7. S. oculata, or branched sponge, is delicately soft and very much branched; the branches are a little compressed, grow erect, and often united together. They have rows of cells on each margin that project a little. This species is of a pale yellow color, from five to ten inches high. The fibres are reticulated, and the flesh or gelatinous part is so tender that when it is taken out of the water it soon dries away. It is very common round the sea coast of Britain and Ireland. Along the edges and on the surface of the branches are rows of small papillary holes, through which the animal receives its nourishment.

8. S. palmata, palmated sponge, is like a hand with fingers a little divided at the top. The mouths are a little prominent, and irregularly disposed on the surface. It is found on the beach at Brighthelmstone. It is of a reddish color, inclining to yellow, and of the same soft woolly texture with the spongia oculata.

9. S. stuposa, tow sponge or downy branched sponge, is soft like tow, with round branches, and covered with fine pointed hair. It is of a pale yellow color, and about three inches high. It is frequently thrown on the shore at Hastings in Sussex. It is so closely covered with a fine down that the numerous small holes in its surface are not discernible.

10. S. tomentosa, or S. urens, stinging sponge, or crumb of bread sponge, is of many forms, full of pores, very brittle and soft, and interwoven with very minute spines. It is full of small protuberances, with a hole in each, by which it sucks in and throws out the water. It is very common on the British coast; and is frequently seen surrounding fucuses. It is found also on the shores of North America, Africa, and in the East Indies. When newly taken out of the sea it is of a bright orange color, and full of gelatinous flesh; but when dry it becomes whitish, and when broken has the appearance of crum of bread. If rubbed on the hand it will raise blisters; and if dried in an oven its power of stinging is much increased, especially that variety of it which is found on the sea coast of North America.

SPON SOR, n. s. Lat. sponsor. A surety; one who makes a promise or gives security for

another.

Many analogal motions in animals, though I cannot call them voluntary, yet I see them spontaneous I have reason to conclude that these are simply mechanical. Hale.

not

The sagacities and instinct of brutes, the spontaneousness of many of their animal motions, are explicable, without supposing some active determinate power connexed to and inherent in their spirits, of a higher extraction than the bare natural modification of matter. Hale's Origin of Mankind.

Strict necessity they simple call;
It so binds the will, that things foreknown
By spontaneity, not choice, are done.

While John for nine-pins does declare,
And Roger loves to pitch the bar,
Both legs and arms spontaneous move,
Which was the thing I meant to prove.

Dryden.

Prior.

This would be as impossible as that the lead of an edifice should naturally and spontaneously mount up to the root, while lighter materials employ themselves beneath it. Bentley.

Begin with sense, of every art the soul,
Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole;
Spontaneous beauties all around advance,
Start even from difficulty, strike from chance;
Nature shall join you, time shall make it grow.

Pope. cheese as hard as a stone. Whey turns spontaneously acid, and the curd into Arbuthnot on Aliments. SPONTANEOUS INFLAMMATION, heat and conflagration produced in combustible bodies, from adventitious causes, without the application of fire. A paper on this subject which appeared in the Repertory of Arts, vol. ii. p. 425, induced the Rev. W. Tooke to publish some remarks in vol. iii. p. 95 of that work, from which, as the paper is long, we shall only give an extract, respecting the spontaneous inflammations of animal and vegetable substances. 'One Rüde,' says he, an apothecary at Bautzen, had prepared a pyrophorus from rye-bran and alum. Not long after he had made the discovery there broke out in the next village of Nauslitz a great fire, which did much mischief, and was said to have been occasioned by the treating of a sick cow in the cow-house. Mr. Rüde knew that the countrymen were used to lay an application of parched rye-bran to their cattle for curing the thick neck; he knew also that alum and rye-bran, by a proper process, yielded a pyrophorus; and now to try whether parched rye-bran alone would have the same effect he roasted a quantity of rye-bran by the fire till it had acquired the color of roasted coffee. This roasted bran he wrapped up in a linen cloth; in a few minutes there arose a strong smoke with a smell of burning. Soon after the rag grew as black as tinder, and the bran, now become hot, fell through it on the ground in little balls. Mr. Rüde repeated the experiment, and always with the same result. Who now will doubt that the frequency of fires in cow-houses, which in those parts are mostly wooden buildings, is occasioned by this practice, of binding roasted bran about the necks of the cattle? Montet relates, in the Memoires de l' Académie de Paris, 1748, that animal substances kindle into flame; and that he himself has been witness to the spontaneous accension of dunghills.

The woollen stuff prepared at Sevennes, named emperor's stuff, has kindled of itself, and burnt to a coal. It is not unusual for this to happer to woollen stuffs, when in hot summers they are laid in a heap, in a room but little aired. In June 1781 this happened at a wool-comber's in Germany, where a heap of wool-combings, piled up in a close warehouse seldom aired, took fire of itself. This wool burnt from within outwards, and became quite a coal; though neither fire nor light had been used at the packing. In like manner cloth-workers have certified that, after they have bought wool that was become wet, and packed it close in their warehouse, this wool has burnt of itself. The spontaneous accension of various matters from the vegetable kingdom, as wet hay, corn, and madder, and at times wet meal and malt, are well known. Hemp, flax, and hemp-oil, have also often given rise to dreadful conflagrations. In spring 1780 a fire was discovered on board a frigate lying in the road off Cronstadt, which endangered the whole fleet. After the severest scrutiny, no cause of the fire was to be found; and the matter remained without explanation, but with strong surmises of some wicked incendiary. In August 1780 a fire broke out at the hemp-magazine at St. Petersburgh, by which several hundred thousand poods (about thirty-six pounds English) of hemp and flax were consumed. The walls of the magazine are of brick, the floors of stone, and the rafters and covering of iron; it stands alone on an island in the Neva, on which, as well as on board the ships lying in the Neva, no fire is permitted. In St. Petersburgh, in the same year, a fire was discovered in the vaulted shop of a furrier. In these shops, which are all vaults, neither fire nor candle is allowed, and the doors of them are all of iron. At length the probable cause was found to be that the furrier, the evening before the fire, had got a roll of new cere-cloth, and had left it in his vault, where it was found almost consumed. In the night between the 20th and 21st of April, 1781, a fire was seen on board the frigate Maria, at anchor, with several other ships, in the roads off the island of Cronstadt; the fire was however soon extinguished; and, by the severest examination, nothing could be extorted concerning the manner in which it had arisen. The garrison was threatened with a scrutiny that should cost them dear; and, while they were in this cruel suspense, the wisdom of the sovereign gave a turn to the affair, which quieted the minds of all, by pointing out the proper method to be pursued by the commissioners of enquiry, in the following order to Czernichef:-When we perceived, by the report you have delivered in of the examination into the accident that happened on board the frigate Maria, that, in the cabin where the fire broke out, there were found parcels of matting tied together with pack thread, in which the soot of burnt fir-wood had been mixed with oil, for the purpose of painting the ship's bottom, it came into our mind, that at the fire which happened last year at the hemp-warehouses, the following cause was assigned, that the fire might have proceeded from the hemp being bound up in greasy mats, or even from such mats having lain near the hemp: therefore neglect not

31

to guide your further enquiries by this remark. As, upon juridical examination, as well as private enquiry, it was found that, in the ship's cabin, here the smoke appeared, there lay a bundle of matting containing Russian lamp-black, prepared from fir-soot, moistened with hemp-oil varnish, which was perceived to have sparks of fire in it at the time of the extinction, the Russian admiralty gave orders to make various experiments, to see whether a mixture of hemp-oil varnish and the fore-mentioned Russian black, folded up in a mat and bound together, would kindle of itself. They shook forty pounds of fir-wood soot into a tub, and poured about thirty-five pounds of hempoil-varnish upon it; this they let stand for an hour, after which they poured off the oil. The remaining mixture they now wrapped up in a mat, and the bundle was laid close to the cabin where the midship-men had their birth. Two officers sealed both the mat and the door with their own seals, and stationed a watch of four officers to take notice of all that passed the whole night through; and, as soon as any smoke should appear, immediately to give information to the commandant of the port. The experiment was made the 26th of April, about 11 o'clock A. M., in presence of all the officers. Early on the 27th, about 6 o'clock A. M., a smoke appeared, of which the chief commandant was immediately informed: he came with speed, and through a small hole ir the door saw the mat smoking. He despatched a messenger to the members of the commission; but as the smoke became stronger, and fire began. to appear, he found it necessary to break the seals and open the door. No sooner was the air thus admitted than the mat began to burn with greater force, and presently it burst into a flame. The Russian admiralty, being now fully convinced of the self-enkindling property of this composition, transmitted their experiment to the Imperial Academy of Sciences; who appointed Mr. Georgi, a very learned adjunct of the academy, to make farther experiments on the subject. Three pounds of Russian fir-black were slowly impregnated with five pounds of hemp-oil varnish; and, when the mixture stood open five hours, it was bound up in linen. By this process it became clotted; but some of the black remained dry. When the bundle had lain sixteen hours in a chest it was observed to emit a very nauseous, and rather putrid smell, not unlike that of boiling oil. Some parts of it became warm, and steamed much; eighteen hours after the mixture was wrapped up, one place became brown, emitted smoke, and directly afterwards glowing fire appeared. The same thing happened in a second and third place; though other places were scarcely warm. The fire crept slowly around, and gave a thick, gray, stinking smoke. Mr. Georgi took the bundle out of the chest, and laid it on a stone pavement; when, on being exposed to the free air, there arose a slow burning flame a span high, with a strong body of smoke. Not long afterwards there appeared, here and there, several chaps or clefts, as from a little volcano, the vapor issuing from which burst into flames. On his breaking the lump it burst into a very violent flame full three feet high, which soon grew less, and then went out. The smoking

and glowing fire lasted six hours; and the remainder continued to glow without smoke for two hours longer. The gray earthy ashes, when cold, weighed five ounces and a half.' Mr. Tooke concludes with a case of self-accension, noticed by Mr. Hageman, an apothecary at Bremen. He prepared a boiled oil of hyoscyamus, or henbane, in the usual way with common oil. The humidity of the herb was nearly evaporated, when he was called away by other affairs, and was obliged to leave the oil on the fire. The evaporation of the humidity was hereby carried so far that the herb could easily be rubbed to powder. The oil had lost its green color, and had become brownish. In this state it was laid on the straining cloth, and placed in the garden, behind the house, in the open air. In half an hour, on coming again to this place, he perceived a strong smoke there, though he thought the oil must have long been cooled: on closer inspection he found that the smoke did not proceed from the oil, but from the herb on the straining cloth; at the same time the smell betrayed a concealed fire. He stirred the herb about, and blew into it with a bellows, whereupon it broke out into a bright flame.

SPOOM, v. n. Probably from spume, or foam, as a ship driven with violence spumes, or raises a foam. To go on swiftly. A sea term. When virtue spooms before a prosperous gale, My heaving wishes help to fill the sail.

SPOON, n. s.

SPOON BILL, SPOON FUL,

Dryden. Belg. spaen; Dan. spone; Isl. and Goth. spoonn. A concave vessel with a handle, used in eating liquids: spoonbill is a bird with a bill of this shape: a spoonful is the quantity a spoon will hold : spoonmeat, food taken with a spoon.

SPOON MEAT.

Wouldst thou drown thyself,
Put but a little water in a spoon,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.

Shakspeare. King John. Prescribe him, before he do use the receipt, that he take such a pill, or a spoonful of liquor. Bacon. Diet most upon spoonmeats, as veal or cock broths. Harvey.

The shoveller, or spoonbill; the former name the more proper, the end of the bill being broad like a shovel, but not concave like a spoon, but perfectly flat.

Wretched

Grew's Musaum.

When their hearts were merry, they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport; and they called for him, and he made them sport. Judges xvi. 25.

As a mad-man who casteth fire-brands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport? Proverbs xxvi. 18, 19.

Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue ? Isaiah Ivii. 4.

Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight.. Sidney.

The poor man wept and bled, cried and prayed, while they sported themselves. in his pain, and delighted in his prayers, as the argument of their victory.

Id.

The otter got out of the river, and inweeded himself so, as the ladies lost the further marking of his sportfulness. Id.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the' gods; They kill us for their sport. Shakspeare. King Lear. If I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me, then let me be your jest. Shakspeare.

Away with him, and let her sport herself With that she's big with. Id. Winter's Tale.

I am not in a sportive humour now, Tell me, and dally not, where is the

money

?

Shakspeare.

Id.

How with a sportful malice it was followed, May rather pluck on laughter than revenge. His highness, even in such a slight and sportfu. damage, had a noble sense of just dealing. Wotton. The king, who was excessively affected to hunting, and the sports of the field, had a great desire to make a great park, for red as well as fallow deer, between Richmond and Hampton Court. Clarendon. Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey Of wrecking whirlwinds. Milton.

Down he alights among the sportful herd Of those four-footed kinds.

Id.

They, sporting with quick glance. Shew to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold. Id.

What pretty stories these are for a man of his seriousness to sport himself withal! Atterbury.

They are no sportful productions of the soil, but did once belong to real and living fishes; seeing each of them doth exactly resemble some other shell on the sea-shore. Bentley.

No wonder savages or subjects slain, Were equal crimes in a despotick reign; Both doomed alike for sportive tyrants bled, But subjects starved while savages were fed. Pope. Larissa, as she sported at this play, was drowned in the river Peneus. Broome on the Odyssey.

Some grave
their wrongs on marble; he, more just,
Stooped down serene, and wrote them on the dust,
Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,

Swept from the earth, and blotted from his mind;
There secret in the grave he bade them lie,
And grieved they could not 'scape the' Almighty's
Dr. Madden on Bp. Boulter.

eye.

Let such writers go on at their dearest peril, and sport themselves in their own deceivings. Watts. A catalogue of this may be had in Albericus Gentilis; which, because it is too sportful, I forbear to mention. Baker.

SPOT, n. s. & v. a.) Dan. spette; Flemish SPOT'LESS, adj. spotte. A blot; a mark SPOT'TY. made by discoloration; a taint; disgrace: hence a marked or particular place: upon the spot' is immediately; without changing place: to spot, to stain; discolor; corrupt: spotless, free from spot or stain: spotty, abounding in spots.

This vow receive, this vow of God maintain, My virgin life no spotted thoughts shall stain.

Let him take thee,

Sidney.

Abdallah converted the whole mountain into a kind of garden, and covered every part of it with plantations or spots of flowers. Guardian.

I counted the patches on both sides, and found the tory patches to be about twenty stronger than the whig but next morning the whole puppetshow was filled with faces spotted after the whiggish manner. Addison's Spectator.

About one of these breathing passages is a spot of myrtles, that flourish within the steam of these vapours. Addison.

Yet Chloe sure was formed without a spot;
'Tis true, but, something in her was forgot.
Here Adrian fell upon that fatal spot
Our brother died.

Pope.

Granville.

He that could make two ears of corn grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind than the whole race of politicians. Swift.

You graced the several parts of life, A spotless virgin, and a faultless wife. Waller. The lion did not chop him up immediately upon the spot; and yet he was resolved he should not escape. L'Estrange.

But serpents now more amity maintain; From spotted skins the leopard does refrain; No weaker lion's by a stronger slain.

Tate's Juvenal.

We sometimes wish that it had been our lot to live

and converse with Christ, to hear his divine discourses, and to observe his spotless behaviour; and we please ourselves perhaps with thinking, how ready a reception we should have given to him and his doctrine. Atterbury.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.

Pope. It was determined upon the spot, according as the oratory on either side prevailed. Swift.

The Dutch landscapes are, I think, always a representation of an individual spot, and each in its kind a very faithful, but very confined portrait.

Reynolds. D

SPOTS, in astronomy, certain places of the sun's or moon's disk, observed to be either more bright or dark than the rest, and accordingly called feculæ et maculæ. See ASTRONOMY, Index.

SPOTSWOOD (John), archbishop of St. Andrew's in Scotland, was descended from the lairds of Spotswood in the Merse, and was born in 1565. He was educated in the university of Glasgow, and succeeded his father in the parsonage of Calder when but eighteen years of age. In 1601 he attended Lodowick, duke of Lennox, as chaplain, in an embassy to the court of France for confirming the ancient amity between the two nations, and returned in his retinue through England. When he entered into the archbishopric of Glasgow, there was not £100 sterling of yearly revenue left; but by economy he greatly improved it. In 1616 he was made archbishop, primate, and metropolitan of Scotland. He presided in several assemblies for restoring the ancient discipline, and bringing the church of Scotland to uniformity with that of England. He continued in high esteem with king James I. and Charles I. who was crowned by him in 1633 at Holyroodhouse. In 1635, upon the death of the earl of Kinnoul, chancellor of Scotland, he was advanced to that post; but had scarcely held it four years, when the confusions beginning in Scotland, he was obliged to retire into England; and died at London in 1639, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. He wrote a history of the Church of Scotland from 203 to the reign of king James VI. in folio.

One of two must still obey,
Nancy, Nancy;

Is it man or woman, say, My spouse, Nancy? SPOUT, n. s., v. a. & v. n. Į SPOUT'ER, n. s.

Burns.

Belg. spuyt. A pipe, or mouth of a pipe or vessel, out of which any thing is poured; water falling as from a spout; to pour. or issue with violence: a spouter is an everlasting or vehement speaker.

They laid them down hard by the murmuring musick of certain waters, which spouted out of the side of the hills. Sidney. Not the dreadful spout, Which shipmen do the hurricano call, Constringed in mass by the almighty sun, Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear In his descent, than shall my prompted sword Falling on Diomede.

Shakspeare. Troilus and Cressida. Became two spouts. She gasping to begin some speech, her eyes Id. Winter's Tale. We will bear home that lusty blood again, Which here we came to spout against your town. Shakspeare.

In Gaza they couch vessels of earth in their walls, to gather the wind from the top, and to pass it down in spouts into rooms. Bucon.

I intend two fountains, the one that sprinkleth or spouteth water, the other a fair receipt of water.

As waters did in storms, now pitch runs out,
As lead, when a fired church becomes one spout.

If you chance it to lack,
Be it claret or sack,
I'll make this snout

To deal it about,
Or this to run out,

As it were from a spout.

Id.

Donne.

Ben Jonson.

Next on his belly floats the mighty whale; He twists his back, and rears his threatening tail: He spouts the tide. Creech.

In whales that breathe, lest the water should get unto the lungs, an ejection thereof is contrived by a fistula or spout at the head. Browne.

She swims in blood, and blood does spouting throw

To heaven, that heaven men's cruelties might know. Waller. No hands could force it thence, so fixt it stood, Till out it rushed, expelled by streams of spouting blood. Dryden. The force of these motions pressing more in some places than in others, there would fall not showers, but great spouts or cascades of water.

Burnet's Theory of the Earth. In this single cathedral, the very spouts are loaded with ornaments. Addison on Italy. It spouts up out of deep wells, and flies forth at the tops of them, upon the face of the ground. Woodward From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, And China's earth receives the smoking tide. Pope. Is bright with spouting rills. All the glittering hill

Thomson's Autumn. Elihu Palmer, the deistical spouter, was, in the small circle of his church, more priestly, more fulminating, and looked for more reverence and adoration from his disciples, than the Lauds and Gardiners of England. Without the means, he affected all the haughtiness of Wolsey. Professing to adore reason, he was in a rage if any body reasoned with him. Cheetham's Life of Paine