Chapter Stannary Courts to Steeplechase of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, appeared on the scaffold with a huge ruff. This was done by Lord Coke's order, and was the means of putting an end to this absurd fashion.

“I shall never forget poor Mistress Turner, my honoured patroness, peace be with her! She had the ill- luck to meddle in the matter of Somerset and Overbury, and so the great earl and his had slipt their necks out of the collar, and left her and some half-dozen others to suffer in their stead.”- Sir Walter Scott: Fortunes of Nigel, viii.

Starry Sphere The eighth heaven of the Peripatetic system; also called the “Firmament.”

“The Crystal Heaven is this, whose rigour guides
And binds the starry sphere.”
Camoens: Lusiad, bk. x.

Starvation Dundas Henry Dundas, first Lord Melville, who was the first to introduce the word starvation into the language, on an American debate in 1775. (Anglo-Saxon, steorfan, to perish of hunger; German, sterben; Dutch, sterven.)

Starved with Cold Half-dead with cold. (Anglo-Saxon, steorfan, to die.)

Stations The fourteen stations of the Catholic Church. These are generally called “Stations of the Cross,” and the whole series is known as the via Calvaria or via Crucis. Each station represents some item in the passage of Jesus from the Judgment Hall to Calvary, and at each station the faithful are expected to kneel and offer up a prayer in memory of the event represented by the fresco, picture, or otherwise. They are as follows:-
   (1) Jesus is condemned to death.
   (2) Jesus is made to bear His cross.
   (3) Jesus falls the first time under His cross.
   (4) Jesus meets His afflicted mother.
   (5) Simon the Cyrenean helps Jesus to carry His cross.
   (6) Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
   (7) Jesus falls the second time.
   (8) Jesus speaks to the daughters of Jerusalem.
   (9) Jesus falls the third time.
   (10) Jesus is stripped of His garments.
   (11) Jesus is nailed to the cross.
   (12) Jesus dies on the cross.
   (13) Jesus is taken down from the cross.
   (14) Jesus is placed in the sepulchre.

Statira A stock name of those historical romances which represented the fate of empires as turning on the effects produced on a crack-brained lover by some charming Mandana or Statira. In La Calprenéde's Cassandra, Statira is represented as the perfection of female beauty, and is ultimately married to Oroondates.

Stator [the stopper or arrestor ]. When the Romans fled from the Sabines, they stopped at a certain place and made terms with the victors. On this spot they afterwards built a temple to Jupiter, and called it the temple of Jupiter Stator or Jupiter who caused them to stop in their flight.

“Here, Stator Jove and Phoebus, god of verse
The votive tablet I suspend.” Prior.

Statue The largest ever made was the Colossos of Rhodes; the next largest is the statue of Bavaria, erected by Louis I., King of Bavaria. The Bartholdi statue of Liberty is also worthy of mention. (See Lighthouses .)
   Statue. It was Pygmalion who fell in love with a statue he had himself made.
   Statue. Of all the projects of Alexander, none was more hare-brained than his proposal to have Mount Athos hewed into a statue of himself. It is said he even arranged with a sculptor to undertake the job.

Status of Great Men (See Great Men .)

Statute Fairs (See Mop .)

Steak Beef-steak is a slice of beef fried or broiled. In the north of Scotland a slice of salmon fried is called a “salmon-steak.” Also cod and hake split and fried. (Icelandic, steik, steikja, roast.)

Steal A handle. Stealing - putting handles on (Yorkshire). This is the Anglo-Saxon stela (a stalk or handle).

“Steale or handell of a staffe, manche, hante!”
Palsgrave.