Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

736
S H A —S H A
1849. During the mutiny of 1857 the district remained tranquil,
and though the villages of the bar gave cause for alarm no outbreak
of sepoys occurred. Since annexation the limits and constitution
of the district have undergone many changes.
SHAHRASTANl (1086-1153). Abu’l-Fath Mohammed
ibn 'Abd al-Karim, called al-Sliahrasthnl, a native of
Sliahrastan (Shehristhn) in Khordsdn, Persia, was noted as
a jurisconsult and theologian of the Ash'arite school. He
went to Baghdad in 1116 and stayed there three years, but
afterwards returned to his native place, where he died.
Sam'hnl, the famous historian of Baghdad, was one of his
hearers, and to him Ibn Khallikhn (Ho. 622, Eng. tr. ii.
675 sq.) mainly owes the little that is known of Shahra-
sfchnfs life.
He wrote various works, of which several still exist; that which
gives him a claim to notice here is the interesting Kitdb al-Milal
wan-Nihal, or ‘ ‘ Account of Religious Sects and Philosophical
Schools, ” published by Cureton in 1846 and translated into German
by Haarhriicker (Halle, 1850-51). The book was already used by
Pocock for his account of the ancient Arabs and has been much
referred to since, but has to be read with caution, as the author is
often very uncritical. It treats successively of the Mohammedan
sects, of other religious bodies (Jews, Samaritans, Christians,
Magians, Manichseans, &c.), of philosophical schools (including the
Greeks), and of the ancient Arabs and Indians, and contains a
great deal of curious and valuable matter.
SHAIRP, John Campbell (1819-1885), principal of
the United College, St Andrews, and professor of poetry
at Oxford, was born at Houstoun House, Linlithgowshire,
on July 30, 1819. He was the third son of Major
Norman Shairp of Housioun and E. Binning, daughter of
J. Campbell of Kildaloig, Argyllshire. He was educated
at Edinburgh Academy and Glasgow University, where he
gained the Snell exhibition, and entered at Balliol College,
Oxford, in 1840. While a student at Glasgow and an
undergraduate at Oxford it was his privilege to make
many warm friends and to be very widely loved. At
Glasgow began his lifelong friendship with Dr Norman
M£Leod, while among those with whom he was most
intimate at Oxford were the names of Bradley, Coleridge,
Temple, Clough, Walrond, Riddell, Prichard, and Edwin
Palmer. In 1842 he gained the Newdigate prize for a
poem on Charles XII., and in 1844 took his degree with
second class honours. During these years the ££ Oxford
movement ” was at its height. Shairp’s earnest nature
was greatly stirred by Newman’s sermons, while Keble’s
poetry spoke home to his heart; but, though full of warm
sympathy for many High Church views, he remained
faithful to his Presbyterian upbringing. After leaving
Oxford he took a mastership at Rugby under Dr Tait;
here he sought loyally to develop Dr Arnold’s system by
appealing to the better feelings of his pupils and by giving
them wide views of culture and education. And in this he
was successful, making among his pupils warm and lasting
friends. In 1857 he became assistant to the professor of
humanity in the university of St Andrews, and in 1861 he
was appointed professor of that chair. In 1853 he married
Eliza, daughter of Henry Alexander Douglas, Kilhead,
Dumfriesshire, and had one surviving son, John Campbell,
who became an advocate at the Scottish bar. Shairp was
highly respected by the more earnest students, and much
loved by some whose spiritual as well as mental nature he
helped to quicken. In 1864 he published Kilmahoe, a
Highland Pastoral; in this his devotion to the scenery and
the people of the Scottish Highlands, where he always spent
his vacations, found vent. In this poem there was a
directness, simplicity, and moral earnestness which showed
the true poet. In 1868 he republished some articles under
the name of Studies in Poetry and Philosophy; this book
showed him to be one of the foremost critics of his day; the
chief subjects it discussed were Wordsworth, Coleridge, and
Keble. He insisted strongly on the high spiritual teach¬
ing and the deep poetical power of the great lake bard.
While not blind to his many faults of style, his occasional
puerility, and his prosiness, he urged his claims as a
unique interpreter of Nature and a spiritual philosopher.
Coleridge interested him as a poet, but much more as a
religious teacher; the Aids to Reflection was a favourite
present to his young friends, and often gave a text for his
deeper conversations. The most popular essay was that
on Keble, in which he gave a vivid sketch of Newman’s
influence in Oxford, while he spoke of the author of The
Christian Year with enthusiasm as a Christian teacher,
and with discerning criticism as a poet. In 1868 he was
presented to the principalship of the United College, vacant
by the death of J. D. Forbes; he discharged the duties of
this office with conscientious zeal and interest, and also con¬
tinued to lecture from time to time on literary and ethical
subjects. A course of the lectures, published in 1870,
Culture and Religion, is one of his most popular works.
In 1873 he helped to edit the life of Principal Forbes,
and in 1874 he edited Dorothy Wordsworth’s charming
Recollections of a Tour in Scotland in 1808. In 1877 he
was elected professor of poetry at Oxford in succession to
Sir F. H. Doyle. Of his lectures from this chair the best
were published in 1880 as Aspects of Poetry. In 1877 he
had published The Poetic Interpretation of Nature, in which
he enters fully into the “ old quarrel,” as Plato calls it,
between science and poetry, and traces with great clear
ness and literary acumen the ideas of nature in all the
chief Hebrew, classical, and English poets. In 1879 he
published a short life of Robert Burns. Such were Shairp’s
chief literary works, though many uncollected magazine
articles and a few poems show the versatility of his mind;
attention may be specially called to his article Keble in
this Encyclopsedia as an example of his critical power. In
1882 he was re-elected to the poetry chair and discharged
his duties there and at St Andrews till the end of 1884 ;
but his health had been frail for some time, and in March
1885 he sought a change of air in the Riviera. He returned
in June somewhat benefited, but he caught a chill in the
autumn, and, after a short illness, died at Ormsary, Argyll¬
shire, on September 18, 1885.
SHAKERS is the name commonly applied to and not
rejected by a religious denomination of which the official
title is “The United Society of Believers in Christ’s
Second Appearing.” The foundress was Ann Lee, who
was born in Toad Lane, Manchester, 29th February 1736,
but only privately baptized 1st June 1742. Her father
was a blacksmith, and at an early age she found employ¬
ment, being at one time a cutter of hatter’s fur, and at
another cook in the infirmary of her native town. She
was a quiet child of a somewhat visionary temperament,
and in 1758 joined a small religious body, a remnant of
the French Prophets. The leader was Jane Wardley,
who was regarded by her followers as the “spirit of John
the Baptist operating in the female line.” These people
were called Shakers because, like the early Quakers, they
were seized with violent tremblings and shakings when
under the influence of strong religious emotion. Ann Lee
in 1762 married a blacksmith whose character was not
very good. Their four children died in infancy. She
became “ a seeker after salvation,” and her conversion was
followed by her taking the lead in the Shaker Society, to
which she promulgated a doctrine of celibacy. Their
previous training had led them to expect that the second
coming of Christ would be in the form of a woman; as
Eve was the mother of all living, so in their new leader
the Shakers recognized “the first mother or spiritual
parent in the line of the female.” With their new-born
zeal aflame, they preached their doctrine in season and out
of season, and suffered something from mob violence and
from the intolerance of the constituted authorities. In