vita et scriptis commentatio (Vienna, 1878); M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie (Stuttgart, 1891); Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit. (Eng. trans.), 473; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie, xviii. (Leipzig, 1900); Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography (1887).
SEDUM, in botany, a genus of the natural order Crassulaceae, containing about 120 species, natives chiefly of the north temperate and frigid regions, and mostly perennial herbs with succulent leaves of varied form, but never compound. The white or yellow, rarely, pink or blue, flowers are usually small and grouped in cymes. They have a calyx of fine sepals, as many petals, usually ten stamens and five distinct carpels, which have as many glands at their base and ripen into as many dry seed-pods. Several species are British, including some with tuberous roots and large leaves (Telephium), and others of smaller size, chiefly found on rocks, walls and dry banks; S. acre is stonecrop (see fig. 1), well, known also in gardens, a variety of which, aureum, is in cultivation with golden-yellow tips to the leaves and shoots. Many others are cultivated for the beauty of their foliage or flowers, and many are remarkable for their vitality under adverse circumstances. They succeed on rockwork, old walls or as border plants; some, e.g. S. Lydium, a native of Asia Minor, are excellent for carpet bedding. S. spectabile, 1 to 1½ ft., with pink flowers in great cymose heads, is a fine plant for the borders, and worthy also of pot-culture for greenhouse decoration. S. Sieboldi and its variegated form, from Japan, are often grown in hanging pots or baskets in cottage windows. Sedums are very closely allied to Sempervivums (see Houseleek).
Sedum acre (Stonecrop). (After Curtis.) Flora Lindinensis.
1, Diagram of flower; 2, flower enlarged.
SEE (Lat. sedes, a seat), a seat or throne, particularly the throne of a bishop, the cathedra, the symbol of his office and dignity, the placing of which in a church makes it a cathedral (q.v.). The term is thus applied to the place where the bishop's cathedral is situated and from which he properly takes his title, and so is to be distinguished from diocese (q.v.), the territorial province over which his jurisdiction extends (see Bishop).
SEEBACH, MARIE (1830-1897), German actress, was born at Riga, in Russia, on the 24th of February 1830, being the daughter of an actor, Wilhelm Friedrich Seebach (1798-1863). After appearing first at Nuremberg as Julie in Kean, she played soubrette parts at Lübeck, Danzig and Cassel. In 1852 she achieved her first great success at the Thaliatheater in Hamburg as Gretchen in Goethe's Faust, and she remained there until 1854, when she appeared in Vienna. She then played in Munich, establishing her reputation as a tragic actress with the roles of Jane Eyre and Adrienne Lecouvreur. From 1855 to 1866 she was engaged at the court theatre at Hanover, and there in 1859 she married the tenor Albert Niemann. In 1866 she followed her husband to Berlin, but separated from him after two years. In 1870-1871 she visited the United States, and gave in seventeen cities no less than 160 performances—mostly of Faust; and in 1886 she accepted a permanent engagement at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin. She retired from the stage in 1897, and died on the 3rd of August of that year. In 1895 she endowed a home for poor actors and actresses at Weimar, called the Marie Seebach Stiftung.
See Gensichen, Aus Marie Seebachs Leben (Berlin, 1900).
SEED (from the root seen in Lat. serere, to sow), the fertilized ovule of plants. The seeds of the cryptograms or flowerless plants are not-true seeds and are properly designated “spores” (see Fruit). For the sowing of seed see Sowing.
SEELEY, SIR JOHN ROBERT (1834-1895), English essayist and historian, was born in London in 1834. His father, R. B. Seeley, was a publisher, and author of several religious books and of The Life and Times of Edward I., which was highly esteemed by historians. From his father Seeley doubtless derived his taste for religious and historical subjects. He was educated at the City of London School and at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was head of the classical tripos and senior chancellor's medallist, was elected fellow and became classical tutor of his college. For a time he was a master at his old school, and in 1863 was appointed professor of Latin at University College, London. His essay Ecce Homo, published anonymously in 1866, and afterwards owned by him, was widely read, and called forth
