tricts of France; AMIENS (q. v.) is the chief
town.

SOMNATH (7), an ancient maritime town of Oujarat, India, in the SW.
of the peninsula of Kathiawar; has interesting memorials of Krishna,
who, it is alleged, is hurled in the vicinity; close by is a famous
ruined Hindu temple, despoiled in the 11th century of its treasures,
sacred idol, and gates; in 1842 Lord Ellenborough brought hack from
Afghanistan gates which he thought to be the famous "Gates of Somnath,"
but doubt being cast on their authenticity, they were eventually placed
in the arsenal of Agra.

SOMNATH, IDOL OF, "a mere mass of coarse crockery," says Jepherson
Brick, an imaginary friend of Carlyle's, "not worth five shillings, sat
like a great staring god, with two diamonds for eyes, which one day a
commander of the Faithful took the liberty to smite once as he rode up
with grim battle-axe and heart full of Moslem fire, and which thereupon
shivered into a heap of ugly potsherds, yielding from its belly half a
waggon-load of gold coins; the gold coins, diamond eyes, and other
valuables were carefully picked up by the Faithful; confused jingle of
potsherds was left lying; and the idol of Somnath, once showing what it
_was_, had suddenly come to a conclusion."

SOMNUS, the god of Sleep, a brother of Death, and a son of Night,
represented, he and Death, as two youths sleeping or holding inverted
torches in their hands; near the dwelling of Somnus flowed the river of
Lethe, which crept along over pebbles, and invited to sleep; he was
attended by Morpheus, who inspired pleasing dreams.

SONATA, a musical composition chiefly designed for solo instruments,
especially the pianoforte, and consisting generally of three or four
contrasted movements--the allegro, adagio, rondo, minuetto or scherzo;
reaches its noblest expression in the sonatas of Beethoven.

SONDERBUND, the name given to the union of the Catholic cantons
(Lucerne, Zug, Freiburg, and Valais) of Switzerland, which led to the
civil disturbances of 1845-1846, and the war of 1847.

SONNET, a form of poetical composition invented in the 13th century,
consisting of 14 decasyllabic or hendecasyllabic iambic lines, rhymed
according to two well-established schemes which bear the names of their
two most famous exponents, Shakespeare and Petrarch. The Shakespearian
sonnet consists of three four-lined stanzas of alternate rhymes clinched
by a concluding couplet; the Petrarchan of two parts, an octa