... renders scarcely distinguishable from those of the rent-paying | no greater authority can be desired, defines a sermon as a retenant or socager. Serjeanties, as Miss Bateson has expressed it, were neither always military nor always agricultural, but might approach very closely the service of knights or the service of farmers. The serjeanty of holding the king's head when he made a rough passage across the Channel, of pulling a rope when his vessel landed, of counting his chessmen on Christmas day, of bringing fuel to his castle, of doing his carpentry, of finding his pot herbs, of forging his irons for his ploughs, of tending his garden, of nursing the hounds gored and injured in the hunt, of serving as veterinary to his sick falcons, such and many others might be the ceremonial or menial services due from a given serjeanty." The many varieties of serjeanty were afterwards increased by lawyers classing for convenience under this head such duties as those of escort service to the abbess of Barking, or of military service on the Welsh border by the men of Archenfield. Serjeants (servientes) are already entered as a distinct class in Domesday Book (1086), though not in all cases differentiated from the barons, who held by knight-service. Sometimes, as in the case of three Hampshire serjeanties—those of acting as king's marshal, of finding an archer for his service, and of keeping the gaol in Winchester Castle-the tenure can be definitely traced as far back as Domesday. It is probable, however, that many supposed tenures by serjeanty were not really such, although so described in returns, in inquests after death, and other records. The simplest legal test of the tenure was that serjeants, though liable to the feudal exactions of wardship, &c., were not liable to scutage; they made in place of this exaction special composition with the crown. The germ of the later distinction between "grand" and "petty" serjeanty is found in the Great Charter (1215), the king there renouncing the right of prerogative wardship in the case of those who held of him by the render of small articles. The legal doctrine that serjeanties were (a) inalienable, (b) impartible, led to the "arrentation," under Henry III., of serjeanties the lands of which had been partly alienated, and which were converted into socage tenures, or, in some cases, tenures by knight-service. Gradually the gulf widened, and "petty" serjeanties, consisting of renders, together with serjeanties held of mesne lords, sank into socage, while "grand" serjeanties, the holders of which performed their service in person, became alone liable to the burden of wardship and marriage. In Littleton's Tenures this distinction appears as well defined, but the development was one of legal theory. When the military tenure of knight-service was abolished at the Restoration (by 12 Charles II., cap. 24), that of grand serjeanty was retained, doubtless on account of its honorary character, it being then limited in practice to the performance of certain duties at coronations, the discharge of which as a right has always been coveted, and the earliest record of which is that of Queen Eleanor's coronation in 1236. The most conspicuous are those of champion, appurtenant to the Dymokes' manor of Scrivelsby, and of supporting the king's right arm, appurtenant to that of Worksop. The latter duty was performed at the coronation of King Edward VII. (1902). The meaning of serjeant as a household officer is still preserved in the king's serjeants-at-arms, serjeant-surgeons and serjeanttrumpeter. The horse and foot serjeants (servientes) of the king's host in the 12th century, who ranked after the knights and were more lightly armed, were unconnected with tenure. The best summary of tenure by serjeanty is in Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law; McKechnie's Magna Carta (1905) should also be consulted; and for Domesday the Victoria History of Hampshire, vol. i. The best list of serjeanties is in the Red Book of the Exchequer (" Rolls " series), but the Testa de Nevill (Record Commission) contains the most valuable records concerning them. Blount's Tenures is useful, but its modern editions very uncritical. Wollaston's Coronation Claims is the best authority on its subject. SERMON (Lat. sermo, a discourse), an oration delivered from a pulpit with fullness and rhetorical effect. Pascal, than whom Usually a bow, sword, dagger or other small thing belonging to war. (J. H. R.) ligious address, in which the word of God is stated and explained, and in which an audience is excited to the practice of virtue. This may be so extended as to include a discourse in favour of pure morality, though, even in that case, the morals are founded on Christian doctrine, and even the sermon which the fox preaches in La Fontaine's Fables is a parody of a Christian discourse. The Latin sermons of St Augustine, of which 384 are extant, have been taken as their models by all sensible subsequent divines, for it was he who rejected the formal arrangement of the divisions of his theme, and insisted that simplicity and familiarity of style were not incompatible with dignity and religion. His object was not to dazzle by a conformity with the artificial rules of oratory, but to move the soul of the listener by a direct appeal to his conscience. His adage was Qui sophistice loquitur odibilis est, and his influence has been exercised ever since in warning the Christian orator against artificiality and in urging upon him the necessity of awakening the heart. Nevertheless, on many occasions, fashion has led the preachers of a particular epoch to develop rules for the composition of sermons, the value of which is more than doubtful. Cardinal Siffrein, who is known as the Abbé Maury (1746-1817), resumed all the known artifices of sermon-style in a volume which has a permanent historical value, the well-known Essai sur l'éloquence de la chaire (1810); he was himself rather a fiery politician than a persuasive divine. Maury describes all the divisions of which a good sermon should consist-an exordium, a proposition, a section, a confirmation in two or more points, a peroration; and he holds that a sermon on morals should have but two points, while one on the Passion must have three. These are effects of pedantry, and seem rather to be founded on a cold-blooded analysis of celebrated sermons than on any instinctive sense of the duty of the preacher. We may wish to see in a good sermon, what Bossuet recommended, not the result of slow and tedious study, but the flush of a celestial fervour. Voltaire makes an interesting observation on the technical difference between an English and a French sermon in the 18th century; the former, he says, is a solid and somewhat dry dissertation which the preacher reads to the congregation without a gesture and without any inflection of his voice; the latter is a long declamation, scrupulously divided into three points, and recited by heart with enthusiasm. Among the earliest examples of pulpit oratory which have been preserved in English literature, the discourses of Wycliffe and his disciples may be passed by, to arrive at the English sermons of John Fisher (1469?-1535), which have a distinct literary value. But Hugh Latimer (1485?-1555) is the first great English preacher, and the wit and power of his sermons (1549) give them prominence in our literature. One of the expository discourses of John Knox (1505-1572), we are told, was of more power to awaken his hearers than a blast from "five hundred trumpets." When we come to Elizabethan times, we possess a few examples of the sermons of the "judicious" Hooker (15541600); Henry Smith (1550-1591) was styled "the prime preacher of the nation"; and Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), whose sermons were posthumously printed at the command of James I. in 1628, dazzled his contemporaries by the brilliancy of his euphemism; Andrewes was called "the star of preachers." At a slightly later date John Donne (1573-1621) and Joseph Hall (1574-1656) divided the suffrages of the pious. In the middle of the 17th century the sermon became one of the most highly-cultivated forms of intellectual entertainment in Great Britain, and when the theatres were closed at the Commonwealth it grew to be the only public form of eloquence. It is impossible to name all the eminent preachers of this time, but a few must be mentioned. John Hales (1584-1656); Edmund Calamy (1600-1666); the Cambridge Platonist, Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1685); Richard Baxter (1615-1691); the puritan John Owen (1616-1683); the philosophical Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688); Archbishop Leighton (1611-1684)— each of these holds an eminent position in the records of pulpit eloquence, but all were outshone by the gorgeous oratory and art of Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), who is the most illustrious and the ordinary sermon of to-day is no longer an elaborate piece Among the best authorities on the history of the sermon are writer of sermons whom the British race has produced. His | of pure literature. It has, in general, been greatly shortened, matchless collection of discourses delivered at Golden Grove, The Eniautos, was published in 1653-1655. The fault of the 17th-century sermon was a tendency, less prominent in Jeremy Taylor than in any other writer, to dazzle the audience by a display of false learning and by a violence in imagery; the great merit of its literary form was the fullness of its vocabulary and the richness and melody of style which adorned it at its best. Some of the most remarkable divines of this great period, however, are scarcely to be mentioned as successful writers of sermons. At the Restoration, pulpit oratory in England became drier, less picturesque and more sententious. The great names at this period were those of Isaac Barrow (1630-1677); Robert South (1634-1716), celebrated for his wit in the pulpit; John Tillotson (1630-1694), the copyright of whose sermons fetched the enormous sum of 2500 guineas after his death, and of whom it was said that he was "not only the best preacher of the age, but seemed to have brought preaching to perfection "; and Edward Stillingfleet (1635-1699), styled, for his appearance in the pulpit, "the beauty of holiness." These preachers of the Restoration were SEROUX D'AGINCOURT, JEAN BAPTISTE LOUIS GEORGE controversialists, keen, moderate and unenthusiastic. These (1730-1814), French archaeologist and historian, was born at qualities were accentuated in the 18th century, when for a while Beauvais on the 5th of April 1730. He belonged to a good family, religious oratory ceased to have any literary value. The sermons and in his youth served as an officer in a regiment of cavalry. of Benjamin Hoadly (1676–1761) have a place in history, and Finding it necessary to quit the army in order to take charge of his those of Joseph Butler (1692-1752), the Rolls Sermons of 1726, younger brothers who had been left orphans, he was appointed have great philosophical importance. Thomas Boston's (1676-a farmer-general by Louis XV. In 1777 he visited England, 1732) memory has been revived by the praise of Stevenson, Germany and Holland; and in the following year he travelled but his zeal was far exceeded by that of John Wesley (1703-❘ through Italy, with the view of exploring thoroughly the remains 1791), who preached 40,000 sermons, and by that of George of ancient art. He afterwards settled at Rome, and devoted Whitefield (1714-1770). himself to preparing the results of his researches for publication. He died on the 24th of September 1814, leaving the work, which was being issued in parts, unfinished; but it was carried on by M. Gence, and published complete under the title L'Histoire de l'art par les monuments, depuis sa décadence au quatrième siècle jusqu'à son renouvellement au seizième (6 vols. fol. with 325 plates, Paris, 1823). An English translation by Owen Jones was published in 1847. In the year of his death Seroux d'Agincourt published in Paris a Recueil de fragments de sculpture antique, en terre cuite (1 vol. 4to). Of all countries, however, France is the one which has shown most brightly in the cultivation of the sermon. In the 14th century Gerson (1363-1429) seems to have been the earliest | divine who composed and preached in French, but his example was not followed by any man of equal genius. It was the popular movement of the Reformation, which made the sermon a piece of literature, on the lips of Jean Calvin (1509-1564), Pierre Viret (1511-1571) and Théodore de Bèze (1519-1605). With these stern Protestant discourses may be contrasted the beautiful, but somewhat euphuistical sermons of St François de Sales (16051622), full of mystical imagery. Father Claude de Lingendes (1591-1660) has been looked upon as the father of the classic French sermon, although his own conciones were invariably written in Latin, but his methods were adopted in French, by the school of Bourdaloue and Bossuet. In the great body of noble religious eloquence delivered from French pulpits during the 17th century, the first place is certainly held by the sermons of J. B. Bossuet (1627-1704), who remains perhaps the greatest preacher whom the world has ever seen. His six Oraisons Funèbres, the latest of which was delivered in 1687, form the most majestic existing type of this species of literature. Around that of Bossuet were collected other noble names: Louis Bourdaloue (1632-1704), whom his contemporaries preferred to Bossuet himself; Esprit Fléchier (1632-1710), the politest preacher who ever occupied a Parisian pulpit; and Jules Mascaron (1634-1703), whom all forms of eloquence were united. A generation later appeared Baptiste Massillon (16631742), who was to Bossuet as Racine to Corneille; and Jacques Saurin (1677-1730), whose evangelical sermons were delivered at the Hague. These are the great classic preachers whose discourses continue to be read, and to form an inherent part of the body of French literature. There was some revival of the art of the sermon at Versailles a century later, where the Abbé Maury, whose critical work has been mentioned above, preached with vivid eloquence between 1770 and 1785; the Père Elisée (17261783), whom Diderot and Mme Roland greatly admired, held a similar place, at the same time, in Paris. Since the end of the 18th century, although a great number of volumes of sermons have been and continue to be published, and although the pulpit holds its own in Protestant and Catholic countries alike, for purposes of exhortation and encouragement, it cannot be said that the sermon has in any way extended its influence as a form SEROW, or SARAU, the Himalayan name of a goat-like antelope of the size of a donkey, nearly allied to the goral (q.v.) of the same region, but considerably larger, and with small face-glands. The Himalayan animal is a local race of the Sumatran Nemorhacdus sumatrensis; and the name serow is now extended to embrace all the species belonging to the same genus, the range of which extends from the Himalaya to Burma, the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra in one direction, and to Tibet, China, Japan and Formosa in another. Serows inhabit scrub-clad mountains, at no great elevation. (R. L.) SERPA PINTO, ALEXANDRE ALBERTO DE LA ROCHA (1846-1900), Portuguese explorer in Africa, was born at the castle of Polchras, on the Douro, on the 10th of April 1846. Entering the army in 1864, he served in Mozambique, and in 1869 took part in an expedition against tribes in revolt on the lower Zambezi. In 1877 he and Captains Capello and Ivens of the Portuguese navy were sent on an expedition to south central Africa. The explorers left Benguella in November 1877 for the interior, but Serpa Pinto soon parted from his colleagues, who went north, while Serpa Pinto continued east. He crossed the Kwando in June 1878, and in August reached Lialui, the Barotse capital on the Zambezi, where he received help from the Rev. F. Coillard which enabled him to continue his journey down the river to the Victoria Falls, whence he turned south, arriving at Pretoria on the 12th of February 1879. He was the fourth explorer to traverse Africa from west to east, and was the first to lay down with approximate accuracy the route between Bihe and Lialui. Among other rewards the Royal Geographical Society of London awarded him (1881) the Founder's medal. The account of his travels appeared in English under the title How I crossed Africa (2 vols., London, 1881). In 1884 he attempted, with less success, the exploration of the regions between Mozambique and Lake Nyasa. Appointed governor of Mozambique in 1889, he organized an expedition with the object | on all the instruments of the orchestra in his day (Bonn, 1811), of securing for Portugal the Shiré highlands and neighbouring where clear and accurate practical drawings of the instruments are given. regions, but the vigorous action of the British agents (John (K. S.) Buchanan and H. H. Johnston) frustrated this design (see SERPENTARIUS, or OPHIUCHUS, in astronomy, a constellaAFRICA, 85). Shortly afterwards Serpa Pinto returned to Lisbon tion of the northern hemisphere, anciently named Aesculapius, and was promoted to the rank of colonel. He died on the 28th and mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd of December 19c0. century B.C.). According to the Greek fables it variously represents: Carnabon (or Charnabon), king of the Getae, killing one of the dragons of Triptolemus, or Heracles killing the serpent at the river Sangarius (or Sagaris), or the physician Asclepius (Aesculapius), to denote his skill in curing snake bites. Ptolemy catalogued 29 stars, Tycho Brahe 15, and Hevelius 40. "New" stars were observed in 1604 and 1848. SERPENT (Lat. serpens, creeping, from serpere; cf. " reptile " from repere, Gr. prev), a synonym for reptile or snake (see REPTILE, and SNAKES), now generally used only of dangerous varieties, or metaphorically. See also SERPENT-WORSHIP below. In music the serpent (Fr. serpent, Ger. Serpent, Schlangenrohr, Ital. serpentone) is an obsolete bass wind instrument derived from the old wooden cornets (Zinken), and the progenitor of the bass-horn, Russian bassoon and ophicleide. The serpent is composed of two pieces of wood, hollowed out and cut to the desired shape. They are so joined together by gluing as to form a conical tube of wide calibre with a diameter varying from a little over half an inch at the crook to nearly 4 in. at the wider end. The tube is covered with leather to ensure solidity. The upper extremity ends with a bent brass tube or crook, to which the cupshaped mouthpiece is attached; the lower end does not expand to form a bell, a peculiarity the serpent shared with the cornets. The tube is pierced laterally with six holes, the first three of which are covered with the fingers of the right hand and the others with those of the left. When all the holes are thus closed the instrument will produce the following sounds, of which the first is the fundamental and the rest the harmonic series founded thereon: Each of the holes on being successively opened gives the same series of harmonics on a new fundamental, thus producing a chromatic compass of three octaves by means of six holes only. The holes are curiously disposed along the tube for convenience in reaching them with the fingers; in consequence they are of very small diameter, and this affects the intonation and timbre of the instrument adversely. With the application of keys to the serpent, which made it possible to place the holes approximately in the correct theoretical position, whereby the diameter of the holes was also made proportional to that of the tube, this defect was remedied and the timbre improved. The serpent was, according to Abbé Leboeuf, the outcome of experiments made on the cornon, the bass cornet or Zinke, by Edmé Guillaume, canon of Auxerre, in 1590. The invention at once proved a success, and the new bass became a valuable addition to church concerted music, more especially in France, in spite of the serpent's harsh, unpleasant tone. Mersenne (1636) describes and figures the serpent of his day in detail, but it was evidently unknown to Praetorius (1618). During the 18th century the construction of the instrument underwent many improvements, the tendency being to make the unwieldy windings more compact. At the beginning of the 19th century the open holes had been discarded, and as many as fourteen or seventeen keys disposed conveniently along the tube, Gerber, in his Lexikon (1790), states that in 1780 a musician of Lille, named Régibo, making further experiments on the serpent, produced a bass horn, giving it the shape of the bassoon for greater portability; and Frichot, a French refugee in London, introduced a variant of brass which rapidly won favour under the name of "bass horn " or "basson russe" in English military bands. On being introduced on the continent of Europe, this instrument was received into general use and gave a fresh impetus to experiments with basses for military bands, which resulted first in the ophicleide (q.v.) and ultimately in the valuable invention of the piston or valve. Further information as to the technique and construction of the serpent may be gained from Joseph Fröhlich's excellent treatise See Mémoire concernant l'histoire ecclésiastique et civile d'Auxerre (Paris, 1848). ii. 189. SERPENTINE, in geometry, a cubic curve described by Sir Isaac Newton, and given by the cartesian equation y(a2+x2) = abx. The origin is a point of inflection, the axis of x is an asymptote, and the curve lies between the parallel lines 2y=b. SERPENTINE, a mineral which, in a massive and impure form, occurs on a large scale as a rock, and being commonly of variegated colour, is often cut and polished, like marble, for use as a decorative stone. It is generally held that the name was suggested by the fancied resemblance of the dark mottled green stone to the skin of a serpent, but it may possibly refer to some reputed virtue of the stone as a cure for snake-bite. Serpentine was probably, at least in part, the Xilos ópirns of Dioscorides and the ophites of Pliny; and this name appears in a latinized form as the serpentaria of G. Agricola, writing in the 16th century, and as the lapis serpentinus and marmor serpentinum of other early writers. Italian sculptors have sometimes termed it ranochia in allusion to its resemblance to the skin of a frog. Although popularly called a "marble," serpentine is essentially different from any kind of limestone, in that it is a magnesium silicate, associated however, with more or less ferrous silicate. Analyses show that the mineral contains H.Mg Si2O,, and if the water be regarded as constitutional the formula may be written Mg:(SiO1)2H3(MgOH). Serpentine occurs massive, fibrous, lamellar or granular, but never crystallized. Fine pseudomorphs having the form of olivine, but the composition of serpentine, are known from Snarum in Buskerud, Norway, the crystals revealing their character by containing an occasional kernel of the original mineral. The alteration of rocks rich in olivine has given rise to much of the serpentine occurring as rock-masses (see PERIDOTITE). Studied microscopically, the change is seen to proceed from the surface and from the irregular cracks of the olivine, producing fibres of serpentine. The iron of the olivine passes more or less completely into the ferric state, giving rise to grains of magnetite, which form a black dust, and may ultimately yield scales of haematite or limonite. Considerable increase of volume generally accompanies serpentinization, and thus are produced fissures which afford passage for the agents of alteration, resulting in the formation of an irregular mesh-like structure, formed of strings of serpentine enclosing kernels of olivine in the meshes, and this olivine may itself ultimately become serpentinized. Serpentine may also be formed by the alteration of other nonaluminous ferro-magnesian silicates such as enstatite, augite or hornblende, and in such cases it may show microscopically a characteristic structure related to the cleavage of the original mineral, notably lozenge-shaped in the case of hornblende. Many interesting pseudomorphs of serpentine were described by Professor J. D. Dana from the Tilly Foster iron-mine, near Brewster, New York, U.S.A., including some remarkable specimens with cubic cleavage. The purest kind of serpentine, known as "noble serpentine," is generally of pale greenish or yellow colour, slightly translucent, and breaking with a rather bright conchoidal fracture. It by forsterite, olivine or chondrodite. The hardness of serpentine occurs chiefly in granular limestone, and is often accompanied is between 3 and 4, while the specific gravity varies from 2.5 to 2.65. A green serpentine of the exceptional hardness of 6, formerly regarded as jade, is known as bowenite, having been | limestone from Pietra Lavezzara. Serpentine occurs also at named by J. D. Dana after G. T. Bowen. The original bowenite many localities in the Apennines, in Elba and in Corsica. The came from Smithfield, Rhode Island, U.S.A., and a similar term ophiolite has been vaguely used to include not only serpenmineral was described by General C. A. McMahon as occurring tines but many other rocks associated with the Italian serpenin Afghanistan, where it is carved for ornamental purposes tines. Verde antico is a brecciated serpentine with fragments of in the belief that it is jade (q.v.). Many common carvings limestone, originally brought by the Romans from Atrax in regarded as jade are really serpentine, and therefore soft. Serpen- Thessaly, and called lapis atracius. It is sometimes known as tine of columnar or coarsely fibrous form is termed picrolite, a vert antique, or, following the old French, verd antique. The name proposed by J. F. L. Hausmann from the Greek Tukpós term serpentine is often improperly applied to the ancient green (bitter) in allusion to the presence of magnesia. The finely porphyry of Laconia in the Peloponnesus (porfido serpentino fibrous serpentine is called chrysotile from the lustrous yellowish verde). True serpentine occurs at numerous localities in the colour which it usually presents (xpvoós, gold; Tiλos, fibre) and Alps and in France, an elegant variety being quarried at Epinal this variety is extensively worked, especially in Canada, for use in the Vosges, whilst a fine ophicalcite is worked at St Véran as asbestos (q.v.). In order to avoid confusion between the and Maurins, dep. Hautes-Alpes. The Ronda Mountains in words chrysotile and chrysolite, it has been proposed by Dr❘ Spain also yield serpentine. J. W. Evans that the fibrous serpentine should be distinguished as karystiolite-a modification of the ancient name, taken from its occurrence near Karystos in Euboea. Foliated serpentine is usually termed marmolite-a name given by G. T. Nuttall, from papuaipw (to glisten) in reference to its lustre. A thin lamellar or flaky serpentine supposed to occur in the Antigorio valley north of Domodossola in Piedmont is called antigorite, having been named in 1840 by M. E. Schweizer, after whom a somewhat similar mineral is termed schweizerite. Antigorite has been studied by Professor T. G. Bonney and Miss C. Raisin (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., lxi., 1905, p. 690; lxiv., 1908, p. 152). An apple-green translucent serpentine passes under the name of williamsite, having been so called by C. U. Shepard in honour of its discoverer L. White Williams, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, where this variety occurs. "Common serpentine" is the impure massive kind which occurs in rock-masses and is extensively worked as "serpentinemarble." It is sometimes veined with steatite, or magnesite, and may contain scattered crystals of diallage, bronzite or bastite (an altered rhombic pyroxene), which by schillerization may present a metallic lustre. In England the chief localities of serpentine are in Cornwall, especially in the Lizard district, where it is quarried and carved into mantelpieces, columns, vases and other ornaments. Much of it presents a rich red or brown colour, often mottled and sometimes veined. Professor Bonney has shown that it has been largely derived from olivine. Green serpentine occurs near Holyhead in Anglesey. A beautiful serpentine, generally mottled red and green, with veins of steatite, is found at Portsoy in Banffshire, Scotland, and was used for pillars in the great hall at Versailles. Serpentine containing chromite is found in the Shetland Islands. The rock called "ophicalcite " consists of an intimate association of serpentine with limestone, often forming an ornamental stone which is beautifully clouded and zoned with various shades of green. It generally results from the metamorphism of an impure dolomitic limestone, the impurities having crystallized as new minerals which become altered to serpentine. Pseudomorphs of serpentine occur after forsterite. The best known serpentinous marble of the British Isles occurs in Connemara in Galway, Ireland, and passes in trade under the name of "Irish green." Ophicalcites are developed also in various parts of Scotland, and the green pebbles found in Iona belong to this type of rock. The famous cozoonal marble of Canada is also of similar character. In Saxony common serpentine is largely worked at Zöblitz near Marienberg and Waldheim. The rock of Zöblitz, mentioned by G. Agricola in the 16th century, is usually of dull green or brown colour, and frequently contains dark red Bohemian garnet or pyrope (q.v.). It was used in the mausoleum of Prince Albert at Frogmore, Windsor, and in Abraham Lincoln's monument at Springfield, Illinois, U.S.A. Italy is rich in serpentine, the best-known being the verde di Prato, which has been quarried for centuries at Monteferrato near Prato in Tuscany, and has been largely used in ecclesiastical architecture in Florence, Prato and Pistoja. Much serpentine is found near Genoa and Levanto. The verde di Pegli comes from Pegli not far from Genoa, while the verde di Genova is a brecciated serpentinous In North America serpentine is so widely distributed that only a few localities can be specified. It is found in St Lawrence county, Essex county and Warren county, New York, and also on Staten Island; at Montville and Hoboken in New Jersey; at Newport, Rhode Island; at Newbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts; Texas, Lancaster county, and West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania; at many localities in Vermont, and in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina and Washington. For American serpentine see Stones for Building and Decoration, by George P. Merrill (New York, 1903); and for serpentine asbestos see the same author's Non-metallic Minerals (New York, 1904). (F. W. R.) 1. Preval ence in forms. SERPENT-WORSHIP. From all parts of the world there is a very considerable body of evidence for the prominence of the worship still prevails largely in India, and a writer serpent in religion, mythology and folk-lore. Snakein 1896 remarks that the previous census showed in varying the North-West Provinces over 25,000 Nāga (serpent) worshippers, 123,000 votaries of the snake-god Gūga, and, in the Punjab, some 35,000 special votaries of the snake godlings.1 The evidence from modern India can be supplemented by the medieval and ancient Indian sources, and, in particular, by the representations of the adoration of snake-deities on the Buddhist topes of Sanchi and Amravati. There we find, not indeed living serpents, but deities with serpent-symbolism, indicating the evidence for serpent-symbolism from Babylonia, Crete, a composition of various strata of religious belief, analogous to Greece or Peru; for the higher religions have almost invariably retained in their ritual and belief, sometimes with only slight modification, cruder conceptions which can still be studied in less elevated form among the lower races of India, Africa or America. The result is instructive when we turn to the numerous serpent myths and legends from the Old World and the New, to the stray notices in old writers, or to the fragmentary scraps of popular superstition everywhere. Modern scientific research has vividly illustrated the stereotyped nature of the human mind; there is a general similarity in the effect of similar phenomena upon people at a similar stage of mental growth; there is an almost inherent or unconscious belief which has been transmitted through the countless ages of man's history. At the same time, apart from the gradual evolution of religious and other conceptions there are the more incidental and artificial influences which have shaped them. Hence, our evidence for serpent-cults everywhere represents varying stages in the historical development of a few related fundamental ideas which are psychologically explicable; and it is impossible to deal with the subject geographically or historically. It is most useful, perhaps, to survey some of the general features of belief as an introduction to the more complex inquiries which involve a consideration of other subjects over a larger field. 1 See W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (London, 1896), ii. 122. See the elaborately illustrated work of James Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship, or Illustrations of Mythology and Art in India (2nd ed., London, 1873); also M. Winternitz, der Sarpabali, cin altindischer Schlangen-cult," in Mitteil. d. anthrop. Gesell, of Vienna, xviii. (1888), pp. 25-52, 250-264. Both give abundant information on the various features of serpent-cults. 2. Serpents' Haunting buildings and famous ruins, gliding around pools, walls and trees, mysteriously disappearing below ground, the serpent and all its kind invariably arrested attention through its uncanny distinctiveness from bird or beast. Its gliding motion suggested the winding river. Biting its tail it symbolized the earth surrounded by the world-river. Its patient watchfulness, the fascination it exerted over its victims, the easy domestication of some species, and the deadliness of others have always impressed primitive minds. Its swift and deadly dart was likened to the lightning; equally marvellous seemed its fatal power. It is little wonder that men who could tame and bandle the reptiles gained esteem and influence. Sometimes the long life of the serpent and its habit of changing the skin suggested ideas of immortality and resurrection, and it is noteworthy that one Indian snake-festival occurs after or at the sloughing, when the sacred being is thus supposed to become purified.1 A very common belief associates serpents or dragons and other monsters with the guardianship of treasure or wealth; comp., e.g., the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the Egyptian gods Kneph and Osiris, and the Indian Krishna and wealth and Indra. Serpents adorned with necklaces of jewels wisdom. or with crowns were familiar in old superstition, and the serpent with a ruby in its mouth was a favourite lovetoken. Many stories tell of the grateful reptile which brought valuable gifts to a benefactor. According to a common Indian belief a wealthy man who dies without an heir returns to guard his wealth in the form of a serpent, and Italian superstition supposed that to find a serpent's skin brought good luck (Leland).2 No singular preference for jewels on the part of serpents will explain the belief, and creatures like the jackdaw which have this weakness do not enjoy this prominence in folk-lore. A rationalistic explanation might be found in the connexion between the chthonic serpent and subterranean sources of wealth. Moreover, the serpent is often associated with metallurgy, and to serpent deities have been ascribed the working of metals, gem-cutting and indeed culture in general. The Aztec Quetzalcoat taught metallurgy and agriculture, gave abundance of maize, also wisdom and freedom from disease. The Babylonian Ea, who sometimes has serpent attributes, introduced-like the American serpent Votan-knowledge and culture. The half-serpent Cadmus brought knowledge of mines, agriculture, and the "Cadmean" letters, while Cecrops inculcated laws and ways of life and was the first to establish monogamy. Although the reptile is not particularly intelligent, it has become famed for shrewdness and wisdom, whether in the Garden of Eden (Gen. iii. 1; 2 Cor. xi. 3) or generally (cf. Matt. x. 16). The Ophites (q.v.) actually identified the serpent with Sophia ("Wisdom"); the old sage Garga, one of the fathers of Indian astronomy, owed his learning to the serpent-god Sesha Naga; and the Phoenician yepwr 'Opiwr wrote the seven tablets of fate which were guarded by Harmonia. Not only is the serpent connected with oracles, the beneficent agathodaemon of Phoenicia also symbolized immortality. In Babylonian myth a serpent, apparently in a well or pool, deprived Gilgamesh of the plant which rejuvenated old age, and if it was the rightful guardian of the wonderful gift, one is reminded of the Hebrew story, now reshaped in Gen. iii., where the supernatural serpent is clearly acquainted with the properties of the tree of life." 1 Fergusson, p. 259. Perhaps the sloughing more than any other feature stimulated primitive speculation; cf. Winternitz, p. 28. See Crooke, ii. 1 and 33 sqq.; C. G. Leland, Etruscan Roman Remains, p. 283: Winternitz 37 seq.; A. W. Buckland, Anthropological Studies (1891), pp. 104-139 (on serpents in connexion with metallurgy and precious stones). Excavators know how the popular mind associates their labours with search for hidden treasure, and no doubt the wealth of dead civilizations often stimulated the imagination of subsequent generations. A gruesome Indian story (Crooke, ii. 136) shows how old treasure-chambers could actually harbour enormous and deadly snakes. Nonnus (Dion. xli. 340 sqq.), cited by W. W. G. Baudissin, Stud. z. Relig.-Gesch. (Leipzig, 1876), i. 274 scq. (pp. 255-292, Semitic serpent-cult). See, for Garga, C. F. Oldham, The Sun and the Serpent (London, 1905), p. 54; and, for the serpent's wisdom, F. L. Schwartz, Ursprung der Mythologie (1860), pp. 55 seq.; J. Maehly, Die Schlange im Mythus u. Cultus d. class. Volker (1867), PP. 9 seq., 11, 23 seq. 3. Ser peats in bealing. Serpents were supposed to know of a root which brought back their dead to life, and an old Greek story told how certain mortals took the hint. In one form or another the healing powers of the serpent are very familiar in legend and custom. Siegfried bathed in the blood of the dragon he slew and thus became invulnerable; the blind emperor Theodosius recovered his sight when a grateful serpent laid a precious stone upon his eyes; Cadmus and his wife were turned into serpents to cure human ills. "In 1899 a court in Larnaca, Cyprus, awarded £80 (Turkish) as damages for the loss of a snake's horn which had been lent to cure a certain disease" (Murison, p. 117, n. 9). Not to multiply examples, it must suffice to refer to the old popular idea that medical skill could be gained by eating some part of a serpent: the idea that its valuable qualities would thus be assimilated belongs to one of the fundamental dogmas of primitive mankind (cf. Porphyry, De abst. ii. 48). Now, serpents were tended in the sanctuaries of the Greek Aesculapius (Asklēpios), the famous god of healing. Among his symbols was a serpent coiled round a staff, and physicians were for long wont to place this at the head of their prescriptions. He is also represented leaning on a staff while a huge serpent rears itself up behind him, or (on a coin from Gythium) a serpent seems to come to him from a well. At Athens, Asklepios Amynos had a sanctuary with altar and well, and among the votive offerings have been discovered models of snakes. The god-hero came from Epidaurus to the shrine at Sicyon in the form of a serpent, and the serpent sent from Epidaurus to stay a plague at Rome remained there, and a temple was erected to Aesculapius. The sanctuary of the deified healer at Cos marked the site where another serpent brought from Epidaurus dived into the earth (Pausanias, ii. 10, 3, iii. 23, 4). Hygieia, goddess of health, passed for his daughter, and is commonly identified with the woman in Greek art who feeds a serpent out of a saucer. Moreover, the temple of the earth-goddess Bona Dea on the slopes of the Aventine was a kind of herbarium, and snakes were kept there as a symbol of the medical art. Even in Upper Egypt a few decades ago, there was a tomb of the Mahommedan sheikh Herīdī, whoit is alleged-was transformed into a serpent; in cases of sickness a spotless virgin entered the cave and the serpentoccupant might permit itself to be taken in procession to the patient. The place was the scene of animal sacrifices and a yearly visit of women, and apparently preserved the traces of an old serpent-cult. 4. As remedy against snake. bite. Several practices conform to the idea that "a hair of the dog that bit you" is a sure remedy, and that the serpent was best fitted to overcome other serpents. At Emesa in Syria, watered by the Orontes, an image, the lower part of which was a scorpion, cured the sting of scorpions and freed the city from snakes.10 Constantinople was similarly protected by the serpent-trophy of Delphi which Constantine removed thither; an emperor was said to have performed an enchantment over the monument well known in Greek history." In modern India a walking-stick from a species of cane in the neighbourhood of a certain serpentshrine protects against snake-bite.12 At Fernando Po, when there The interpretation is uncertain, but the motive has parallels (see Goblet d'Alviclla, Migration of Symbols, London, 1894, pp. 129, 133, 167 seq.). R. G. Murison, "The Serpent in the O.T. Journ. of Sem. Lang. xxi. 128), cites an American-Indian belief in a tree of healing, or rather of knowledge, inhabited by a serpent. J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis and Osiris (2nd ed., London, 1907), p. 153: also his notes on Pausanias, vol. iii. p. 65 seq. (Amer. Similar votive offerings are known in India (Oldham, 87), and, though their true significance is uncertain, in ancient Arabia, Palestine and Elam (see H. Vincent, Canaan d'après l'exploration récente, Paris, 1907, pp. 174 sqq.). A. H. Sayce, "Serpent Worship in Ancient and Modern Egypt," Contemporary Review (Oct. 1893), p. 523; cf. also Fergusson, 34. See, for analogies, Frazer, Golden Bough (2nd ed.), ii. 426 seq. 10 Even clothes washed in the waters of Emesa similarly protected the wearers. See Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 353 sqq., and for other miscellaneous evidence, 396, 405, 495. Ruy Gonzalez de Clarijo, Hakluyt Society (1859), p. 35. See H. Gressmann, Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft, x. 357 sqq. A Babylonian cylinder represents two figures (divine?) on either side of a fruit-tree, and behind one of them a serpent coils upwards. I p. 12 Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, ix. 180. |