Chapter Sinon to Sixteen-String Jack of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Siward [Se-ward], the earl of Northumberland, and general of the English forces acting against Macbeth.—Shakespeare: Macbeth (1606).

Six Acts, a term given to certain acts, also named “Gagging Acts” (60 George III. and I George IV.), to suppress seditious meetings and publications.

Six Chronicles (The). Dr. Giles complied and edited six Old English Chronicles for Bohn’s series in 1848. They are: Ethelwerd’s Chronicle, Asser’s Life of Alfred, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British History, Gildas the Wise, Nennius’s History of the Britons, and Richard of Cirencester’s On the Ancient State of Britain. The last three were edited, in 1757, by professor Bertram, in his Scriptores Tres, but great doubt exists on the genuineness of Dr. Bertram’s compilation. (See Three Writers.)

Six Islands (The), which constituted “Great Brittany” before the Saxon period, were Ireland, Iceland, Gothland, the Orkneys, Norway, and Dacia (or Denmark).

Six Months War (The), the great war between Prussia and France. The emperor (Napoleon III.) left St. Cloud July 28, 1870, and Paris capitulated January 28, 1871.

This is often called the Seven Months’ War. But by no calculation can this be correct. The war lasted just six months; but Napoleon declared war July 19, 1870, and the peace was signed at Frankfort, May 10, 1871.

Sixpenny War (The), the O. P. (old price) riot of Covent Garden in 1809. So called because the managers tried to raise the price of admission from 3s. 6d. to 4s. If the managers had not given way, the newly built theatre would have been utterly dismantled.

Sixteen-String Jack, John Rann, a highwayman. He was a great fop, and wore sixteen tags to his breeches, eight at each knee (hanged 1774).

Dr. Johnson said that Gray’s poetry towered above the ordinary run of verse, as Sixteen-String Jack above the ordinary foot-pad.—Boswell: Life of Johnson (1791).