Chapter St. John to Scott of S by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

St. John to Scott

St. John, H. (See Bolingbroke).

Sala, George Augustus Henry (1828-1895).—Journalist and novelist, born in London of Italian ancestry, began life as an illustrator of books and scene-painter, afterwards taking to literature. He contributed to many periodicals, including Household Words, and the Illustrated London News, and was the founder and first editor of Temple Bar. Among his novels were The Buddington Peerage and Quite Alone. He also wrote books of travel, and an autobiographical work, his Life and Adventures (1895).

Sale, George (1697?-1736).—Orientalist, a Kentish man and practising solicitor. In 1734 he published a translation of the Koran, He also assisted in the Universal History, and was one of the correctors of the Arabic New Testament issued by the S.P.C.K.

Sanderson, Robert (1587-1663).—Theologian and casuist, born of good family at Rotherham in Yorkshire, was at Oxford Entering the Church he rose to be Bishop of Lincoln. His work on logic, Logicæ Artis Compendium (1615), was long a standard treatise on the subject. His sermons also were admired; but he is perhaps best remembered by his Nine Cases of Conscience Resolved (1678), in consideration of which he has been placed at the head of English casuists. He left large collection of historical and heraldic matter in MS.

Sands, Robert Charles (1799-1832).—Miscellaneous writer, born at New York, was a scholarly and versatile writer, but without much originality. His best work is in his short stories. His chief poem was Yamoyden, an Indian story written in collaboration with a friend.

Sandys, George (1578-1644).—Traveller and translator, son of an Archbishop of York, born at Bishopsthorpe, and educated at Oxford, is one of the best of the earlier travellers, learned, observant, and truth-loving. He published in 1615 an account of his journeys in the East which was highly popular. He also translated when in America the Metamorphoses of Ovid, produced a metrical Paraphrase on the Psalms, with music by Henry Lawes, and another on the Canticles, and wrote Christ’s Passion, a tragedy. He held various public offices, chiefly in connection with the colony of Virginia.

Savage, Richard (1697?-1743).—Poet, was probably of humble birth, but claimed to be the illegitimate son of the Countess of Macclesfield. He was the friend of Johnson in the early and miserable days of the latter in London; and in The Lives of the Poets J. has given his story as set forth by himself, which is, if true, a singular record of maternal cruelty. There are strong reasons, however, for doubting whether it was anything but a tissue of falsehoods mingled with gross exaggerations of fact. He led a wildly irregular life, killed a gentleman in a tavern brawl, for which he was sentenced to death, but pardoned; and by his waywardness alienated nearly all who wished to befriend him. For a time he had a pension of £50 from Queen Caroline on condition of his writing an ode yearly on her birthday. He wrote Love in a Veil (1718) (comedy) and Sir Thomas Overbury (1723) (tragedy), and two poems, The Bastard (1728) and The Wanderer (1729). He died in prison at Bristol.

Savile, Sir Henry (1549-1622).—Scholar, educated at Oxford, where he lectured on mathematics. He was afterwards Warden of Merton College and Provost of Eton, and made a translation from Tacitus entitled, The Ende of Nero and Beginning of Galba, etc. (1581), and in the same year pub Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam Præcipui, a collection of some of the chronicles subsequent to Bede, William of Malmesbury, Roger of Hoveden, etc. He founded the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy and Geometry at Oxford

Saxby, Edward (d. 1658).—Born in Suffolk, and was in Cromwell’s Horse. His extreme republican views, however, led him into the bitterest antagonism when C. assumed the Protectorship. This received expression in his extraordinary pamphlet, Killing no Murder, in which the assassination of C. is advocated, and which displays in a remarkable degree perverted ingenuity of argument combined with considerable literary power. Saxby died demented in the Tower in 1658.