After the peace, lieutenant Symonds was appointed in 1819 captain of the ports, and intendant of the police at Malta, which post he retained until he was appointed to the Royal George yacht, January 1, 1825. On the 4th October following he was promoted to the rank of commander. At this period he commenced his experiments in ship-building, by the construction of the corvette, Columbine, to which he was appointed commander. The undeniable superiority of this vessel to other cruisers drew from the authorities commendation and promotion to the rank of post-captain. By giving great breadth of beam, and diminishing the width of the ship below the water line, Captain Symonds procured at once greater speed and greater steadiness of sailing in his ships. In 1831 he was assisted by the duke of Portland to improve on the Columbine in the construction of the Pantaloon, a ten-gun brig, which was the model of all his subsequent constructions. He was appointed surveyor of the navy on 9th June, 1832, and during his fifteen years' tenure of office one hundred and eighty government vessels were built, not one of which it has been remarked, has foundered at sea. Captain Symonds was knighted in 1836. He had been elected F.R.S. the year before, and in 1848 he was made C.B. He attained to the rank of rear-admiral on the retired list in 1854. He died 30th March, 1856, on a voyage from Malta to Marseilles.—R. H.
SYMONS, Jelinger C., an eminent philanthropist and promoter of education, was born in 1809, and was called to the bar in 1843; but his writings on social questions, and particularly on the statistics of crime and education, attracted the attention of her majesty's government, and he was in consequence appointed one of the inspectors of schools. The various pamphlets, lectures, speeches, and more elaborate treatises on educational and social subjects, which he published, fill upwards of six pages in the new catalogue of the British museum. Mr. Symons also wrote an interesting essay on the authorship of Junius, and contributed a number of papers to the pages of Once a Week. A controversy which he carried on with Dr. Whewell, respecting the revolution of the moon on its axis, attracted attention at the time.—J. T.
SYNESIUS, an ancient christian philosopher of the fourth century, was a native of Cyrene. He studied first in his native city, and then at Alexandria, where he attended the lectures of the famous Hypatia. About the year 397, the citizens of Cyrene sent him on an embassy to Constantinople, to present a crown of gold to the Emperor Arcadius, when he delivered an eloquent address on handing over the gift. Some time after this, the Platonic philosopher on embracing christianity was baptized by Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria. Such was the esteem in which he was held, that the patriarch resolved to ordain him a bishop. But he pleaded his wife, whom he would not put away; his scepticism as to a resurrection; and the nature generally of his studies and speculations. The bishop, however, was inexorable, and Synesius was in 410 ordained bishop of Ptolemais—retaining his wife, and soon professing his orthodoxy on the points of which he had doubted. He ruled his diocese for above twenty years with exemplary tact and industry—converting also the philosopher Evagrius, and humbling the tyrant Andronicus of Gaza. He seems to have died before 430. The style of his writings is elegant, and they have been universally admired. The best of his christian works are his "Epistles" (in number one hundred and fifty-five), his "Homilies," and his ten "Hymns." His more general works are his treatise "On Dreams;" "On Prudence;" "Dion, or on true philosophy;" and his "Oration to Arcadius"— περὶ βασιλείας. The editio princeps is that of Turnebus, Paris, 1553; which was republished at the same place, with the Latin translation of Petavius, 1612. There have been two French translations of his hymns—one by Percheron, Paris, 1581; and another by Gregoire and Collombet, Paris, 1839. A few of them have also been done into English by Hugh Stewart Boyd, London, 1814. Synesius was more of a philosopher than a divine, and was more at home in Platonism than in theology.—J. E.
SYNESIUS: Under this name a short Greek medical work has been published, the literary history of which is curious, though its scientific value is but small. It was published in Greek and Latin, 1749, 8vo, Amstel. et Lugd. Bat., edited by J. S. Bernard, with the title "Synesius De Febribus," &c. There was, however, no good reason at first for publishing this little work under the name of Synesius, and further inquiries since Bernard's time have thrown considerable light upon the authorship of the work, though there are some points connected with it that are still uncertain. It is not a complete work in itself, but forms part of a much longer one, which still exists only in MS., entitled Τὰ Ἐφόδια τοῦ Ἀτοδημονῦτος. This longer work is generally attributed to Constantinus, commonly called Africanus, whose name it bears in some MSS.; but Dr. Daremberg disputes this. It corresponds with the "Viaticum" of the same Constantinus; but there is no proof that either work was translated from the other. Rather it would appear probable that both works are translated from the Arabic original, which still exists in MS. in several European libraries. The author of the work was Abú Ja'far Ahmed, who is also called Ibnu-l-Jezzár, and who lived in the tenth century after Christ. He was a writer of considerable eminence, and composed several works on medicine, metaphysics, history, &c., none of which have been printed. Of the medical treatise here spoken of, there is also a Hebrew version by Rabbi Moshe Ben Tibbon; so that it enjoys the singular honour of having been translated into no less than three languages during the middle ages.—(See Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Biogr., and the references there given. Additional and fuller information will be found in Daremberg's Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits Médicaux Grecs, &c., Paris, 8vo, 1853, p. 63, &c.; and also in Dugat's Etudes sur le Traité de Médecine d'Abou Djàfar Ahmad, intitulé, Zal al Maçafir, La Provision du Voyageur, extracted from the Journal Asiatique, Paris, 1853.)—W. A. G.
SYRIANUS, a distinguished Neo-platonist philosopher, was born at Alexandria about 380. Ardently devoted to learning from early youth, he removed to Athens, where he passed several years in diligent study. In course of time he became the acknowledged head of the Athenian Neo-platonists, and had among his disciples the celebrated Proclus. He wrote several philosophic works, some of which, though still extant in the royal library at Paris, have not yet been published. The most important among his published writings is his commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. He died about 450. The best account of Syrianus will be found in Ritter's History of Philosophy.—G.
SYROPULUS, an ecclesiastic holding high office in the Greek church, was present as a delegate at the council held at Florence in 1440, with a view to reconcile the Greek and Latin churches. He acquiesced in and subscribed to the articles of agreement which were approved by the council; but finding on his return home that the Emperor John Palæologus, along with the great majority of the Greek church, were dissatisfied with his conduct, he renounced his subscription, and wrote an elaborate history of the council, still extant, in which he strongly condemns the conduct of the papal see. Harassed by his enemies in the Byzantine church, and foreseeing, perhaps, the speedy conquest of the Lower empire by the Ottoman power, Syropulus took refuge in Venice, where he ultimately died.—G.
* SZECHENYI, Stephan, Count, an eminent Hungarian nobleman and enlightened patriot, was born in 1792, and in early life served in the Austrian army. After the death of his father, in 1820, he accepted as an inheritance the duty of promoting the acquisition of knowledge by all classes, which his father had fostered by liberal endowments bestowed on the national museum. Stephan applied himself to agricultural improvements, wrote on the improvement of the breed of horses, opened up communications where they were wanting, and especially laboured to promote the navigation by steam of the river Danube. He was regarded by his countrymen as a leader in the way of practical improvement and material progress. But to the political agitation which culminated in 1848 he gave a most determined opposition. He procured a seat in the lower chamber of the diet for the express purpose of defeating Kossuth, and when he failed his mind gave way, and he has been compelled to pass the remainder of his days in an asylum for the insane.—R. H.
SZE-MA-TSËEN, a Chinese historian, wrote, in the first century before Christ, the "Sze-Ke," a celebrated history of China, from a period of more than two thousand five hundred years before his own time, to which it extended.—F. E.
SZE-MA-KWANG, another Chinese historian, wrote in the eleventh century a work which, with subsequent additions, has become the national history of China. It was translated into French by Father Maillac, a French Roman catholic missionary at Pekin, and was published at Paris in 1777-83, as "Histoire générale de la Chine."—F. E.
