to the classical of scherzo and trio, and the style is dramatically capricious and romantic, but far too impressive to suggest humour. The same may be said of many classical scherzos, though Beethoven uses the title only where the humorous character of the movement lies on the surface. Even then Beethoven’s only mature instances of the title (except in the form of scherzando as a mark of expression) are those of the Eroica symphony, the B flat trio Op. 97 and the B flat sonata Op. 106. It is, however, correct to call any energetic movement a scherzo when it occupies the position thereof in a sonata scheme. (D. F. T.)
SCHETKY, JOHN CHRISTIAN (1778–1874), Scottish marine
painter, descended from an old Transylvanian family, was born
in Edinburgh on the 11th of August 1778. He studied art under
Alexander Nasmyth, and after having travelled on the continent
he settled in Oxford, and taught for six years as a drawing master.
In 1808 he obtained a post in the military college,
Great Marlow, and three years later he was appointed professor
of drawing in the naval college, Portsmouth, where he had ample
opportunities for the study of his favourite marine subjects.
From 1836 to 1855 he held a similar professorship in the military
college, Addiscombe. To the Royal Academy exhibitions he
contributed at intervals from 1805 to 1872, and he was represented
at the Westminster Hall competition of 1847 by a large oil painting
of the Battle of La Hogue. He was marine painter to
George IV., William IV. and Queen Victoria. Among his
published works are the illustrations to Lord John Manners’s
Cruise in Scotch Waters, and a volume of photographs from
his pictures and drawings issued in 1867 under the title of
Veterans of the Sea. One of his best works, the “Loss of the Royal
George,” painted in 1840, is in the National Gallery, London, and
the United Service Club possesses another important marine
subject from his brush. He died in London on the 28th of
January 1874. A memoir by his daughter was published in 1877.
His younger brother, John Alexander Schetky (1785–1824), studied medicine in Edinburgh university and drawing in the Trustees' Academy. As a military surgeon he served with distinction under Lord Beresford in Portugal. He contributed excellent works to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and of the Water-Colour Society, and executed some of the illustrations in Sir W. Scott’s Provincial Antiquities. He died at Cape Coast Castle on the 5th of September 1824, when preparing to follow Mungo Park’s route of exploration.
SCHEUCHZER, JOHANN JAKOB (1672–1733), Swiss savant,
was born at Zürich on the 2nd of August 1672. The son of the
senior town physician (or Archiater) of Zürich, he received his
education in that place, and in 1692 went to the university of
Altdorf near Nuremberg, being intended for the medical profession.
Early in 1694 he took his degree of doctor in medicine at the
university of Utrecht, and then returned to Altdorf to complete
his mathematical studies. He went back to Zürich in 1696,
and was made junior town physician (or Poliater), with the
promise of the professorship of mathematics; this he obtained
in 1710, being promoted to the chair of physics, with the office
of senior town physician, in January 1733, a few months before
his death on the 23rd of June.
His published works (apart from numerous articles) were estimated at thirty-four in number. His historical writings are mostly still in MS. The more important of his published writings relate either to his scientific observations (all branches) or to his journeys, in the course of which he collected materials for these scientific works. In the former category are his Beschreibung der Naturgeschichte des Schweizerlandes (3 vols., Zürich, 1706–1708, the 3rd volume containing an account in German of his journey of 1705; a new edition of this book and, with important omissions, of his 1723 work, was issued, in 2 vols., in 1746, by J. G. Sulzer, under the title of Naturgeschichte des Schweitzerlandes sammt seinen Reisen über die schweitzerischen Gebürge), and his Helvetiae historia naturalis oder Naturhistorie des Schweitzerlandes (published in 3 vols., at Zürich, 1716–1718, and reissued in the same form in 1752, under the German title just given). The first of the three parts of the last named work deals with the Swiss mountains (summing up all that was then known about them, and serving as a link between Simler’s work of 1574 and Gruner’s of 1760), the second with the Swiss rivers, lakes and mineral baths, and the third with Swiss meteorology and geology. Scheuchzer’s works, as issued in 1746 and in 1752, formed (with Tschudi’s Chronicum Helveticum) one of the chief sources for Schiller’s play of Wilhelm Tell (1804). In 1704 Scheuchzer was elected a F.R.S.; he published many scientific notes and papers in the Philosophical Transactions for 1706–1707, 1709 and 1727–1728. In the second category are his Itinera alpina tria (made in 1702–1704), which was published in London in 1708, and dedicated to the Royal Society, while the plates illustrating it were executed at the expense of various fellows of the society, including the president, Sir Isaac Newton (whose imprimatur appears on the title-page), Hans Sloane, Dean Aldrich, Humfrey Wanley, &c. The text is written in Latin, as is that of the definitive work describing his travels (with which is incorporated the 1708 volume) that appeared in 1723 at Leiden, in four quarto volumes, under the title of Itinera per Helvetiae alpinas regiones facta annis 1702–1711. These journeys led Scheuchzer to almost every part of Switzerland, particularly its central and eastern districts. Apropos of his visit (1705) to the Rhone glacier, he inserts a full account of the other Swiss glaciers, as far as they were then known, while in 1706, after mentioning certain wonders to be seen in the museum at Lucerne, he adds reports byimen of good faith who had seen dragons in Switzerland. He doubts their existence, but illustrates the reports by fanciful representations of dragons, which have led some modern writers to depreciate his merits as a traveller and naturalist, for the belief in dragons was then widely spread. In 1712 he published a map of Switzerland in four sheets (scale 1290,000), of which the east portion (based on his personal observations) is far the most accurate, though the map as a whole was the best map of Switzerland till the end of the 18th century. At the end of his 1723 book he gives a full list (covering 27 4to pages) of his writings from 1694 to 1721.
See F. X. Hoeherl, J. J. Scheuchzer, der Begründer d. phys. Geographie d. Hochgebirges (Munich, 1901), a useful little pamphlet, conveniently summarizing Scheuchzer’s scientific views. (W. A. B. C.)
SCHEVENINGEN, a fishing port and watering-place of Holland,
on the North Sea, in the province of South Holland, about 2 m.
N. of the Hague, with which it is connected by tramways. It is
situated in the dunes at the extremity of the woods which
separate it from the Hague. The development of Scheveningen
as a fashionable seaside resort dates from modern times, but the
fishing village is of ancient origin and once stood farther seaward.
To prevent coast erosion a stone wall was built along the sea
front in 1896–1900, and below this lies the fine sandy beach
stretching for miles on either side. The first bathing establishment
here dates from 1818, and was also the first in Holland.
Overlooking the sea from the top of the dunes on either side
are villas, hotels, and the pavilion (1826) belonging to the family
of Prince von Wied. The costumes of the fishing community
are picturesque, the men having silver buttons and wide trousers,
the women wide skirts and brass helmets. There is a large
harbour for the fishing fleet at the mouth of the Hague-Scheveningen
canal. Among the historical memories associated
with Scheveningen are the defeat of the combined French and
English fleets by Admiral de Ruyter in 1673, and the flight and
subsequent return of William I., king of the Netherlands, in 1813,
at the beginning and end of the French occupation. This is
commemorated by an obelisk (1865). The town has a rapidly
growing population of about 23,000.
SCHIAPARELLI, GIOVANNI VIRGINIO (1835–1910), Italian
astronomer and senator of the kingdom of Italy, was born on
the 14th of March 1835 at Savigliano in Piedmont. He entered
Turin university in 1850, and graduated in 1854. Two years
later he went to Berlin to study astronomy under Encke, and
in 1859 was appointed assistant observer at Pulkova, a post
which he resigned in 1860 for a similar one at Brera, Milan.
On the death of Francesco Carlini (b. 1783) in 1862, Schiaparelli
succeeded to the directorship, a position which he held until
1900. He died at Milan on the 4th of July 1910.
Schiaparelli was primarily an observer—his first discovery was of the asteroid Hesperia in 1861—but he had also considerable mathematical gifts, as is shown in his treatment of orbital motions, published in 1864, and in other papers. His great contribution to astronomy dates from 1866, when he showed that meteors or shooting stars traverse space in cometary orbits, and, in particular, that the orbits of the Perseids and Comet III., 1862, and of the Leonids and Comet I., 1866, were practically the same. These discoveries, subsequently amplified in his Le Stelle cadenti (1873) and in his Norme per le osservazioni delle stelle cadenti e dei bolidi (1896) gained for him the Lalande prize of the Academy of Sciences, Paris, in 1868, and the gold medal and foreign associateship of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1872. He next worked on the double stars, but his results
have only been partially published. This labour was followed in