1757. He was a student at the Royal Academy, and an articled pupil of Mr. Richard Wright the marine painter. The practice of flower painting led him to the study of botany, which brought him the acquaintance of Mr. W. Curtis, whose publications. Flora Londinensis, and the Botanical Magazine, Mr. Sowerby helped to illustrate. In 1790 he commenced the issue of the work upon which his fame mainly rests, to wit, "English Botany, or coloured figures of all the plants natives of Great Britain, with descriptions by Sir J. E. Smith, M.D." The publication of this valuable work extended over thirty years; No. cclxvii, the completion of the thirty-sixth volume, octavo, appearing in 1820, two years before Sowerby's death. "The Florist's Delight," a more ambitious undertaking in folio size, ceased after the issue of the third number in 1791. More success attended the "English Fungi," published in thirty-two numbers, making three volumes in folio, between 1797 and 1803. The plants depicted in this work were also modelled by Sowerby, and form part of a collection now in the British museum. In 1804 the indefatigable artist commenced the publication of "British Mineralogy," which extended to eighty-four numbers, making six volumes 8vo. In the same year he published "British Miscellany, or coloured figures of new, rare, or little known animal subjects," in twelve numbers in 4to. His latest publications were on shells. "The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain" began to appear in 1812, and extended to one hundred and one numbers, royal 8vo. The "Genera of Recent and Fossil Shells" appeared in 1822, the year of the artist's death, which occurred on the 25th of October. Mr. Sowerby left three sons, two of whom have achieved eminence by their artistic and literary illustrations of natural history.
Sowerby, James de Carle, the eldest son, secretary of the Royal Botanic Society in London, was born in 1787. He assisted his father in his various publications, not only by drawing and describing, but by engraving plates of the objects of natural history. He was similarly employed upon Sibthorp's Flora Græca, and many traces of his hand will be found in the Transactions of the Geological Society.
Sowerby, George Brettingham, the second son, was born in 1788. His studies were confined to entomology and conchology, and his occupation was that of a professional collector of specimens of shells and insects. His most remarkable purchase was the Tankerville collection of shells, for which he gave six thousand guineas. He originated the project of publishing "The Genera of Recent and Fossil Shells," at which his father and brother laboured. He contributed numerous papers to the scientific journals, a list of which may be seen in the Bibliotheca Zoologica of Engelmann and Carus. He died in 1854. The reputation of the Sowerby family is kept up by two sons of the last named, the elder of whom, bearing the same name as his father, is well known as a natural history engraver, and the publisher of various works on conchology. The younger, whose name is Henry, is the author of a popular treatise on mineralogy. He is now in Australia.—R. H.
SOZOMEN, Hermias Jalamanes, a Greek ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. He was born about 400 at Bethelia or Bethel, in the district of Gaza in Palestine. He studied civil law, and practised at the bar at Constantinople, probably about 440. The time and place of his death are unknown. He is the author of Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ἱστορία, in nine books, from 323 till 439. The reason why he does not begin at the ascension of Christ, as he had at first intended, is because others had preceded him in that department, especially Eusebius. The compendium in two books, treating of that period is now lost. The extant work does not really reach to 439; it goes little farther than 423, and breaks off abruptly, leading one to suppose that a part of it had been lost. It is somewhat remarkable that Socrates begins and ends at the same point as Sozomen; probably Sozomen borrowed from the other. He is superior in elegance, but destitute of a critical spirit. The best edition is that of Valesius, Paris, 1668, folio.—S. D.
SPADA, Lionello, a good Bolognese painter, born in 1576, and one of the most distinguished, both in fresco and in oil, of the scholars of the Carracci. He was also the friend and imitator of Caravaggio, with whom he was at Malta; and he was a rival of Guido Reni. But he led a life of dissipation, and died young at Panna in 1622.—(Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice.)—R. N. W.
SPAGNA Lo, or SPAGNOLO, the name by which Giovanni di Pietro, a Spaniard, and one of the principal scholars of Pietro Perugino, is generally known. Lo Spagna was an established painter in Italy as early as 1507, and in 1516 was granted the citizenship of Spoleto, where he was elected president or captain of the society of painters in the following year. He was latterly influenced by the example of Raphael, but he generally adhered to the style of his master, Perugino. He was still living in 1530.—(Vasari, Vite dei Pittori, &c.)—R. N. W.
SPALATIN, George, the celebrated coadjutor and correspondent of Luther, was born in 1484 at Spalt, in the diocese of Eichstadt, in Saxony. His family name was Burkhardt. He was educated in Nuremberg, Erfurt, and Wittemberg, and was early distinguished for his love of humanitarian studies. As early as 1501 he made the acquaintance of Luther at Erfurt, where also, like him, he first became a reader of the Bible, of which he purchased a copy for a large sum about the year 1505, when he had begun to occupy himself with the study of theology. In 1507 he was ordained to the priesthood, and became parish priest of Hohenkirchen, near Gotha. Two years afterwards he was called to the court of Frederick the Wise of Saxony, to take charge of the education of the young prince, John Frederick—an office which he was glad to exchange in 1511 for that of tutor to two grandsons of the elector, who were to prosecute their studies at Wittemberg, as he much preferred a residence at the university to court life. Here he attached himself closely to the person and teaching of Luther, who had already begun to give a more biblical and practical character to the profession of theology, and with whom he sympathized warmly in his love for the scriptures, and in his admiration of Augustine and the German mystic theology. In 1514 he was made court chaplain and private secretary to the elector; and from this date he rose rapidly to be one of his most trusted, valued, and influential advisers. In this position he became, next to Luther himself, the most effective and useful promoter of the Reformation. Frederick did nothing without his cognizance and advice; and in him Luther found one of his most powerful auxiliaries, and Rome one of her most formidable antagonists. He was never absent from the elector's side—accompanied him in all his journeys to the diets of the empire, and carried on all the correspondence which preceded and followed these important assemblies. After the death of Frederick in 1525, he continued to hold the same intimate relations with the two next electors, John the Constant, and John Frederick the Magnanimous. In that year having been appointed superintendent of Altenburg, he took up his residence there, and exerted himself with the best effect in organizing the Reformation in that city and the surrounding country. In 1526 he accompanied the elector to the famous diet of Speyer; in 1530 he was present at the reading of the protestant confession at Augsburg; and in 1533 he was summoned to Weimar, upon the arrival there of agents of the pope, to give his advice on the proposals which they brought for the assembling of a general council. On the death of Duke George of Saxony he was put upon the commission which was appointed to introduce the reformation into the churches and schools of the domain of Duke Henry, his successor; and he continued to occupy himself in similar acts of public usefulness, as well as in literary labours of a historical kind, till his death, which took place at Altenburg, on the 16th January, 1545. He published little, but he left behind him a large and valuable collection of papers illustrative both of contemporaneous history and of ancient Saxon annals. The Saxon history had been his favourite field of research through life, and many of the fruits of his labours were afterwards published in a fragmentary form by other investigators. His papers still remain in the archives and libraries of Gotha and Weimar, and a collective edition of his letters and remains was begun in 1851 by Neudecker and Preller, of which, however, only the first volume has yet appeared, containing the life and times of Frederick the Wise. The style of his historical papers is that of a simple chronicler, but they are rich in original information and in authentic documents. His fame, however, does not rest upon his authorship, his moral and religious qualities far outshining his literary gifts. He was a man of action rather than of books, and his life-long devotion to the religious, and moral, and educational regeneration of Germany constitutes his true claim to the grateful remembrance of history. As the steady, temperate, wise, and ever faithful friend and supporter of Luther, and as the christian patriot who used his whole influence with three successive princes on the side of truth and the public weal, his name will be pronounced with reverence and love to the latest ages.—P. L.
