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SHA is the test of truth," but nowhere, we believe, in his writings is it so strongly expressed; at most, it seems to us, he pleads for the permission to employ the weapons of wit and pleasantry in discussions on serious subjects. Certainly, elevation both of thought and style characterized his own writings, and gave them one of their principal charms. Shaftesbury's "diction," says Lord Macaulay, "affected and florid, but often singularly beautiful and melodious—fascinated many young enthusiasts. He had not merely disciples, but worshippers. His life was short, but he lived long enough to become the founder of a new sect of English freethinkers, diametrically opposed in opinions and feelings to that sect of freethinkers of which Hobbes was the oracle. During many years the 'Characteristics' continued to be the gospel of romantic and sentimental unbelievers, while the gospel of coldblooded and hard-headed unbelievers was the Leviathan." It is in his ethical speculations that Shaftesbury appears to most advantage as an original thinker. Although they are amenable like all his philosophical writings to the charge of vagueness, yet the existence of a "moral sense," deriving from the heart, not the head—the offspring of feeling, not of reason or calculation—is asserted in them with distinctness enough to lead Sir James Mackintosh to say, that the "Characteristics" contain "more intimations of an original and important nature on the theory of ethics than perhaps any preceding work of modern times."—F. E.  * SHAFTESBURY,, seventh earl of, was born in London on 28th April, 1801. His father, the sixth earl, was for many years chairman of committees of the house of lords. As Lord Ashley—the title by which he was known until he entered the house of peers—he was educated at Harrow and at Christ church, Oxford, where he took a first-class in classics in 1822. From 1826 to 1830 he represented Woodstock in the house of commons, and was one of the commissioners of the board of control in the Wellington ministry of 1828-30. In 1830 he became member for Dorchester, and in 1831 one of the members for Dorsetshire. He was a lord of the admiralty in Sir Robert Peel's short ministry of 1834-35. After the death of Mr. Sadler in 1835, Lord Ashley, foregoing party politics and its prizes, took up the short-time question, and became the leader of the movement for ameliorating the condition of females and young persons employed in factories. Offered office on Sir Robert Peel's return to power in 1841, he declined it because the new ministry would not support a ten hours' bill. It was with the aid of the whigs that he carried against his own party the act 7 Vict. cap. 15, supplemented and improved by the act 10 Vict. cap. 29, which forbade the employment of persons under eighteen in factories for more than ten hours in any one day, or for more than fifty-eight in any one week. To the champion of short time is also due the legislation which prohibited the employment of women in mines. In 1846 Lord Ashley accepted the free trade policy of Sir Robert Peel, and consequently resigned the seat for Dorsetshire, which he had retained since 1831. From 1847 to 1851, when he succeeded to the earldom by the death of his father, he represented Bath in the house of commons. Lord Shaftesbury wields a double power, as a philanthropist and as a leader of the evangelical party. His biography includes the history of philanthropy and of the evangelical party in England, since his entrance into public life. Among his later efforts are those for the establishment of ragged schools and of the London shoe-black brigade, and in both he has been successful. During Lord Palmerston's first premiership. Lord Shaftesbury's influence is understood to have determined the appointment of members of the evangelical party exclusively to the episcopal bench. In 1830 he married the eldest daughter of the fifth Earl Cowper, and is thus a step-son of Lady Palmerston.—F. E.  SHAH ABBAS. See.  SHAH-ALUM I., sometimes called Bahadur Shah, son and successor of Aurungzebe, reigned at Delhi from 1707 to 1712. On his accession his sovereignty was disputed by his two younger brothers, Azim and Kam-Baksh, both of whom were defeated and fell on the field of battle. Shah-Alum was a merciful and kind-hearted prince; he treated the children of his rebel brothers as if they had been his own. The chief event of his life was his contest with the Sikhs, who were becoming an aggressive power.— II., born about 1716, was the son and successor of Alum-ghir, murdered in 1754 by the vizier Ghazi-ud-din, who had placed him on the throne. The early years of Shah-Alum's nominal reign were distracted by the struggle for supremacy in Hindostan between the Affghans and the Mahrattas. After the defeat of the Mahrattas at Paniput (1761) the Affghan victor, Ahmed Shah, confirmed Shah-Alum on the throne of Delhi; but he became a puppet in the hands of his vizier, Sujah Dowlah of Oude. Appealing to the English, he received, in 1765, Allahabad as a residence, with an annual allowance of twenty-six lacs of rupees, in return for which he made them a most important concession, appointing the East India Company to the office of dewannee, or administrator of the revenues of Bengal. In 1772 he allied himself to the Mahrattas, who restored him to Delhi, and he soon became their puppet. From the hands of the Mahrattas the unfortunate prince passed into those of the Rohillas, by whom he was blinded, August, 1788. In 1785 Delhi and its nominal emperor were once more at the mercy of the Mahrattas, who kept him in virtual captivity until 1803, when Lord Lake, after defeating the Mahrattas, entered Delhi and liberated Shah-Alum. He received a pension from the English, and passed his few remaining years in comfort and tranquillity. He died on the 18th December, 1806.—F. E.  SHAH JEHAN succeeded Jehangir (q.v.) on the throne of Delhi in 1628. Born about 1592, he was the third son of Jehangir; and known previously as Prince Khosrum, on his accession he styled himself Shah Jehan—i.e., king of the world. As he had rebelled against his father, so his sons rebelled against him. An account of the rebellion and its results will be found in the memoir of Aurungzebe, his son and successor. Shah Jehan died in captivity at Delhi in 1666—a reverse of fortune common enough in the East.—F. E.  SHAKESPEARE,, the pride and glory of English literature, was born at Stratford-upon-Avon on or about the 23rd of April, 1564. The precise day on which this colossal genius first saw the light is not known. The record of his baptism in the Stratford register stands thus:—"1564, April 26, Gulielmus,  filius Johannes Shakspere;" and we have only traditionary evidence of his having been born on the 23rd of the month. His father, John Shakespeare, is believed to have been the son of a small farmer in the neighbourhood, and to have settled himself at Stratford in occupations which were partly of a handicraft, partly of an agricultural nature, as early as the year 1551. He is variously described as glover, grazier, woolstapler, and even butcher, and he probably combined these and other collateral pursuits besides. In those days, when the population of England was sparse, and when the advantages of subdivided labour were little understood, it was not at all unusual for a man living in a provincial district to unite with his town calling the miscellaneous employments of a farmer. His exact social position at this time is difficult to define; but although it does not seem to have exceeded that of a thriving burgess, his "antecessors" are spoken of as persons of condition. Five or six years after settling at Stratford, that is, in 1557, John Shakespeare married Mary Arden, daughter of Robert Arden of Wilmecote; and however doubtful the rank of the Shakespeares, that of the Ardens was unquestionable. On the maternal side our poet was certainly of gentle blood. Mary Arden was descended from an ancient and considerable family in Warwickshire, the pedigree of which Dugdale traces uninterruptedly up to the time of Edward the Confessor. The particular branch of this old family whence Mary Arden immediately sprang, does not, however, appear to have been of much higher status in 1557, when she married John Shakespeare, than that of her husband, since in two deeds still extant, bearing date respectively the 7th and 17th of July, 1550, her father, Robert Arden, is only called "husbandman." Nor does there seem to have been such disparity in their means as to render the union incongruous. At the period of their marriage John Shakespeare was apparently employed in remunerative avocations, for he had bought just before two houses with gardens, and a croft. His young wife, the lady with the lovely name, brought him the acceptable addition of an estate, consisting of a messuage, fifty acres of arable land, six acres of meadow and pasture land, and a small sum in ready money. The value of her dowry was hardly £70 a year, perhaps; but this was sufficient to raise her husband's social standing in a small provincial town considerably. According to the Stratford-upon-Avon register, the offspring of this union were—Joan, baptized September 15, 1558; Margaret, December 2, 1562; William, April 26, 1564; Gilbert, October 13, 1566; Joan, April 16, 1569; Anne, September 28, 1571; Richard, March 11, 1673-4; Edmund, May 3, 1580. Rowe, in his Life of Shakespeare, asserts 