Norwich, Connecticut. In 1819 she was married to Mr. Sigourney, a wealthy merchant of Hartford, in which city she resided till her death on the 10th of June, 1865. Her poems abound with graceful, pure, and elevated thoughts, expressed in choice language. The domestic and religious affections especially she touched with a tender and skilful hand. She had evidently studied the best models in English poetry; but the influence of Wordsworth is occasionally seen to predominate in her works. Among her prose works are—"Connecticut Forty Years since;" "Letters to Young Ladies;" and "Pleasant Memoirs of Pleasant Lands."—(See Trübner's Guide to American Literature.)—R. H.
* SILCHER, Friedrich, a musician, was born at Schnaith in Wurtemburg, January 27, 1789. He early evinced talent both for music and painting, and gave equal attention to the study of both; but in 1803 he became the pupil of Auberlen, organist of Fellbach, a disciple of Worgler's theory of harmony, whose influence decided Silcher to adopt music as a profession. He was nevertheless engaged by the Count von Berlichingen to teach his children the two arts in which he was accomplished; but on quitting the service of this nobleman he settled at Stuttgart as a musician. In 1817 he composed a festival cantata for the celebration of the third centenary of the Reformation at Tübingen, the success of which led to his appointment as music director at the university of that town. He was commissioned in 1825 to compose some hymns for the Choral Book issued by the government, among which is "Herr Gott, dich loben wir," perhaps the most popular of modern chorals, besides others that are in common use throughout Germany. He also published a book of chorals harmonized for three voices, which has had a very wide circulation. He has composed a large number of four-part songs for the use of a lieder-tafel (male singing society), of which he is director, and several of these have become great favourites. He has likewise published other music of a less special character, and composed some more important works that have not appeared in print. Silcher is chiefly known, however, as having been the first to collect the volkslieder (national songs) of Germany; of these he has published two extensive editions—the one arranged for four male voices, the other for one or two voices—with pianoforte or guitar accompaniment. This work, which is in universal circulation from Switzerland to the German ocean, contains many original melodies of the editor, and one of these, "Morgen muss ich weg von hier," has attained unlimited popularity.—G. A. M.
SILIUS ITALICUS, Caius, a Roman poet, was born about a.d. 25, and died about a.d. 100. A native (according to the account usually followed) of Italica, near Seville, he thence received the surname by which he is known, and coming early to Rome, obtained considerable success as a pleader. He was a man of easy and tranquil temper, and appears to have been uniformly prosperous in the world. He was intimate with Martini and the younger Pliny, and is alluded to by them in complimentary terms. He filled various offices of state, and finally enjoyed the dignity of consul. The work by which he is now remembered is a poem of seventeen books on the second Punic war, entitled "Punica," and has the undesirable distinction of being at once the longest and the dullest poem extant in the Latin language. It has, however, some value in containing a certain amount of historical and antiquarian information, not otherwise accessible. The slender literary merit which it possesses is sullied by gross flattery of Domitian. A useful edition is that by Ruperti; Gottingen, 1795.—G.
SILLIMAN, Benjamin, an American naturalist, was born in 1780. In 1805 he was appointed professor of chemistry in Gale college, Newhaven. He visited Britain three times, and gave an account of his travels. He was the founder of the American Journal of Science and Arts, which he long edited, and which occupies a very high place as a scientific periodical. He devoted his attention to geology, chemistry, physics, and meteorology; and wrote papers on all these subjects. He published "Elements of Chemistry." A mineral has been called Sillimanite. Silliman died in 1865.—J. H. B.
SILVERIUS, Pope, was elected to the pontifical chair in 536. As he owed his promotion to the king of the Goths, the clergy resisted his authority for some time. After Belisarius had taken Rome, Theodora, the empress, wrote to Silverius, urging him to recognize as lawful bishop Anthemius, whom the council of Chalcedon had condemned for heresy. On his refusal she sent Belisarius to depose Silverius, on the pretext that he had invited the Goths to take possession of Rome. Silverius took refuge in a church, but was exiled. After Justinian had ordered his cause to be reheard, he went to Rome, where Vigilius had been put into his place. But Theodora triumphed, for she ordered Belisarius to deliver up Silverius to Vigilius, who banished him to the desert island of Palmaria, where he died of hunger, 538.—S. D.
SILVESTER. See Sylvester.
SIMART, Pierre Charles, a distinguished French sculptor, was born at Troyes, June 27, 1806. He was a pupil of Desbœufs and of Pradier, and a student in the École des Beaux-Arts, where he carried off the grand prize of Rome. He returned from Rome in 1837, bringing with him a group of Orestes at the altar of Minerva, and for some time his works were chiefly academical in character. Later, his manner approached more to the picturesque and romantic. M. Simart was much employed by the government. Among his commissions were the statues of Philosophy and Poetry for the library of the chamber of peers, 1843; caryatides and historic rilievi for the museum of the Louvre; and for the New Louvre the large relief of Napoleon III., surrounded by the Arts—the most ambitious, and by his admirers considered to be the most successful, of his works, he also executed a chryselephantine statue of Pallas Athené, a restoration or imitation of the famous statue of the Parthenon, which attracted much notice at the Exposition of 1855. M. Simart was accidentally killed by a fall from an omnibus, May 27, 1857. M. Simart received the cross of the legion of honour in 1847, and was elected a member of the Institute (Académie des Beaux-Arts), as successor to Pradier, in 1852.—J. T—e.
SIMEON, usually called Stylites, i.e., Pillar-saint, was an ascetic of the fifth century. He was born on the confines of Syria and Cilicia about 388. It appears that he led the life of a monk in different places, and acquired much repute for sanctity. At length he resolved to take his stand on a pillar or pedestal, 423. The pillar was gradually heightened from six cubits to thirty-six. Great crowds flocked to see the ascetic in his conspicuous place, and many were converted—Persians, Armenians, Iberians, and Arabs. He is said to have worked miracles, and to have prophesied. After passing the last thirty-seven years of his life in this manner, Simeon died about 460. The age was favourable for such a style of piety. Men were then attracted by extraordinary asceticism. Hence the great veneration in which Simeon was held both by heathens and christians. After death his body was taken to Antioch, and his relics were subsequently treated with honour. At Mondra, the place of Simeon's abode, a monastery was erected by his admirers, in the middle of which was a column inclosing the one on which the saint had stood so long. Both the Greek church and the Western commemorate him, but on different days. Simeon wrote an epistle to the Emperor Theodosius, which is lost. He also wrote a letter to the Empress Eudocia, of which a brief extract is preserved by Nicephorus Callisti. He is also the author of two epistles, one to the emperor Leo, the other to Basil, bishop of Antioch.—S. D.
SIMEON of Durham, an English historian of the twelfth century, and contemporary of William of Malmesbury, taught mathematics at Oxford, and became precentor of Durham cathedral. Simeon took much pains in collecting documents relating to the history of England, which had been dispersed by the various inroads of the Danes. By means of these he was enabled to write a history of the kings of England from 616 to 1130, incorporating in his narrative much valuable matter. This history was continued to the year 1156 by John, prior of Hexham. This work and Simeon's description of Durham cathedral are inserted among the Decem Scriptores of Twysden. Selden, however, in his edition of this work, states that Archbishop Turgot was the real author of it, and that Simeon, in his capacity of precentor of Durham, obtained possession of the MS. and published it under his own name.—F.
SIMEON, Charles. the eminent evangelist at Cambridge, was born at Reading, 24th September, 1759. He was sent to Eton, and at nineteen succeeded to a scholarship in King's college, Cambridge. During his college residence his mind became deeply impressed with religious truth. He was ordained May 26, 1782, and began his ministry "in good old Latimer's pulpit." The same year he became incumbent of Trinity church amidst a strenuous opposition from the parish, which had petitioned the bishop for another candidate. He at once commenced preaching in a variety of places around Cambridge, many of them unlicensed; began in short his life-long work of an evangelist,
