11-11-52 MFP 11-7-52 THE LONDON ENCYCLOPÆDIA. [SEDUCTION, Continued from Vol. XIX.] We have seen that the loss of virtue is not the only injury which a woman sustains, but that many others follow. One of these is, that she cannot even confide in the honor of her seducer, who may reveal her secret in a fit of drunkenness, and thus rob her of her fame as well as of her virtue; and, while she is in this state of anxious uncertainty, the agony of her mind must be insupportable. That it is so, in fact, the many instances of child-murder by unmarried women of every rank leave us no room to doubt. The affection of a mother to her new-born child is one of the most unequivocal and strongest instincts in human nature, and nothing short of the extremity of distress could prompt any one so far to oppose her nature as to embrue her hands in the blood of her imploring infant. Even this deed of horror seldom prevents a detection of the mother's frailty, which is indeed commonly discovered, though no child has been the consequence of her intrigue. He who can seduce is base enough to betray; and no woman can part with her honor, and retain any well-grounded hope that her amour shall be kept secret. The villain to whom she surrendered will glory in his victory, if it was with difficulty obtained; and if she surrendered at discretion her own behaviour will reveal her secret. Her reputation is then irre trievably lost, and no future circumspection will be of the smallest avail to recover it. She will be shunned by the virtuous part of her own sex, and treated as a mere instrument of pleasure by the other. In such circumstances she cannot expect to be married with advantage. She may perhaps be able to captivate the heart of a headless youth, and prevail upon him to unite his fate with her's before the delirium of his passion shall give him time for reflection; she may be addressed by a man who is a stranger to her story, and married while he has no suspicion of her secret; or she may be solicited by one of a station inferior to her own, who, though acquainted with every thing that has befallen her, can barter the delicacy of wedded love for some pecuniary advantage; but from none of these marriages can she look for happiness. The delirium which prompted the first will soon vanish, and leave the husband to the bitterness of his own reflections, which can hardly fail to produce cruelty to the wife. Of the secret to which, in the second case, the lover was a stranger, the husband will soon make a discovery, or at least find room for harbouring strong suspicions; and suspicions of having been deceived in a point so delicate have hitherto been uniformly the parents of misery. In the third case VOL. XX-PART 1. the man married her merely for money, of which having got the posssesion, he has no farther inducement to treat her with respect. Such are some of the consequences of seduction, even when the person seduced has the good fortune to get afterwards a husband; but this is a fortune which few in her circumstances can reasonably expect. By far the greater part of those who have been defrauded of their virtue by the arts of the seducer sink deeper and deeper into guilt, till they become at last common prostitutes. The public is then deprived of their service as wives and parents; and instead of contributing to the population of the state, and to the sum of domestic felicity, these outcasts of society become seducers in their turn, corrupting the morals of every young man whose appetites they can inflame, and every young woman whom they can entice to their own practices. All this complication of evil is produced at first by arts, which, if employed to deprive a man of his property, would subject the offender to the execration of his fellow subjects, and to an ignominious death: but while the forger of a bill is pursued with relentless vigor by the ministers of justice, and the swindler loaded with universal reproach, the man who, by fraud and forgery, has enticed an innocent girl to gratify his desires at the expense of her virtue, and thus introduced her into a path which must infallibly lead to her own ruin, as well as to repeated injuries to the public at large, is not despised by his own sex, and is too often caressed even by the virtuous part of the other. Yet the loss of property may be easily repaired; the loss of honor is irreparable! It is vain to plead, in alleviation of this guilt, that women should be on their guard against the arts of the seducer. Most unquestionably they should; but arts have been used which hardly any degree of caution would have been sufficient to counteract. It may as well be said that the trader should be on his guard against the arts of the forger, and accept of no bill without previously consulting him in whose name it is written. Cases, indeed, occur in trade in which this caution would be impossible; but he must be little acquainted with the workings of the human heart who does not know that situations likewise occur in life, in which it is equally impossible for a girl of virtue and tenderness to resist the arts of the man who has completely gained her affections. The mentioning of this circumstance leads us to consider another species of seduction, which, though not so highly criminal as the former, is yet far removed from innocence; we mean the practice, which is too, prevalent among young men of fortune, of employing every art in their power to gain the hearts of B heedless girls, whom they resolve neither to marry nor to rob of their honor. Should a man adhere to the latter part of this resolution, which is more than common fortitude can always promise for itself, the injury which he does to the object of his amusement is yet very great, as he raises hopes of the most sanguine kind, merely to disappoint them, and diverts her affections, perhaps, for ever from such men as, had they been fixed on one of them, might have rendered her completely happy. Disappointments of this kind have sometimes proved fatal to the unhappy girl; and even when they have neither deprived her of life, nor disordered her reason, they have often kept her wholly from marriage; which, whatever it be to a man, is that from which every woman expects her chief happiness. We cannot therefore conclude this article more properly than with warning our female readers not to give up their hearts hastily to men whose station in life is much higher than their own; and we may assure every one of them that the man who solicits the least favor, under the most solemn promise of a subsequent marriage, is a base seducer, who prefers a momentary gratification of his own to her honor and happiness through life, and has no intention to fulfil his promise. Swift. leek, a genus of the pentagynia order, and de- campseros; 5. Annuum; 6. Atratum; 7. Ce- following are the most remarkable:—1. S. acre, 19. Verticillatum; 20. Villosum. Of these the acrid sedum, common stonecrop of the wall, or succulent stalks, four or five inches high; very wall pepper, has small fibry roots, very slender small, suboval, gibbous, erect, alternate leaves, close together, and the stalks terminated by trifid sort grows abundantly on rocks, old walls, and cymose bunches of small yellow flowers. This often appear covered with the flowers in summer. tops of buildings, almost every where, which It is so acrid that it blisters the skin when applied externally. Taken inwardly, it excites vomiting. In scorbutic cases, and quartan agues, it is said to be an excellent medicine under proper management. Goats eat it; cows, horses, sheep, and swine, refuse it. 2. S. aizoon, or Siberian yellow orpine, has a tuberculate, fibrous, Perennial root; many upright, round, succulent thickish leaves; and the stalks terminated by a stalks, a foot high; lanceolated, plane, serrated, close-sitting cymose cluster of bright yellow cil at Rome in 721; and the other flourished fibry perennial roots; trailing slender stalks, six flowers. 3. S. album, the white stone-crop, has SEDULIUS (Cœlius), a priest and poet of the fifth century, who wrote a heroic poem in Latin verse, entitled Paschale Carmen, which is highly celebrated by Cassiodorus. He was a native of Scotland: and wrote his poem by the persuasion of Macedonius, a presbyter, about A. D. 430, to whom it is dedicated, as well as to the emperor Theodosius. After a missionary progress in France and Italy, he was consecrated a presbyter and a bishop. After his death his works were collected by Turcius Rufus Asterius, who was consul A.D. 494. They were printed by A. Minutius, Basil, 1502; at Paris by Juretus 1585; and at Edinburgh by Anderson, in 1701. In the preface to this last edition, it is said, there were other two learned Scotchmen of the same name; of whom the one attended the coun about A. D. 818. SED'ULOUS, adj. Lat. sedulus. AsSED'ULOUSLY, adv. siduous; industrious; SED'ULOUSNESS, n. s. laboriously diligent: the adverb and noun substantive corresponding. Man oftentimes pursues, with great sedulity and earnestness, that which cannot stand him in any stead for vital purpose. Hooker. Not sedulous by nature to indite All things by experience South. The ritual, preceptive, prophetick, and all other parts of sacred writ, were most sedulously, most religiously guarded by them. Government of the Tongue. or eight inches long; oblong, obtuse, sessile, spreading leaves; and the stalks terminated by branchy cymose bunches of white flowers. This grows on old walls, rocks, and buildings, in England, &c. 4. S. anacampseros, or decumbent root, decumbent or trailing stalks, wedge-shaped evergreen Italian orpine, has a fibrous perennial entire leaves, and the stalks terminated by a corymbus of purple flowers. 5. S.-Hispanicum, Spanish sedum, has fibrous perennial roots, crowned with clusters of taper, acute, succulent leaves; slender succulent stalks, four or five inches high, garnished also with taper leaves, and terminated by downy cymose clusters of white flowers. 6. S. reflexum, reflexed small yellow sedum, or prick-madam, has a slender fibrous perennial root; small trailing succulent stalks, garnished with thick awl-shaped succulent leaves sparsedly, the lower ones recurved, and the stalks terminated by reflexed spikes of bright yellow flowers. It grows naturally on old walls and buildings in England, &c. In Holland and Germany, it is used as a sallad. 7. S. rupestre, rock sedum, or stone-crop of St. Vincent's rocks, has slender, trailing, purple stalks; short, thick, awl-shaped, succulent, glaucous leaves in clusters, quinquefariously imbricated round the stalks, and the stalks terminated by roundish cymose bunches of bright yellow flowers. It grows naturally on St. Vincent's rock near Bristol, and other rocky places in Europe. It is eaten with lettuce as a sallad, in Holland and Germany. 8. S. sexangulare, sexangular stonecrop, has a fibry perennial root; thick, short, succulent stalks; small, suboval, gibbous, erect leaves close together, arranged six ways imbricatim, and the stalks terminated by bunches of yellow flowers. It grows on rocky and other dry places in England, &c. 9. S. telephium, common orpine, or live-long, has a perennial root, composed of many knobbed tubercles, sending up erect, round, succulent stalks, branching half a yard or two feet high, garnished with oblong, plane, serrated, succulent leaves, and the stalks terminated by a leafy corymbus of flowers, of different colors in the varieties. This species is an inhabitant of woods and dry places in England, &c., but has been long a resident of gardens for variety and medical use. All these species are hardy herbaceous succulent perennials, durable in root, but mostly annual in stalk, &c.; which, rising in spring, flower in June, July, and August, in different sorts; the flowers consisting universally of five spreading petals, generally crowning the stalks numerously in corymbose and cymose bunches and spikes, appearing tolerably conspicuous, and are succeeded by plenty of seeds in autumn, by which they may be propagated, also abundantly by parting the roots, and by slips or cuttings of the stalks in summer; in all of which methods they readily grow and spread very fast into tufted bunches; being all of succulent growth, they consequently delight most in dry soils, or in any dry rubbishy earth. As flowering plants, they are mostly employed to embellish rock work, ruins, and the like places, planting either the roots or cuttings of the shoots in a little mud or any moist soil at first, placing it in the crevices, where they will soon root and fix themselves, and spread about very agreeably. SEDUM, PYRAMIDAL. See SAXIFRAGA. SEE, n. s. Lat. sedes. The seat of episcopal power; the diocese of a bishop. You, my lord archbishop, Whose see is by a civil peace maintained, Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched, Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutored, Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace, Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war? Shakspeare. Henry IV. It is a safe opinion for their sees, empires, and kingdoms; and for themselves, if they be wise. Bacon. The pope would use these treasures, in case of any great calamity that should endanger the holy see. Addison. Episcopal revenues were so low reduced that three or four sees were often united to make a tolerable competency. Swift. Preter. I saw ; part. pass. seen. Sax.reon; Belg. sien; Swed. see; SEE, v. a., v. n. & interj. Dan. see. To perceive by the eye; observe; find; discover; attend; remark; converse with: to have the power of vision; be attentive; enquire; contrive: as an interjection it means behold; look: seeing that, as Dr. Johnson says, should rather be written seen that,' and means provided or conditioned that: a seer is one who sees; and particularly one who foretels future events. Seven other kine came up, lean fleshed, such as I never saw for badness. Gen. xli. 19. Who maketh the seeing or the blind? have not I, the Lord? Exodus iv. 11. I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was disIsaiah xxi. 3. mayed at the seeing of it. I speak that which I have seen with my father, and ye do that which you have seen with yours. John viii. 38. long time as the ships are, usually for a year, seeing Why should not they be as well victualled for so it is easier to keep victuals on land than water? Spenser on Ireland. How shall they have any trial of his doctrine, learning, and ability to preach, seeing that he may not publickly either teach or exhort, because he is not yet called to the ministry? Whitgifte. Dear son Edgar, Might I but live to see thee in my touch, Mark and perform it, see'st thou ? for the fail Id. Air hath some secret degree of light; otherwise cats and owls could not see in the night. Bacon's Natural History. To see that none thence issued forth a spy. Milton. Id. Paradise Lost. Seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are taught the languages of those people who have been most industrious after wisdom. Id. on Education. I had a mind to see him out, and therefore did not care for contradicting him. Id. Spectator. We are in hopes that you may prove a dreamer of dreams, and a seer of visions. Id. By day your frighted seers Shall call for fountains to express their tears, Of opening gulphs, black storms, and raging flames, woe. Prior. You may see into the spirit of them all, and form your pen from those general notions. Felton. Seeing they explained the phenomena of vision, imagination, and thought, by certain thin fleeces of atoms that flow from the surfaces of bodies, and by their subtlety penetrate any obstacle, and yet retain the exact lineaments of the several bodies from which they proceed in consequence of this hypothesis they maintained that we could have no phantasy of any thing, but what did really subsist either intire or in its several parts. Bentley's Sermons. See! the sole bliss heaven could on all bestow, Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know. Pope. A little busy mind runs on at all events, must be doing, and, like a blind horse, fears no dangers, because he sees none. Chesterfield. SEED (Jeremiah), an English divine, born at Clifton, near Penrith, in Cumberland, and educated at Queen's College, Oxford; of which he became a fellow in 1732. He was minister of Enham in Hampshire, and died in 1747. He published two volumes of Sermons, which were much admired; and his posthumous works made other two. SEED, n. s. & v. n. SEED'-CAKE, SEED'LING, Sax. ræ; Dan. seed; Belg. saed; Goth. sad. The organised germ from SEED'NESS, which plants and aniSEED'-PEARL, >mals are produced; first SEED'-PLOT, principle; original; offSEED-TIME, spring; descendant: SEEDS MAN, seed-pearl is pearl of SEEDY, adj. small grain: the other derivatives are of obvious meaning. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest shall not cease. Gen. vii. 22. Remember, wife, The seedcake, the pasties, and furmety pot. Tusser Next him king Lear in happy peace long reigned, But had no issue male him to succeed, But three fair daughters which were well uptrained In all that seemed fit for kingly seed. Faerie Queene. The seed of whatsoever perfect virtue groweth from us is a right opinion touching things divine. Hooker. If you can look into the seeds of time, From the seedness the bare fallow brings The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman Id. Antony and Cleopatra. Seed of a year old is the best, though some seed and grains last better than others. Bacon's Natural History. Day and night, Seedtime and harvest, heat and hoary frost, The first rain fell upon the seedtime about October, and was to make the seed to root; the latter was to fill the ear. Browne. Praise of great acts he scatters, as a seed Which may the like in coming ages breed. Waller. Of mortal seed they were not held, Which other mortals so excelled; And beauty too in such excess As yours, Zelinda! claims no less. That every plant has its seed is an evident sign of divine providence. Id. More. In the dissolution of seedpearl in some acid menstruum, if a good quantity of the little pearls be cast in whole, they will be carried in swarms from the bottom to the top. Boyle. When God gave Canaan to Abraham, he thought fit to put his seed into the grant too. Locke. Did they ever see any herbs, except those of the grass-leaved tribe, come up without two seed leaves; which to me is an argument that they came all of seed, there being no reason else why they should produce two seed leaves different from the subsequent. Ray. They pick up all the old roots, except what they design for seed, which they let stand to seed the next year. Mortimer." Carry into the shade such seedlings or plants as are for their choiceness reserved in plots. Evelyn's Kalendar. Just gods! all other things their like produce; The vine arises from her mother's juice: When feeble plants or tender flowers decay, They to their seed their images convey. Prior. He that too curiously observes the face of the heavens, by missing his seedtime, will lose the hopes of his harvest. Atterbury. Whate'er I plant, like corn on barren earth, By an equivocal birth, Seeds and runs up to poetry. Swift. SEEDS, preservation of, in a state fit for vegetation, is a matter of great and general importance, because, if it can be accomplished, it will enable us to rear many useful plants in one country which are there unknown, being indigenous only in others at a great distance from it. There is a letter on this subject in the Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol. xvi., |