Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

S H A —S H A
spawn,—sometimes traversing hundreds of miles until
their progress is arrested by some natural obstruction. A
few weeks after they may be observed dropping down the
river, lean and thoroughly exhausted, numbers floating
dead on the surface, so that only a small proportion seem
to regain the sea.. Although millions of ova must be de¬
posited by them in the upper reaches of a river the fry
does not seem to have been actually observed’in fresh
water, so that it seems probable that the young fish travel
to the sea long before they have attained to any size.
On rivers in which these fishes make their periodical
appearance they have become the object of a regular
fishery, and their value increases in proportion to the
distance from the sea at which they are caught Thus
they are much esteemed on the middle Rhine, where they
are generally known as “Maifisch”; those caught on their
return journey are worthless and uneatable. The allis
shad is caught at a size from 15 to 24 inches, and is con¬
sidered to be better flavoured than the twaite shad, which
generally remains within smaller dimensions.
TWiTa™* Cl0Si!y allied.sPecies> occur on the Atlantic coasts of
Forth Amenca, all surpassing the European species in importance
as food-fishes and economic value, viz., the American Shad
sapidissima) the Gaspereau or Ale-wife (<7. mattowocca), and the
Menhaden (O. menhaden). See Menhaden.
SHADDOCK (Citrus decumana) is a tree allied to the
orange and the lemon, presumably native to the Malay
and I olynesian islands, but generally cultivated through¬
out the tropics. The leaves are like those of the orange
but downy on the under surface, as are also the young
shoots. The flowers are large and white, and are succeeded
by very large globose or pear-shaped fruits like oranges but
paler in colour, and with less flavour. The name Shad¬
dock is asserted to be that of a captain who introduced
he tree to the West Indies. The fruit is also known
under the name of pommeloes and “forbidden fruit.”
i here are two varieties commonly met with, one with pale
and the other with red pulp.
SHAD WELL, Thomas (1640-1692), a playwright and
miscellaneous versifier of the Restoration period, Dryden’s
successor in the laureateship, is remembered now, not by
his works, though , he was a prolific writer of comedies
ighly successful in their day, but as the subject of
Drydens satirical portraits “ MacFlecknoe ” and “Og”
He was a. native of Norfolk—not an Irishman, as he
retorted with significant imbecility when Dryden’s satire
appeared,—went through the forms of study at Cambridge
and the Inner Temple, travelled abroad for a little
returned to London, cultivated the literary society of
coffee-houses and taverns, and in 1668, at the age of 28
gained the ear of the stage with a comedy The Sullen
Lovers For fourteen years afterwards, till his memorable
encounter with Dryden he continued regularly to produce
a comedy nearly every year, showing considerable clever¬
ness in caricaturing the oddities of the time. Ben Jonson
was his model, but he drew his materials largely from con¬
temporary life. He also acquired standing among the wits
as a talker. In the quarrel with Dryden he was the aggres-
i°/- {hey had been good enough friends, and Dryden in
{a7,9 had furnished him with a prologue for his True
Widow.. But when Dryden threw in his lot with the court,
and satirized the opposition in Absalom and Achitophel and
ihe Medal,' Shad well was rash enough to constitute himself
the champion of the true-blue Protestants and wrote a
grossly personal and scurrilous attack on the poet, entitled
• 1./7T Jo^n Bayes. Dryden immediately retorted
in MacFlecknoe, the most powerful and contemptuously
scornful personal satire in our language, adding next month
a tew more rough touches of supercilious mockery in the
second part of Absalom and Achitophel, where Shadwell
figures as “Og”:—
727
Og from a treason-tavern rolling home,
Hound as a globe, and liquored every chink °
Goodly and great he sails behind his link.
enemies “X be StrictIy fair when llG addresses his
makes fL b ^ pat pr0Phet of tautology,” and
makes Flecknoe extol him because “he never deviates
ment^the^t bUt had fairly earned his chastise-
survived tfiM fi0Qf9WhlC^ ay ltS substantial truth. He
i u till 1692, and on Dryden’s resignation of the
laureateship m 1688 was promoted to the office a sign of
hned™ ? Yhig Side a‘ the - iSrTO
and part of the explanation of their anxiety in the next
generation to secure literary talent.
in "d CvolsPlei2moF1*'1'1'!'?11’8 w1orks was published in 1720,
1668 • The Pm,A « 18 dlamatlc works me—The Sullen Lovers,
Miser 1672^ £ She^.er7fess>JQ^ 5 The Humorist, 1671 ; The
1676 ; The VfZZ I675 ’ TL
Widow 1679 - ™!’ w ’ Tln°n 0f Athens> 1678 J A True
Tkj, S; Kr;
lm-’ ™
SHAF t, SHAF iTES. See Sunnites
SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Asheey Cooper First
Earl of (16.21-1683) was the son of Sir John Cooper of
Rockbourne in Hampshire, and of Anne, the only child of
Gilet^n01^ASh t7! BooHand WaS b°rn at Whnhorne St
Giles, Dorset, on July 22, 1621. His parents died before
ihn Hamn11! A8-6’ he inherited ^tensive estates
AS d A fl slure’ iDorsetahire, and Somersetshire,
much reduced, however, by litigation in Chancery. He
ived for some time with Sir Daniel Norton, one of his
trustees at South wick, and upon his death in 1635 with
Mr looker, an uncle by marriage, at Salisbury. In 1637
he went as a gentleman-commoner to Exeter College
Oxford, where he remained about a year. No record of his
s udies is to be found, but he has left an amusing account
of his part in the wilder doings of the university life of that
day in which m spite of his small stature, he was recog¬
nized by his fellows as their leader. At the age of eighteen
on February 25, 1639, he married Margaret, daughter of
Lord Coventry, with whom he and his wife lived at Durham
House in the Strand, and at Canonbury House in Isling-
ton In March 1640, though still a minor, he was elected
or lewkesbury, and sat in the parliament which met on
April 13, but appears to have taken no active part in its
proceedings.. In. 1640 Lord Coventry died, and Cooper
then lived with his brother-in-law at Dorchester House in
Co vent Garden. For the Long Parliament, which met on
November 3, 1640, he was elected for Downton in Wilt¬
shire, but the return was disputed, and he did not take
his seat,—his election not being declared valid until the
last days of the Rump. He was present as a spectator at
the setting up of the king’s standard at Nottingham on
August 25, 1642; and in 1643 he appeared openly on
Charles’s side in Dorsetshire, where he raised at his own
expense a regiment of foot and a troop of horse of both of
which he took the command. He was also appointed
governor of Weymouth, sheriff of Dorsetshire for the king,
and president of the king’s council of war in the county!
In the beginning of January 1644, however, for reasons
which are variously reported by himself and Clarendon,
he resigned his governorship and commissions and went
over to the Parliament. He appeared on March 6 before
the standing committee of the two Houses to explain his
conduct, when he stated that he had come over because he
saw danger to the Protestant religion in the king’s service
and expressed his willingness to take the Covenant. In
July 1644 he went to Dorsetshire on military service, and
on August 3 received a commission as field-marshal general.
He assisted at the taking of Wareham, and shortly after!
wards compounded for his estates by a fine of £500 from