Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/95

* SHELDRAKE. SHELDRAKE, or SHIELDRAKE (from shield -j- driikc : so called in allusion tu the color- ation of its phunage). A large and handsome goose-like duck (Tadorna coniuta), known throughout all Europe and Asia, representing a genus containing many East Indian and Aus- tralasian species related to the tree-ducks. It nests in rabbit-burrows, or holes in soft soil, whence in some places the sheldrake receives the name of burrow-duck. The sheldrake is capable of being tameil, and breeds in domestication. Its note is a shrill whistle. Its Uesh is coarse and unpalatable, but the eggs are usable. Consult Newton. Dictionary of Birds (London, 1811.3-90). In America the name is sometimes given to the merganser (q.v, ). SHELIFF, shel'if or she-lef (ancient China- laph). The chief river of Algeria (q.v.). It rises in the Angad Desert, and after a course of 400 miles flows into the Mediterranean near Mostaganem. SHELL. See Projectile.s. SHEL'LABAR'GER, Samuel (1817-90). An American Congressman, born in Clark County, Ohio. He graduated at Miami University in 1841, and was elected to the Legislature in 1851. In 1861 he became a member of the National House of Representatives, and he was returned to the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-second Congresses. He was especially active in the re- construction debates, and made a remarkable reply to Raymond, who had upheld the recon- struction policy of President Johnson. Later Shellabarger introduced that section of the Re- construction Act of March 2, 1867, which pro- vided that the States recentl.y in rebellion should, until restored by Congress to their normal re- lations with the Union, be governed provisionally under the paramount authority of the United States, and that no person should be deprived of the right to vote because of color. In 1871 he reported to the House and managed on the floor the bill which, in an amended form, was finally passed as the famous 'Kii-Klux Act.' In 1869 he served as Minister to Portugal, and he was a member of the Civil Service Commission appointed by President Grant. SHELLAC. See Lac. SHEL'LER, Alexander Mikhailovitch (1838 — ). A Russian author, born at Saint Petersburg, and educated in that city. Inter- ested in popular education, he founded a school for the poor which was suppressed by the Government in 1863. He published his first verses in that year, in 1864 the novel Gnili/in Bolota ("Dank ilarshes"), and afterwards many other works of fiction. The most successful are: Brrrid and Amusements : When • M'ood is Cut Splinters Fli/; and Tlic Sins of Others. He also jniblished an important History of Communism, and in 1877 became editor of the Zhivopisnoe Obozrenie. SHEL'LEY, Hakry Rowe (18.58-). An American composer, born at New Haven, Conn. He studied with Gustav J. Stoeckel at Yale Col- lege, with Dudley Buck, Vogrich. and Dvorak, in New York, and subsequently completed his musi- cal education in London and Paris. He occupied at different times the positions of organist of the First Church at New Haven, organist of Dr. Storr's church in Brooklyn, and organist of 71 SHELLEY. the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church of New York. In 1899 he took charge of the classes in theory and composition at the Jletropolitan College, New York. Among his works are; songs, duets, ballets, mixed and male choruses; a sacred can- tata, "The Inheritance Divine," a "Te Deum," and other church music; a pianoforte solo, "Dance (jf Egyptian ilaidens," "Evening Prayer," "Romance," "March of the Centuries," and a number of selections for the organ. SHELLEY, Percy Byssiie (1792-1822). An English revoluticiuary and lyric poet of the high- est rank. Shelley was of old English stock. His grandfather, Bysslie, who was born in America and on his removal to England as heir to a small landed estate enriched the family by wealthy marriages, was made a baronet in 1806. Shelley, the eldest child of Timothy and Elizabeth (Pi'l- ford), was the hope of this new establishment. He was born at Field Place. Warnham. near Horsham, England, on August 4, 1792. He stud- ied first under the Rev. Thomas Edwards, of Horsham, then in a middle-class school known as Sion House Academy, near Brantford. also kept by a clergyman named Dr. Greenlaw. At this school the sensitive boy was persecuted by his fellows to such an extent that he developed a fierce hatred of oppression. At the same time he began to love science ardently, although his temperament was romantic rather than scientific. At the age of thirteen he went to Eton, where he again showed his hatred of tyranny. In October, 1810, he went to University College, Oxford, where his father had been before him. The boy displayed literary precocity, and his family in- dulged him in a taste for early publication: at Eton he had published Zastrozzi. a wild romance, and at Oxford he wrote a second tale, St. Irvyne, and various ventures in verse. After a scant six months' residence he was expelled from the university on account of a tract, The Necessity of Atheism, which he had published and cir- culated. Though he was only a youth of eigh- teen, English radicalism of the stripe of God- win's had declared itself in him in many ways; and before his faculty for verse had ripened" or manifested itself with any distinctness, his mind was given to materialistic and individualistic ideas, projects of social and political reform, and to their advocacy in prose tracts. He carried his independence into his actions. At this youthful time his conduct was undisciplined by judgment, and his mind was un.settled in intellectual prin- ciples. He was by nature impulsive and by habit uncontrollable; his ardency showed itself by quick execution as well as by emotionalism. His home was never a comfortable abiding jilace for him, and disagreement with his family, stolid and conventional people, was an increasing factor until it brought about complete alienation. His expulsion from Oxford was followed the next summer by a i-omantic marriage, one rather of pity than of love, with the sixteen-year-old daughter of a retired London tavern-keeper, Har- riet Westbrook, with whom he had become ac- quainted through his sister. They eloped and were married in Edinburgh, and thereafter lived a wandering and debt-harassed life in different parts of England and in Ireland, whither Shelley went in 1812 with a view to political agitation of which his Address to the Irish People, Proposals for an Association, and his public speech at Dub-