SELLAR, WILLIAM YOUNG (1825-1890), Scottish classical
scholar, was born at Morvich, Sutherlandshire, on the 22nd of
February 1825. Educated at the Edinburgh Academy and
afterwards at Glasgow University, he entered Balliol College,
Oxford, as a scholar. Graduating with a first-class in classics,
he was elected fellow of Oriel, and, after holding assistant
professorships at Durham, Glasgow and St Andrews, was appointed
professor of Greek at St Andrews (1857). In 1863 he
was elected professor of humanity in Edinburgh University,
and occupied that chair down to his death on the 12th of October
1890. Sellar was one of the most brilliant of modern classical
scholars, and was remarkably successful in his endeavours to
reproduce the spirit rather than the letter of Roman literature.
His chief works, The Roman Poets of the Republic (3rd ed., 1889) and The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age (Virgil, 3rd ed., 1897), and Horace and the Elegiac Poets (2nd ed., by W. P. Ker, 1899), with memoir by Andrew Lang, are standard authorities. Sellar contributed to the 9th edition of the Ency. Brit. a series of brilliant articles on the Roman poets, the substance of which has been retained in the present edition.
SELMA, a city and the county-seat of Dallas county, Alabama, U.S.A., altitude 126 ft., on the right bank of the Alabama river, a little S. of the centre of the state, and known as the Central City. Pop. (1900) 8713, of whom 4429 were negroes; (1910 U.S. census) 13,649. It is served by the Louisville & Nashville, the Southern and the Western of Alabama railways. It has a Carnegie library, two parks and two Y.M.C.A. buildings. In the city are the Selma Military Institute (1907), and the Alabama Baptist Colored University (opened in 1878), which is one of the largest schools in the South owned and controlled by negroes, and has industrial, domestic, normal, collegiate and (especially) theological courses. The Society of United Charities supports the Selma Hospital (1889) for negroes and the Selma Infirmary (1890). The city has a large trade, principally in cotton (the chief crop of the surrounding country), and in lumber from the great pineries. There are cotton compresses, cotton warehouses, &c.; in 1905 the value of the factory products was $1,138,817. The water supply is obtained from artesian wells. The site was originally called Moore's Bluff, from one Thomas Moore, who owned a steamboat landing here about 1815. A town was established about 1817, and in 1820 was incorporated under its present name (from the Ossianic legend). Selma was first chartered as a city in 1852. During the Civil War it was the seat of Confederate arsenals, shipyards and military factories. On the 2nd of April 1865 it was captured by Federal troops under General James H. Wilson (b. 1837) and much of the city was destroyed by fire. Near Selma lived William Rufus King (1786-1853), a Democratic representative in Congress from North Carolina in 1811-1816, a member of the United States Senate from Alabama in 1819-1844 and 1846-1853, minister to France in 1844-1846, and vice-president of the United States from the 4th of March 1853 until his death on the 18th of April; and Selma was the home of John Tyler Morgan (1824-1907), a brigadier-general in the Confederate army in 1863-1865 and a prominent Democratic member of the United States Senate in 1877-1907; and of Edmund Winston Pettus (1821-1907), also a brigadier-general in the Confederate Army and, in 1897-1907, a Democratic member of the United States Senate.
SELMECZBÁNYA, officially called Selmecz-és Bélabánya (Ger. Schemnitz), the capital of the county of Hont, Hungary, 152 m. N. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 16,370, about two-thirds Slovaks. It is an old mining town, situated at an altitude of 1945 ft. in a deep ravine in the Hungarian Ore Mountains, and is built in terraces. Selmeczbánya is encircled by high mountains, notably the isolated peak of the Calvarienberg (2385 ft.) on the S.W., on which are situated a castle and a church, and the Paradiesberg (2400 ft.) on the N.W. It possesses a famous academy of mining and forestry, founded by Maria Theresa in 1760, to which are attached a remarkable collection of minerals, and a chemical laboratory. Among other buildings are a picturesque old castle dating from the 13th century, now in ruins with the exception of a few rooms used as a prison; the new castle, used as a fire watch-tower; and the town hall. The mines, chiefly the property of the state and of the corporation, yield silver, gold, lead, copper and arsenic. The town contains also flourishing potteries, where well-known tobacco pipes are manufactured. About 7 m. to the S.W. of the town lie the baths of Vihnye, with springs of iron, lime and carbonic acid, and about the same distance to the W. are the baths of Szkleno with springs of sulphur and lime.
Selmeczbánya is an old town whose mines existed in the 8th century. In the 12th century, together with the whole mining region of northern Hungary, it was colonized by German settlers, who later embraced the Reformation. Owing to the counter-reformation the German element was driven out during the 18th century, and its place taken by the actual Slovak population.
SELOUS, FREDERICK COURTNEY (1851-), British explorer and hunter, was born in London on the 31st of December 1851, and was educated at Rugby and in Germany. His love for natural history led to the resolve to study the ways of wild animals in their native haunts. Going to South Africa when he was nineteen he travelled from the Cape to Matabeleland, reached early in 1872, and was granted permission by Lobengula to shoot game anywhere in his dominions. From that date until 1890, with a few brief intervals spent in England, Selous hunted and explored over the then little-known regions north of the Transvaal and south of the Congo basin, shooting elephants, and collecting specimens of all kinds for museums and private collections. His travels added largely to the knowledge of the country now known as Rhodesia. He made valuable ethnological investigations, and throughout his wanderings—often among people who had never previously seen a white man—he maintained cordial relations with the Kaffir chiefs and tribes, winning their confidence and esteem, notably so in the case of Lobengula. In 1890 Selous entered the service of the British South Africa Company, acting as guide to the pioneer expedition to Mashonaland. Over 400 m. of road were constructed through a country of forest, mountain and swamp, and in two and a half months Selous took the column safely to its destination. He then went east to Manica, concluding arrangements there which brought the country under British control. Coming to England in December 1892 he was awarded the Founder's medal of the Royal Geographical Society “in recognition of his extensive explorations and surveys,” of which he gave a summary in “Twenty Years in Zambesia” (Geo. Journ. vol. i., 1893). He returned to Africa to take part in the first Matabele War (1893), being wounded during the advance on Bulawayo. While back in England he married, but in March 1896 was again settled with his wife on an estate in Matabeleland when the native rebellion broke out. He took a prominent part in the fighting which followed, and published an account of the campaign entitled Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (1896). On the restoration of peace Selous settled in England. He continued, however, to make shooting and hunting expeditions—visiting Asia Minor, Newfoundland, the Canadian Rockies and other parts of the world. In none of his expeditions was his object the making of a “big bag,” but as a hunter-naturalist and slayer of great game he ranks with the most famous of the world's sportsmen.
Besides the works mentioned he published A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa (1881, 5th ed., 1907), Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa (1893), Sport and Travel, East and West (1900), Recent Hunting Trips in British North America (1907), African Nature Notes and Reminiscences (1908), a valuable addition to the knowledge of African fauna, and made numerous contributions to The Geographical Journal, the Field and other journals.
SELVE, ODET DE (c. 1504-1563), French diplomatist, was the son of Jean de Selve, first president at the parlements of Rouen and Bordeaux, vice-chancellor of Milan, and ambassador of the king of France. In 1540 Odet was appointed councillor at the parlement of Paris and in 1542 at the grand council. In 1546, after the signature of the treaty of Ardres, he was sent on an embassy to England, in 1550 to Venice, and afterwards to Rome, where he obtained the election of Pope Paul IV. in 1555.
