Chapter Seven-Hilled City to Seven Wise Masters of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Seven-Hilled City to Seven Wise Masters

Seven-Hilled City (The), in Latin Urbs Septicollis; anci ent Rome, built on seven hills, surrounded by Servius Tullius with a line of fortifications. The seven hills are the Pallatinus, the Capitolinus, the Quirinalis, the Cælius, the Aventinus, the Viminalis, and the Esquilinus.

Seven Lamps of Architecture, by Ruskin (1849). The seven lamps are Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, and Obedience.

Seven Month’s War (The), (See SIX MONTHS’ WAR, p. 1012.)

(The first half consisted of a series of battles won by the king of Prussia; the second half consisted of a series of sieges, ending with the siege of Paris. September I, after the battle of Sedan, Napoleon delivered his sword to William king of Prussia. January 18, 1871, William was declared emperor of Germany.)

Seven Mortal Sins (The): (I) pride, (2) wrath, (3) envy, (4) lust, (5) gluttony, (6) avarice, (7) sloth. (See SEVEN VIRTUES, p. 986.)

Seven Rienzis Number.

October 7. Rienzi’s foes yielded to his power.
7 months Rienzi reigned as tribune.
7 years he was absent in exile.
7 weeks of return saw him without an enemy (Oct. 7)
7 was the number of the crowns the Roman convents and Roman council awarded him.

Seven Senses (The). According to Ecclesiasticus, they are seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling, understanding, and speech. (See FIVE WITS, p. 371)

The Lord created man…and they received the use of the five operations of the Lord, and in the sixth place He imparted [to] them understanding, and in the seventh speech, an interpreter of the cogitations thereof.—Ecclus. xvii.5.

Seven Sisters(The). The window in the north transept of York Cathedral is so called because it has seven tall lancets.

The Seven Sisters, seven culverins cast by one Borthwick.

And these were Borthwick’s “Sisters Seven,”
And culverins which France had given.
III-omened gift. The guns remain
The conqueror’s spoil on Flodden plain.
   —Sir W. Scott: Marmion, iv. (1808).

(Wordsworth has a ballad called “The Seven Sisters” named Campbell. While the knight their father was away in the wars, some rovers leaped on shore. The seven sisters fled in fright, and, being pursued by the rovers, plunged into a lake. In this lake are seven small islets, and the fishers say that on these islets the seven sisters were buried by fairy hands. Wordsworth has also a pretty lyric of seventeen stanzas, called “We are Seven.”)

Seven Sleepers(The.) The tale of these sleepers is told in divers manners. The best accounts are those in theKoran, xviii., entitled, “The Cave, Revealed at Mecca;”The Golden Legends, by Jacques de Voragine; the De Gloria Martyrum, i, 9, by Gregory of Tours; and the Oriental Tales, by comte de Caylus (1743).

Names of the Seven Sleepers. Gregory of Tours says their names were: Constantine, Dionysius, John, Maximian, Malchus, Martinian or Marcian, and Serapion. In the Oriental Tales the names given are: Jemlikha, Mekchilinia, Mechlima, Merlima, Debermouch, Charnouch, and the shepherd Keschetiouch. Their names are not given in the Koran.

N. B.—Al Seyid, a Jacobite Christian of Najrân, says the sleepers were only three, with their dog; others maintain that their number was five, besides the dog; but Al Beidâwi, who is followed by most authorities, says they were Seven, besides the dog.