Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/370

Rh colonial goods, are wool for the manufactures, hides, coal, imvr- schaum (from Smyrna and Vienna), amber, horn, &c. Eisenach and Weimar are the chief seats of trade. The population in 1880 was 809,577, or 223 per square mile, of whom 297,735 were Lutherans, 10,267 Roiuau Catholics, 327 Christians of other sects, and 1248 Jews. The Thuringian and Frauconian branches of the Teutonic family are both ivpn - in the duchy. According to the employment census of ISts'J, agriculture, forestry, and hshing supported 135,200 or 44 per cent. of the population; industrial pursuits, 114,835 or 37 '3 per cent. ; trade, 23,939 or 7*8 per cent.; service, 4086 or 1-8 per cent.; official, military, and professional employments, 16,066 or 5 '2 per cent; while 13,597 persons or 4 '4 per cent, made no returns. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a limited hereditary monarchy, and was the first state in Germany to receive a liberal constitution. This was granted in 1816 by Charles Augustus, the patron of Goethe, and was revised in 1850. The diet consists of one chamber with thirty-one members, of whom one is chosen by the nobility, four by owners of laud worth at least 150 a year, five by those who derive as much from other sources, and twenty-one by the rest of the inhabitants. The diet meets every three years ; the deputies are elected for six years. The franchise is enjoyed by all domi- ciled citizens over twenty-five years of age. The government is carried on by a ministry of tliree, holding the portfolios of finance, of home and foreign affairs, and of religion, education, and justice, with which is combined the ducal household. The budget for the finance-period 1884-86 estimated the yearly income at 308,586 and the yearly expenditure at about 1560 less. The public debt is more than covered by the active capital. The ducal house receives a civil list of 46,500. The Saxe-Weimar family is the oldest branch of the Ernestine line, and hence of the whole Saxon house. By treaties of succession the grand-duke is the next heir to the throne of Saxony, should the present Albertine line become extinct. He is entitled to the predicate of " royal highness." By a treaty with Prussia in 1867, which afterwards became the model for similar treaties between Prussia and other Thuringian states, the troops of the grand-duchy were incorporated with the Prussian army. In early times Weimar, with the surrounding district, belonged to the counts of Orlanuiude, and from the end of the 10th century until 1067 it was the scat of a line of counts of its own. It afterwards fell to the landgrave of Thuringia, and in 1440 passed into the possession of Frederick the Mild, elector of Saxony. Involved after the convention of Wittenberg (1547) in the com- Elicated and constantly shifting succession arrangements of the rnestine dukes of Saxony, who delayed the introduction of primogeniture, Weimar does not emerge into an independent historical position until 1640, when the brothers William, Albert, and Ernest the Pious founded the principalities of Weimar, Eisenach, and Gotha. Eisenach fell to Weimar in 1644, and, although the principality was once more temporarily split into the lines Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Eisenach (1672-1741), and Saxe- Jena (1672-1690), it was again reunited under Ernest Augustus (1728-1748), who secured it against future subdivision by adopting the principle of primogeniture. His sou of the same name who succeeded died in 1758, two years after his marriage with Anna Amalia of Brunswick. Next year the duchess Amalia, although not yet twenty years old, was appointed by the emperor regent of the principality and guardian of her infant son Charles Augustus (1758-1828). The reign of the latter, who assumed the govern- ment in 1775, is the most brilliant epoch in the history of Saxe- Weimar. A gifted and intelligent patron of literature and art, Charles Augustus attracted to his court the leading authors and scholars of Germany. Goethe, Schiller, and Herder were members of the illustrious society of the capital, and the university of Jena became a focus of light and learning, so that the hitherto obscure little state attracted the eyes of all Europe. 1 The war with France was fraught with danger to the continued existence of the princi- pality, and after the battle of Jena (October 14, 1806) it was mainly the skilful management of the duchess Louise that dissuaded Napoleon from removing her husband from among the reigning princes. In 1807 Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach entered the Confederation of the Rhine, and was promoted from a principality (Fiirstenthum) to a duchy (Herzogthum). In the following campaigns it suffered greatly ; and in 1815 the congress of Vienna recompensed its ruler with an addition to his territory of 660 square miles (includ- ing most of Neustadt) with 77,000 inhabitants, and with the title of grand-duke (Grossherzog). On the restoration of peace Charles Augustus redeemed his promise of granting a liberal constitution (1816). Freedom of the press was also granted, but after the festival of the Wartburg in 1819 it was seriously curtailed. Charles Frederick (1828-1853) continued his father's policy, but his reforms 1 An article on Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach would hardly be complete without Goethe's famous lines : " Klein 1st unter den FUrsten Germanleu* freilich der meine, Kurz und schmal 1st Heln Land, masslg nur was er vermag ; Aber so wende nach Inncn. so wende nnch ausscn die Kriifte Jeder, da war' ein Feat Deutscher mit Deutschen zu Beln." were neither thorough enough nor rapid enough to avert political commotion in 1848. A popular ministry received power, and numerous reforms were carried through. Reaction set in under Charles Alexander, who succeeded his father in 1853, and the union of the state-lands and crown-lands was repealed, though both were appointed to remain under the same public management. In 1866 the grand-duchy joined Prussia against Austria, although its troops were then garrisoning towns in the Austrian interest ; later it entered the North German Confederation. The press restric- tions were removed in 1868 and the tendency of recent legislation has been liberal. (F. MU.)

 SAXIFRAGE (Saxifraga a genus of plants which gives its name to the order of which it is a member. There are nearly 200 species distributed in the temperate and arctic parts of the northern hemisphere, frequently at considerable heights on the mountains. They are mostly herbs with perennial rootstocks, leaves in tufts, or, on the flower-stalks, scattered. The arrangement of the flowers is very various, as also are the size and colour of the flowers themselves. They have a calyx with a short tube, five petals, ten (or rarely five) stamens springing, like the petals, from the edge of the tube of the calyx. The pistil is partly adherent 'to the calyx-tube, and is divided above into two styles. The ovules are numerous, attached to axile placentas. The seed-vessel is capsular. Many species are natives of Britain, some alpine plants of great beauty (S. ojipositifolia, S. nivalis, S. aizoides, &c.), and others, like S. granulata, frequenting meadows and low ground, while S. trldactylites may be found on almost any dry wall. Many species are in cultivation, including the Bergenias or Megaseas with their large fleshy leaves and copious panicles of rosy or pink flowers, the numerous alpine species, such as S. pyramidalis, S. Cotyledon,  SAXO GRAMMATICUS, the celebrated Danish his- torian and poet, belonged to a family of warriors, his father and grandfather having served under king Valdemar I. (d. 1182). He himself was brought up for the clerical profession, entered about 1180 the service of Archbishop Absalon as one of his secretaries, and remained with him in that capacity until the death of Absalon in 1201. At the instigation of the latter he began, about 1185, to write the history of the Danish Christian kings from the time of Sven Estridson, but later Absalon prevailed on him to write also the history of the earlier, heathen times, and to combine both into a great work, Gesta Danorum. The archbishop died before the work was finished, and there- fore the preface, written about 1208, is dedicated to his successor Archbishop Andreas, and to King Valdemar II. Nothing else is known about Saxo's life and person; a chronicle of 1265 calls him " mirae et urbanae eloquentiai clericus ;" and an epitome of his work from about 1340 de- scribes him as "egregius grammaticus, origine Sialandus ;" that he was a native of Zealand is probably correct, inas- much as, whereas he often criticizes the Jutlanders and the Scanians, he frequently praises the Zealanders. The surname of " Grammaticus " is probably of later origin, scarcely earlier than 1500, apparently owing to a mistake. The title of " provost (dean) of Roskilde," given him in the 16th century, is also probably incorrect, the historian being confounded with an older contemporary, the provost of the same name. Saxo, from his apprenticeship as the archbishop's secretary, had acquired a brilliant but some- what euphuistic Latin style, and wrote fine Latin verses, but otherwise does not seem to have had any very great learning or extensive reading. His models of style were Valerius Maximus, Justin, and Martianus Capella, especi- ally the last. Occasionally he mentions Bede, Dudo, and Paulus Diaconus, but does not seem to have studied them or any other historical works thoroughly, and he neither understands nor is interested in scientific research, in gene- ral history, or even in chronology. He wrote because he

