sal to pay, which with the trial and decision in favour of
Charles contributed to bring about the Civil War, which cost Charles his
life; was declared illegal by the Long Parliament in 1640.

SHIPTON, MOTHER, a prophetess of English legend, whose preternatural
knowledge revealed in her prophecies, published after her death, was
ascribed to an alliance with the devil, by whom it was said she became
the mother of an ugly impish child.

SHIRAZ (30), a celebrated city of Persia, occupying a charming site
on an elevated plain, 165 m. NE. of Bushire; founded in the 8th century;
was for long a centre of Persian culture, and a favourite resort of the
royal princes; its beauties are celebrated in the poems of Haefiz and
Sadi, natives of the place; has been thrice wrecked by earthquakes, and
presents now a somewhat dilapidated appearance.

SHIRE, a river of East Africa, flows out of Lake Nyassa, and passes
in a southerly course through the Shire Highlands, a distance of 370 m.,
till it joins the Zambesi; discovered by Livingstone.

SHIRLEY, JAMES, dramatist, born in London, educated at Oxford and
Cambridge; entered the Church, but turning Catholic resigned, and after
trying teaching established himself in London as a play-writer; wrote
with great facility, producing upwards of thirty plays before the
suppression of theatres in 1642; fell back on teaching as a means of
livelihood, and with a temporary revival of his plays after the
Restoration eked out a scanty income till fear and exposure during the
Great Fire brought himself and his wife on the same day to a common
grave; of his plays mention may be made of "The Witty Fair One," "The
Wedding," "The Lady of Pleasure," "The Traitor," etc. (1596-1666).

SHISHAK, the name of several monarchs of Egypt of the twenty-second
dynasty, the first of whom united nearly all Egypt under one government,
invaded Judea and plundered the Temple of Jerusalem about 962 B.C.

SHITTIM WOOD, a hard, close-grained acacia wood of an orange-brown
colour found in the Arabian Desert, and employed in constructing the
Jewish Tabernacle.

SHOA (1,500), the southmost division of ABYSSINIA (q. v.);
was an independent country till its conquest by Theodore of Abyssinia in
1855; is traversed by the Blue Nile, and has a mixed population of Gallas
and Abyssinians.

SHODDY, a stuff woven of old woollen fabrics teased into fibre and
of new wool intermixed.

SHOEBURYNESS, a town in Essex, n