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 production of his opera Alessandro nell' Indie he was appointed director of the Conservatorio dell' Ospedaletto, where he trained some admirable female singers and wrote church music. In 1772 he visited London, where, notwithstanding a cruel cabal formed against him, he achieved a brilliant success, especially in his four new operas, T amerlana, Lucio Vero, N itetti e Perseo and Il Gran Cid. Later he met with an equally enthusiastic reception in Paris, where in 1783 his Rinaldo was produced under the immediate patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette, to whom he had been recommended by the emperor Joseph II. But neither in England nor in France did his reputation continue to the end of his visit. He seems everywhere to have been the victim of bitter jealousy. Even Marie Antoinette was not able to support his cause in the face of the general outcry against the favour shown to foreigners; and by her command, given with the utmost reluctance, his last opera and undoubted masterpiece, Qidipe d Colone, was set aside in 1786 to make room for Lemoine's Phédre-a circumstance which so preyed upon his mind that he died of chagrin on the 7th (or 8th) of October 1786.

Sacchini's style was rather graceful than elevated, and he was deficient both in creative power and originality. But the dramatic truth of his operas, more especially the* later ones, is above all praise, and he never fails to write with the care and finish of a thorough and accomplished musician. Qidipe was extremely successful after his death, and was performed at the Académie nearly six hundred times.

SACERDOTALISM (from Lat. sacerdos, priest, literally one who presents sacred offerings, sacer, sacred, and dare, to give), a term applied, usually in a hostile sense, to the system, method and spirit of a priestly order or class, under which the functions, dignity and influence of the members of the priesthood are exalted in the ministry of religion, and in the church at the expense of the laity. This exalting of the priesthood in the Christian church is based on the claim that the priest exercises sacrificial and supernatural powers in the celebration of the Eucharist.

SACHEVERELL, HENRY (1674-1724), English ecclesiastic and politician, was the son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough. He was adopted by his godfather, Edward Hearst, and his wife, and was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1689, was demy of his college from 1689 to 1701 and fellow from 1701 to 1713. Addison, another Wiltshire lad, entered at the same college two years earlier, but was also elected a demy in 1689; he inscribed to Sacheverell in 1694 his account of the greatest English poets. Sacheverell took his degree of B.A. in 1693, and became M.A. in 1695 and D.D. in 1708. His first preferment was the small vicarage of Cannock in Staffordshire; but he leapt into notice when holding a preachership at St Saviour's, Southwark. His famous sermons on the church in danger from the neglect of the Whig ministry to keep guard over its interests were preached, the one at Derby on the 15th of August, the other at St Paul's Cathedral on the 5th of November 1709. They were immediately reprinted, the latter being dedicated to the lord mayor and the former to the author's kinsman, George Sacheverell, high sheriff of Derby for the year; and, as the passions of the whole British population were at this period keenly exercised between the rival factions of Whig and Tory, the vehement invectives of this furious divine on behalf of an ecclesiastical institution which supplied the bulk of the adherents of the Tories made him their idol. The Whig ministry, then slowly but surely losing the support of the country, were divided in opinion as to the propriety of prosecuting this zealous parson. Somers was against such a measure; but Godolphin, who was believed to be personally alluded to in one of these harangues under the nickname of "Volpone," urged the necessity of a prosecution, and gained the day. The trial lasted from 27th February to 23rd March 1710, and the verdict was that Sacheverell should be suspended for three years and that the two sermons should be burnt at the Royal Exchange. This was the decree of the state, and it had the effect of making him a martyr in the eyes of the populace and of bringing about the downfall of the ministry. Immediately on the expiration of his sentence (13th April 1713) he was instituted to the valuable rectory of St Andrew's, Holborn, by the new Tory ministry, who despised the author of the sermons, although they dreaded his influence over the mob. He died at the Grove, Highgate, on the 5th of June 1724.

See Hearne's Diaries, Bloxam's Register of Magdalen and Hill Burton's Queen Anne, vol. ii. There is an excellent bibliography by Falconer Madan (1887).

SACHEVERELL, WILLIAM (1638-1691), English statesman, son of Henry Sacheverell, a country gentleman, was born in 1638. His family had held a good position in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire since the 12th century, the name appearing as Sent Cheveroll in the roll of Battle Abbey, and William inherited large estates from his father. He was admitted at Gray's Inn in 1667, and in 1670 he was elected member of parliament for Derbyshire. 'He immediately gained a prominent position in the party hostile to the Court, and before he had been six months in the House of Commons he proposed a resolution that all "popish recusants" should be removed from military commands; carried without a division on the 28th of February 1672-1673. This resolution was the forerunner of the Test Act, in the preparation of which Sacheverell took an active part, and which caused the break up of the cabal. He now took part in nearly every debate in the House of Commons, being recognized as one of the most able of the leaders of the opposition or country party. He strongly opposed the king's policy of alliance with France, advocating a league with the Dutch instead, - and the refusal of supplies until' the demands of the Commons should be complied with. Sacheverell took especial interest in- the state of the navy and spoke in many debates on this question. In 1677 he carried an address to the king calling upon him' to conclude an alliance with the United Provinces against Louis XIV., and when the Speaker adjourned the House by Charles's order Sacheverell made an eloquent protest, asserting the right of the House itself to decide the question of its adjournment. When parliament met early in '1678 assurances were received from Charles II. that he had arranged the treaties demanded by the Commons; but Sacheverell boldly questioned the king's good faith, and warned the Commons that they were being deceived. When the secret treaty with France became known, thus confirming Sacheverell's insight, the latter called for the disbandment of the forces and advocated the refusal of further supplies for military purposes; and in June 1678 he resolutely opposed Lord Danby's proposal to grant £300,000 per annum to Charles II. for life. Barillon mentions Sacheverell among the Whig leaders who accepted bribes from Louis XIV., but the evidence against him is not conclusive.

When Titus Oates began his pretended revelations in 1678 Sacheverell was among those who most firmly believed in the existence of a Popish plot. He was one of the most active investigators of the affair, and one of the managers of the impeachment of the five Catholic peers. He also acted for a time as chairman of the secret committee of the Commons, and drew up the report on the examination of the Jesuit Coleman, secretary to the duchess of York. He was a member of the committee for drafting the articles of impeachment against Danby in 1678, and was appointed one of the managers of the Commons; and in 1679, when the impeachment, interrupted by the dissolution of parliament, was resumed in the new parliament, he spoke strongly against the validity of Danby's plea of pardon by the king. The allegations made in Sacheverell's report on the examination of Coleman prompted the country party to demand the exclusion of James, duke of York, from the succession to the throne, the first suggestion of the famous Exclusion Bill being made by Sacheverell on the 4th of November 1678 in a debate—"the greatest that ever was in Parliament," as it was pronounced by contemporaries—raised by Lord Russell with the object of removing the duke from the King's Council. He vigorously promoted the bill in the House of Commons and opposed granting supplies till it should pass. When Charles offered an alternative scheme (1679) for limiting the powers of a Catholic sovereign, Sacheverell made a great speech in which he pointed out the