[Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of], a notable politician, prominent in the times of Cromwell and Charles II., born, of good parentage, in Dorsetshire; passed through Oxford and entered Lincoln's Inn; sat in the Short Parliament of 1640; changed from the Royalist to the Parliamentary side during the Civil War, and was a member of Cromwell's Council of State, but latterly attacked the Protector's Government, and was one of the chief promoters of the Restoration; Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1661, and later a member of the "Cabal"; he in 1672 was created an earl and Lord Chancellor, but, hoodwinked by Charles in the secret Treaty of Dover, went over to the Opposition, lost his chancellorship, supported an Anti-Catholic policy, leagued himself with the Country Party, and intrigued with the Prince of Orange; came into power again, after the "Popish Plot," as the champion of toleration and Protestantism, became President of the Council, and passed the Habeas Corpus Act; his virulent attacks on James and espousal of Monmouth's cause brought about his arrest on a charge of high treason (1681), and although acquitted he deemed it expedient to flee to Holland, where he died; one of the ablest men of his age, but of somewhat inscrutable character, whose shifting policy seems to have been chiefly dominated by a regard for self; is the "Achitophel" of Dryden's great satire (1621-1683).
[Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of], grandson of the preceding, philosopher, born in London; was an ardent student in his youth, made the grand tour, and entered Parliament in 1694, moving to the Upper House on the death of his father in 1699, where, as a staunch Whig, he gave steady support to William III.; withdrew from politics, never a congenial sphere to him, on the accession of Anne, and followed his bent for literature and philosophy; in 1711 his collected writings appeared under the title "Characteristics," in which he expounds, in the polite style of the 18th century, with much ingenuity and at times force, a somewhat uncritical optimism, enunciating, among other things, the doubtful maxim that ridicule is the test of truth (1671-1713).
[Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of], statesman and philanthropist, born in London; was a distinguished graduate of Oxford, and entered Parliament as a Conservative in 1826, took office under Wellington in 1828, and was a lord of the Admiralty in Peel's ministry of 1834; succeeded to the earldom in 1851; but his name lives by virtue of his noble and lifelong philanthropy, which took shape in numerous Acts of Parliament, such as the Mines and Collieries Act (1842), excluding women and boys under 13 working in mines; the Better Treatment of Lunatics Act (1845), called the Magna Charta of the insane; the Factory Acts (1867); and the Workshop Regulation Act (1878); while outside Parliament he wrought with rare devotion in behalf of countless benevolent and religious schemes of all sorts, notably the Ragged School movement and the better housing of the London poor; received the freedom of Edinburgh and London; was the friend and adviser of the Prince Consort and the Queen (1801-1885).
[Shah] (Pers. "King"), an abbreviation of Shah-in-Shah ("King of Kings"), the title by which the monarchs of Persia are known; may also be used in Afghanistan and other Asiatic countries, but more generally the less assuming title of Khan is taken.
[Shah-Jehan] ("King of the World"), fifth of the Mogul emperors of Delhi; succeeded his father in 1627; a man of great administrative ability and a skilled warrior; conquered the Deccan and the kingdom of Golconda, and generally raised the Mogul Empire to its zenith; his court was truly Eastern in its sumptuous magnificence; the "Peacock Throne" alone cost £7,000,000; died in prison, a victim to the perfidy of his usurping son Aurungzebe; d. 1666.
[Shakers], a fanatical sect founded by one Ann Lee, so called from their extravagant gestures in worship; they are agamists and communists.
[Shakespeare, William], great world-poet and dramatist, born in Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire; his father, John Shakespeare, a respected burgess; his mother, Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, through whom the family acquired some property; was at school at Stratford, married Anne Hathaway, a yeoman's daughter, at 18, she eight years older, and had by her three daughters; left for London somewhere between 1585 and 1587, in consequence, it is said, of some deer-stealing frolic; took charge of horses at the theatre door, and by-and-by became an actor. His first work, "Venus and Adonis," appeared in 1593, and "Lucrece" the year after; became connected with different theatres, and a shareholder in certain of them, in some of which he took part as actor, with the result, in a pecuniary point of view, that he bought a house in his native place, extended it afterwards, where he chiefly resided for the ten years preceding his death. Not much more than this is known of the poet's external history, and what there is contributes nothing towards accounting for either him or the genius revealed in his dramas. Of the man, says Carlyle, "the best judgment not of this country, but of Europe at large, is slowly pointing to the conclusion that he is the chief of all poets hitherto—the greatest intellect, in our recorded world, that has left record of himself in the way of literature. On the whole, I know not such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other man—such a calmness of depth, placid, joyous strength, all things in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil, unfathomable sea.... It is not a transitory glance of insight that will suffice; it is a deliberate illumination of the whole matter; it is a calmly seeing eye—a great intellect, in short.... It is in delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is great.... The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face, but its inmost heart, its generic secret; it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it.... It is a perfectly level mirror we have here; no twisted, poor convex-concave mirror reflecting all objects with its own convexities and concavities, that is to say, withal a man justly related to all things and men, a good man.... And his intellect is an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of.... His art is not artifice; the noblest worth of it is not there by plan or pre-contrivance. It grows up from the deeps of Nature, through this noble sincere soul, who is a voice of Nature.... It is Nature's highest reward to a true, simple, great soul that he got thus to be part of herself." Of his works nothing can or need be said here; enough to add, as Carlyle further says, "His works are so many windows through which we see a glimpse of the world that was in him.... Alas! Shakespeare had to write for the Globe Playhouse; his great soul had to crush itself, as it could, into that and no other mould. It was with him, then, as it is with us all. No man works save under conditions. The sculptor cannot set his own free thought before us, but his thought as he could translate into the stone that was given, with the tools that were given. Disjecta membra are all that we find of any poet, or of any man." Shakespeare's plays, with the order of their publication, are as follows: "Love's Labour's Lost," 1590; "Comedy of Errors," 1591; 1, 2, 3 "Henry VI.," 1590-1592; "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 1592-1593; "Midsummer-Night's Dream," 1593-1594; "Richard III.," 1593; "Romeo and Juliet," 1591-1596 (?); "Richard II.," 1594; "King John," 1595; "Merchant of Venice," 1596; 1 and 2 "Henry IV.," 1597-1598; "Henry V.," 1599; "Taming of the Shrew," 1597 (?); "Merry Wives of Windsor," 1598; "Much Ado about Nothing," 1598; "As You Like It," 1599; "Twelfth Night," 1600-1601; "Julius Cæsar," 1601; "All's Well," 1601-1602 (?); "Hamlet," 1602, "Measure for Measure," 1603; "Troilus and Cressida," 1603-1607 (?); "Othello," 1604; "Lear," 1605; "Macbeth," 1606; "Antony and Cleopatra," 1607; "Coriolanus," 1608; "Timon," 1608; "Pericles," 1608; "Cymbeline," 1609; "Tempest," 1610; "Winter's Tale," 1610-1611; "Henry VIII.," 1612-1613 (1564-1616).
[Shakespeare of Divines], an epithet sometimes applied to [Jeremy Taylor] (q. v.) on account of his poetic style.
[Shalott, Lady of], subject of a poem of Tennyson's in love with Lancelot; wove a web which she must not rise from, otherwise a curse would fall on her; saw Lancelot pass one day, entered a boat and glided down to Camelot, but died on the way.
[Shamanism], the religion of the native savage races of North Siberia, being a belief in spirits, both good and evil, who can be persuaded to bless or curse by the incantations of a Priest called a Shaman.