aised for his wife and
_dau._, the latter of whom _m._ a Frenchman, and is said to have perished
under the guillotine. Worthless as a man, S. possessed undoubted genius.
He had wit, originality, and pathos, though the last not seldom runs into
mawkishness, and an exquisitely delicate and glancing style. He has
contributed some immortal characters to English fiction, including Uncle
Toby and Corporal Trim. His great faults as a writer are affectation and
a peculiarly deliberate kind of indecency, which his profession renders
all the more offensive; and he was by no means scrupulous in adopting,
without acknowledgment, the good things of previous writers.

_Works_ ed. by Prof. Saintsbury (6 vols., 1894). _See_ also Macmillan's
Library of English classics. _Lives_ by P. Fitzgerald (1896); and H.D.
Traill in English Men of Letters Series.

STERNHOLD, THOMAS (1500-1549), HOPKINS JOHN (_d._ 1570).--Were associated
in making the metrical version of the Psalms, which was attached to the
Prayer-book, and was for 200 years the chief hymn-book of the Church of
England. It is a commonplace and tame rendering. The collection was not
completed until 1562. It was gradually superseded by the version of Tate
and Brady.

STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (1850-1894).--Novelist and essayist, was _b._ at
Edin., the _s._ of Thomas S., a distinguished civil engineer. His health
was extremely delicate. He was destined for the engineering profession,
in which his family had for two generations been eminent, but having
neither inclination nor physical strength for it, he in 1871 exchanged it
for law, and was called to the Bar in 1875, but never practised. From
childhood his interests had been literary, and in 1871 he began to
contribute to the _Edinburgh University Magazine_ and the _Portfolio_. A
tour in a canoe in 1876 led to the publication in 1878 of his first book,
_An Inland Voyage_. In the same year, _The New Arabian Nights_,
afterwards separately _pub._ appeared in magazines, and in 1879 he
brought out _Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes_. In that year he went
to California and _m._ Mrs. Osbourne. Returning to Europe in 1880 he
entered upon a period of productiveness which, in view of his wretched
health, was, both as regards quantity and worth, highly remarkable. The
year 1881 was marked by his unsuccessful candidature for the Chair of
Constitutional Law and History at Edin., and by the publication of
_Virginibus Puerisque_. Other works