serve for navigation, they are shut with two gates presenting an angle towards the stream; when they are made near the sea, two pairs of gates are made, the one to keep the water out and the other in, as occasion requires. In this case the gates towards the sea present an angle that way, and the others the contrary; and the space enclosed by those gates is called the chamber. When sluices are made in the ditches of a fortress, to keep up the water in some parts, instead of gates, shutters are made so as to slide up and down in grooves; and, when they are made to raise an inundation, they are then shut by means of square timbers let down in cullises, so as to lie close and firm.

An engineer ought always to have in his view that the faults committed in the construction of sluices are almost always irreparable. We shall therefore lay down some rules, from Belidor, for avoiding any oversights of this kind:-1. In order to adjust the level of the sluice-work with the utmost exactness, the engineer ought to determine how much deeper it must be than a fixed point; and this he should mark down in his draught, in the most precise terms possible. 2. When the proper depth is settled, the foundation is next to be examined; and here the engineer cannot be too cautious, lest the apparent goodness of the soil deceive him; if the foundation is judged bad, or insufficient to bear the superstructure, it must be secured by driving piles, or a grate-work of carpentry. 3. There should be engines enough provided for draining the water; and these should be entirely under the direction of the engineer, who is to take care that they are so placed as not to be an obstacle to the work; and also cause proper trenches to be cut, to convey the water clear off from the

foundation. 4. When the sluice is to be built in

a place where the workmen will be unavoidably incommoded by the waters of the sea, &c., all the stones for the mason-work, as well as the timbers for that of carpentry, should be prepared beforehand; so that, when a proper season offers for beginning the work, there remains nothing to be done but to fix every thing in its place.

SLUM'BER, v. n., v. a., Sax. rlumenan; SLUM BEROUS, adj. [& n. s.Belg. sluymeren; SLUM BERY. Swed. slumra. To sleep lightly; to be not awake, nor in profound sleep be in a state of supineness or lethargy: to lay to sleep; stupify; stun: as a noun substantive, light sleep; repose: the adjectives corresponding.

God speaketh, yet man perceiveth it not in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed."

Job xxxiii. 15. He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Psalms.

Then up he took the slumbered senseless corse,
And, ere he could out of his swoon awake,
Him to his castle brought.

Faerie Queene.
And for his dreams, I wonder he's so fond
To trust the mock'ry of unquiet slumbers.
Shakspeare. Richard III.
Boy! Lucius! fast asleep? It is no matter;
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.

Id. Julius Cæsar.

A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once

Wotton. Conscience wakes despair that slumbered. Milton. The timely dew of sleep, Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight, inclines Our eyelids.

ld.

Even lust and envy sleep, but love denies Rest to my soul, and slumber to my eyes : Three days I promised to attend my doom, And two long days and nights are yet to come. Dryden.

From carelessness it shall fall into slumber, and from a slumber it shall settle into a deep and long sleep; till at last, perhaps, it shall sleep itself into hell and judgment shall awaken it. a lethargy, and that such an one that nothing bu South.

Labour and rest, that equal periods keep; Obedient slumbers that can wake and sleep. Pope.

While pensive in the silent slumberous shade,
Sleep's gentle powers her drooping eyes invade ;
Minerva, life-like, on embodied air
Impressed the form of Iphthema.

Id. Odyssey. Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train, Nor hears that virtue which he loves complain?

Young.

SLUR, v. a. & n. s. Belg. sloore, a slut ; Dan. cheat: used as a noun substantive (metaphorislor. To sully; soil; bedaub; slight; balk; cally) for a slight reproach or slander.

What was the publick faith found out for? But to slur men of what they fought for? Hudibras.

The atheists laugh in their sleeves, and not a little triumph, to see the cause of theism thus betrayed by its professed friends, and the grand argument slurred by them, and so their work done to their hands. Cudworth.

Studious to please the genius of the times, With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes. He robbed not, but he borrowed from the poor, And took but with intention to restore. Dryden.

Here is an ape made a king for shewing tricks; and the fox is then to put a slur upon him, in exposing him for sport to the scorn of the people.

L'Estrange.

SLUR, in music, a mark like the arch of a circle, drawn from one note to another, comprehending two or more notes in the same or different degrees. If the notes are in different degrees, it signifies that they are all to be sung to one syllable; for wind instruments, that they are to be made in one continued breath; and for stringed instruments that are struck with a bow, as a violin, &c., that they are made with one stroke. If the notes are in the same degree, it signifies that it is all one note, to be made as long as the whole notes so connected; and this happens most frequently betwixt the last note of one line and the first of the next; which is particularly called syncopation.

Id. Cymbeline.

Albeit the mariners do covet store of cabins, yet indeed they are but sluttish dens that breed sickness in peace, serving to cover stealths, and in sight are dangerous to tear men with their splinters. Raleigh's Essays. These make our girls their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue; And put a penny in their shoe, The house for cleanly sweeping. Holiday. She got a legacy by sluttish tricks. The nastiness of that nation, and sluttish course of life, hath much promoted the opinion, occasioned by their servile condition at first, and inferior ways of parsimony ever since.

Drayton.

Browne.

A man gave money for a black, upon an opinion that his swarthy colour was rather sluttery than nature, and the fault of his master that kept him no cleaner. L'Estrange.

The frogs were ready to leap out of their skins for joy, till one crafty old slut in the company advised them to consider a little better on't.

I look on the instinct of this noisome and troublesome creature, the louse, of searching out foul and nasty clothes to harbour and breed in, as an effect of divine providence, designed to deter men and women from sluttishness and sordidness, and to provoke them to cleanliness and neatness.

Prior.

Ray on the Creation. The veal's all rags, the butter's turn'd to oil; And thus I buy good meat for sluts to spoil. King. Slothful disorder filled his stable, And sluttish plenty decked her table. SLY, adj. Sax. rlið, slippery; Goth. SLY'LY, adv.slag, artful; Isl. slagur. Meanly artful; insidious; cunning: the adverb corresponding.

And for I doubt the Greekish monarch sly, Will use with him some of his wonted craft.

Fairfax.

He, closely false and slily wise, Cast how he might annoy them most from far. Id. For my sly wiles and subtile craftiness, The title of the kingdom I possess. Hubberd's Tale. His proud step he scornful turned,

And with sly circumspection.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue, That slily glided towards your majesty, It were but necessary you were waked. Shakspeare. Satan, like a cunning pick-lock, slily robs us of our grand treasure. Decay of Piety. With this he did a herd of goats controul, Which by the way he met, and slily stole ; Clad like a country swain.

Dryden.

He took

health. your Id. Henry IV.

The bride about the neck, and kissed her lips
With such a clamorous smack, that at the parting
All the church echoed. Id. Taming of the Shrew.
So careless flowers, strowed on the water's face,
The curled whirlpools suck, smack, and embrace,
Yet drown them.
Donne.

I saw the lecherous citizen turn back Id. His head, and on his wife's lip steal a smack. It caused the neighbours to rue, that a petty smack only of popery opened a gap to the oppression Carew. of the whole.

As the Pythagorean soul
Runs through all beasts, and fish, and fowl,
And has a smack of every one,
So love does, and has ever done.
Trembling to approach

Hudibras.

The little barrel, which he fears to broach, He' essays the wimble, often draws it back, And deals to thirsty servants but a smack.

Gay.

Pope.

Dryden's Perseus. She kissed with smacking lips the snoring lout; For such a kiss demands a pair of gloves. He gives a smacking buss. More than one steed must Delia's empire feel, Who sits triumphan. o'er the flying wheel; And, as she guides it through the' admiring throng, With what an air she smacks the silken thong!

Young.

SMACK, N. S. Sax. rmacca. A small ship. SMALAND, a province of South Sweden, lying between the Baltic and the province of

Halland. It now forms the governments of Jonkioping and Cronoberg, and part of Calmar, having a superficial extent of 7750 square miles, with a population of 315,000. Smaland is well watered by rivers and lakes; of the former, the chief are the Nissa, the Laga, and the Aem; of the latter, the Wetter, the Som, the Vidoester, and the Moekel. There is much picturesque scenery in the neighbourhood of Jonkioping and some other places; but the greater part consists of barren rocks, forests, marshes, and heaths. Wheat and honey are the chief articles of produce; but the chief object is the breeding of cattle in the extensive pastures. The forests and mines furnish materials for a considerable export trade in wood, tar, pitch, iron, and copper, and some silver and lead are occasionally found.

SMALCALDEN, a district in the west of Germany, belonging to Hesse-Cassel, but lying considerably to the east of the rest of the electo

rate.

Its territorial extent is 115 square miles; its population 22,000, almost all Lutherans. It is very mountainous, and contains mines of iron and coal, and several brine springs. The exports consist of hardware, potash, and white lead. SMALCALDEN, the chief town of the above district, is situated on a river of the same name, not far from the Werra. It contains a castle, three suburbs, 4700 inhabitants: four miles from the town is a hill called the Stahlberg, with mines of iron. In the neighbourhood also are several salt-works. In the sixteenth century the Protestant princes of the empire held several meetings here, in which they adopted resolutions of great importance; and in 1531 they formed here the famous league to defend the liberties of the empire against the encroachments of Charles V. The well known geographer, Cellarius, was a native of this place. Fifty-six miles south-west of Cassel, and nine north of Meinungen.

SMALL, adj. & n.s.

SMALL'AGE, n. s.
SMALL COAL,

SMALL CRAFT,
SMALL NESS,
SMALLPOX',
SMALLY, adj.

Sax. mall; Belg. Swed.

Little

and Goth. smal. in quantity or size; slen>der; minute: hence petty; unimportant; weak: as a noun substantive, a barbarism for the small or narrow part of a thing: smallage is a plant, a species of parsley: the other substantives seem to explain themselves: smally is in a little or low degree.

But whoso sclaundrith oon of these smale that bileven in me, it spedith to him that a mylnestone of assis be hanged in his necke and he drenchid in the depnesse of the see. Wielif. Matt. 18. Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my hus

Genesis.

band? Your sin and calf I burnt, and ground it very small, till it was as small as dust. Deut. ix. 21. After the earthquake a fire, and after the fire a still small voice. 1 Kings xix. 12. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. Isa. liv. 7. For, lo, I will make thee small among the heathen, and despised among men. Jer. xlix. 15. There arose no small stir about that way.

Acts xix. 23.

A child that is still, and somewhat hard of wit, is never chosen by the father to be made a scholar; or

Bacon.

Narrow man being filled with little shares. Courts, city, church, are all shops of small wares ; All having blown to sparks their noble fire, And drawn their sound gold ingot into wire.

Into her legs I'd have love's issues fall, And all her calf into a gouty small.

Donne.

Suckling.

Milton.

Those waved their limber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact.
Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.

Dryden's Juvenal.
Shall he before me sign, whom t'other day
A smallcraft vessel hither did convey;
Where stained with prunes and rotten figs he lay?
Dryden.

All numeration is but still the adding of one unit more, and giving to the whole together a distinct name, whereby to distinguish it from every smaller or greater multitude of units. Locke. The ordinary smallest measure we have is looked on as an unit in number. Small-grained sand is esteemed the best for the tenant, and the large for the landlord and land. Mortimer's Husbandry.

Id.

Smallage is raised by slips or seed, which is reddish, and pretty big, of a roundish oval figure; a little more full and rising on one side than the other, and Id. streaked from one end to the other.

A smallcoal man, by waking one of these distressed gentlemen, saved him from ten years imprisonment. Spectator.

The smalness of the rays of light may contribute very much to the power of the agent by which they are refracted. Newton's Opticks. When smallcoal murmurs in the hoarser throat, From smutty dangers guard thy threatened coat.

Gay.

Small is the subject, but not so the praise. Pope. Go down to the cellar to draw ale or small beer. Swift. Good cooks cannot abide fiddling work: such is the dressing of small birds, requiring a world of cookery.

Id.

Knowing, by fame, small poets, small musicians, Small painters, and still smaller politicians. Harte. His excellency having mounted on the small of my leg, advanced forwards. Gulliver's Travels.

SMALLHOLM, a parish of Scotland, in Roxburghshire, in the form of an irregular triangle, about four miles long from east to west, and three broad from north to south. The surface exhibits a pleasing variety of high and low grounds. The soil is equally various, but in general has a mixture of clay susceptible of cul

tivation, and pretty fertile. Of late a great part has been enclosed. The population, in 1791, was 421; the decrease 130 since 1755.

SMALLHOLM, a village in the above parish,

four miles from Kelso, on the turnpike road to Edinburgh.

SMALLHOLM TOWER, or SANDY KNOW, an ancient square tower in the above parish, seated on a hilly ground, belonging to Mr. Scott of Harden, which forms a considerable land-mark for the Berwick ships at sea.

SMALRIDGE (George), D. D., bishop of Bristol, an eminent English prelate, born of a respectable family at Litchfield in 1666, and educated at Westminster; whence he was elected, in May 1682, to Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated. In 1687 he published Animadversions on a Piece upon Church Government; and in 1689 a Latin poem, entitled Auctio Davisiana Oxonii habita per Gul. Cooper et Ed. Millington Bibliopolas Londinenses. In 1693 he was appointed prebendary of Litchfield; soon after lecturer of St. Dunstan's London, and minister of the new chapel, Tothill Fields; then canon of Christ Church, Oxford; next dean of Carlisle; and lastly, in 1713, bishop of Bristol : on the accession of George I. he was made lord almoner, but was removed for refusing to sign the declaration of the bishops against the rebellion in 1715. He died September 27th, 1719. He published twelve sermons, and many more were published after his death.

SMALT, n. s. Ital. smalto. A blue substance, produced from two parts of zaffre being fused with three parts common salt, and one part potash.

To make a light purple, mingle ceruse with logwood water; and moreover turnsoil with lac mingled with smalt of bice.

Peacham.

percussions of the ambient air, made by the swift and irregular motions of the particles of the liquors. Boyle.

hath in the production of sound, may in some mea

What interest such a smartness in striking the air

sure appear by the motion of a bullet, and that of a switch or other wand, which produce no sound, if they do but slowly pass through the air; whereas, if the one do smartly strike the air, and the other be shot out of a gun, the celerity of their percussions on the air puts it into an undulating motion, which, reaching the ear, produces an audible noise. Boyle.

It was a smart reply that Augustus made to one that ministred this comfort of the fatality of things: this was so far from giving any ease to his mind, that it was the very thing that troubled him.

I defy all the clubs to invent a new phrase, equal in wit, humour, smartness, or politeness, to my set. Swift. Who, for the poor renown of being smart, Would leave a sting within a brother's heart? Young.

SMART (Christopher), M. A., a celebrated poet, born at Shipburn, in Kent, in 1722. He was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he was so distinguished for his Latin poetry that he gained the Seatonian prize for five years, four of which were in succession. In 1747 he took his degree, and, in 1753, went to London, where he became acquainted with the most eminent literary characters; but neglecting both his fortune and constitution he fell into indigence, which was succeeded by insanity; in which melancholy state he died in 1771. A complete edition of his poems was published ir. 1791, 2 vols. 12mo.

Corrupted from smack.

SMATCH, n. s. Taste; tincture; twang.

Thou art a fellow of a good respect;

Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in't.

Shakspeare.

Such a practice gives a slight smattering of several sciences, without any solid knowledge. Watts. SMEAR, v. a. I Saxon rmeɲan; Belgic SMEAR'Y, adj. smeeren. To overspread with something viscous and adhesive; besmear: the adjective corresponding.

If any such be here, that love this painting,
Wherein you see me smeared,

If any think brave death outweighs bad life,
Let him wave thus.
Shakspeare. Othello.
Then from the mountain hewing timber tall,
Began to build a vessel of huge bulk,
Smeared round with pitch.

Milton.

Smeared as she was with black Gorgonean blood, The fury sprang above the Stygian flood. Dryden. A smeary foam works o'er my grinding jaws, And utmost anguish shakes my lab'ring frame.

Rowe. SMEATON (John), F. R.S., an eminent civil engineer, born on the 28th of May, 1724, O. S., at Austerhorpe, near Leeds, in a house built by his grandfather, and where his family have resided ever since. The strength of his understanding, and the originality of his genius, appeared at an early age: his playthings were not the playthings of children, but the tools of men; and he had greater entertainment in seeing the men work, and asking them questions, than in any thing else. One day he was seen on the top of his father's barn, fixing up something like a windmill; another time he attended some men fixing a pump at a neighbouring village, and, observing them cut off a piece of bored pipe, he procured it, and actually made with it a working pump that raised water. These circumstances happened before he had attained his sixth year. About his fourteenth he had made an engine for turning, and made presents to his friends of boxes in ivory and wood very neatly turned. He forged his iron and steel, and melted his metals; he made tools of every sort for working in wood, ivory, and metals. He had made a lathe, by which he had cut a perpetual screw in brass, a thing little known at that day, which was the invention of Mr. Henry Hindley of York; with whom Mr. Smeaton soon became acquainted, and they spent many a night at Mr. Hindley's house on those subjects. Thus had Mr. Smeaton, by the strength of his genius and industry, acquired, at the age of eighteen, an extensive set of tools, and the art of working in most of the mechanical trades, without the as

sistance of any master. Mr. Smeaton's father was an attorney, and intended to bring him up to the same profession. Mr. Smeaton therefore came up to London in 1742, and attended in Westminster Hall; but, finding that the law did not suit his genius, he wrote to his father, whose

good sense from that moment left Mr. Smeaton began to try a machine of his invention to meato pursue the bent of his genius. In 1751 he sure a ship's way at sea, and also made two voyages in company with Dr. Knight to try it, and a compass of, his own invention, which was made magnetical by Dr. Knight's artificial magnets. In 1753 he was elected F. R. S.; his papers published in their'Transactions show the universality of his genius. In 1759 he was honored with their gold medal for his Experimental Enquiry concerning the natural powers of Water and Wind to turn Mills and other Machines depending on a Circular Motion. This paper was the result of experiments made on working models in 1752 and 1753, but not communicated to the Society till 1759; before which time he had put these experiments into practice, so that he could assure the Society he had found them to answer. In December, 1755, the Eddystone lighthouse was burnt down. Mr. Weston, the chief proprietor, and the others, being desirous of rebuilding it in the most substantial manner, by advice of the earl of Macclesfield (then president of the Royal Society) employed Mr. Smeaton, who undertook the wo k, and completed it in the summer of 1759. Of this he gives an ample description in the volume puolished in 1791, and since republished under the revisal of his friend Mr. Aubert, F. R. S. On the 31st of December, 1764, he was appointed at a full board of Greenwich hospital, in a manner highly flattering to himself, one of the receivers of the Derwentwater estate. In this appointment he was very happy by the assistance and abilities of his partner Mr. Walton, who, taking upon himself the management and accounts, left Mr. Smeaton leisure to exert his abilities on public works, and to make improvements in the mills and in the estates of Greenwich hospital. By the year 1775 he had so much business as a civit engineer, that he wished to resign this appointment; but his friends, the late Mr. Stuart the surveyor, and Mr. Ibbotson their secretary, prevailed upon him to continue about two years longer. Mr. Smeaton now performed many works of general utility. He made the river Calder navigable; a work that required great skill and judgment, owing to the very impetuous floods in that river. He planned and attended the execution of the great canal in Scotland (see CANAL and FORTH); and, having brought it to the place originally intended, he declined a handsome yearly salary, that he might attend to the multiplicity of his other business. On the opening of the great arch at London Bridge, the excavation around and under the sterlings was so considerable that the bridge was thought to be in great danger of falling. He was then in Yorkshire, and was sent for by express. He immediately examined it, and the committee, being called together, adopted his advice, which was, to repurchase the stones that had been taken