cies of game he means to pursue as to the season of killing it. Thus, in the first month of partridge shooting, shot No. 1 should be used; for since, at this time, the birds spring near at hand, and we seldom fire at more than the distance of forty paces, if the shooter takes his aim but tolerably well, it is almost impossible for a bird at this distance to escape in the circle, or disk, which the shot forms. Hares also, at this season of the year, sit closer; and, being at this time thinly covered with fur, may easily be killed with this sized shot at thirty or thirty-five paces. In snipe and quail shooting, this sized shot is peculiarly proper; for, in using a larger size, however true the sportsman may shoot, yet he will frequently miss; the objects being so small that they have great chance of escaping in the vacant spaces of the circle or disk.

About the beginning of October, at which time the partridges are stronger in the wing, No. 3 is the proper shot to be used. This size seems to be the best of any; it preserves a proper medium between shot too large and that which is too small, and will kill a hare from the distance of thirty-five to forty paces, and a partridge at fifty, provided the powder be. good. It will serve also for rabbit shooting. In short, it is excellent for all seasons, and many sportsmen use no other the season round. It is true that distant objects are frequently missed for the want of larger shot; but then these bear no proportion to the number which are daily missed by using shot of too large a size, especially with the feathered game. If a man were to shoot constantly with shot No. 5, for one partridge, which he might chance to kill with a single pelet, at the distance of eighty paces, he would miss twenty birds at fifty paces which would in such case escape in the vacant spaces of the circle. But if the sportsman expressly proposes to shoot wild ducks, or hares, then, indeed, he had better use the No. 5. However, in shooting with a double barrelled gun, it may be prudent to load one of the barrels with large shot, for the necessary occasions; and, in any case where large shot is required, No. 5, will be found to be better than any other; for its size is not so large as to prevent it from sufficiently garnishing, or being equally spread in the circle, and it can at the same time perform, in effect, all that a larger sized shot can do, which garnishes but very little, if any at all.

In order, therefore, to show clearly, at one view, the comparative difference in the garnishing of shot of different sizes, we here subjoin a table, which indicates the number of pellets precisely composing an ounce weight of each sort

of shot.

The Proportions of Powder and Shot in the Charge.-To find the charge that gives the longest range, in fowling pieces of different dimensions, must be allowed to be a discovery of infinite importance to every sportsman; and, as it seems to be an opinion pretty generally received and established, that every barrel has a particular load (not a measure estimated by any rules to be drawn from a comparison made between the proportions of the calibre and the length of the barrel) with which it will shoot with greater certainty and effect: it cannot be doubted that he will make some experiments with his own barrels, in order to attain this end. Before we proceed, therefore, to lay down rules for the loading of fowling pieces of different dimensions, we beg leave to engraft an excellent principle in the practice of the artillery, on this point, upon the shooting science. It is asserted that by using small charges at first, and increasing the quantity of powder by degrees, the ranges will increase to a certain point; after which, if the charge be augmented, they will progressively diminish; though the recoil will still continue in the ratio of the increase of the charge. This is a consequence that may be deduced from a variety of experiments, and is perfectly agreeable to the principles of mechanics; since the recoil and the range ought to be in the reciprocal ratio of the gun and the shot, making allowance for the resistance which these bodies meet with.

For a fowling piece of a common calibre, which is from twenty-four to thirty balls to the pound weight; a drachm and a quarter, or at most, a drachm and a half, of good powder; and an ounce, or an ounce and a quarter, of shot, is sufficient. But when shot of a larger size is used, such as No. 5, the charge of shot may be increased one-fourth, for the purpose of counterbalancing, in some degree, what the size of the shot loses in the number of pellets, and also to enable it to garnish the more. For this purpose the sportsman will find a measure marked with the proper gauges very convenient to him. An instrument of this nature may now be purchased at most of our locksmiths.

Different opinions, however, are entertained on the proportions of the charge. Some determine the charge of a fowling piece by the weight of a ball of the exact size of the calibre; estimating the weight of the powder at one-third of that of the ball, whether it is proposed to shoot with ball or with shot; and the weight of the shot they estimate at a moiety more, or, at the most, at double the weight of the ball. This calculation comes pretty near to the propositions we have just laid down, except in the difference of size between the calibres twenty-four and thirty, which, notwithstanding, is not sufficiently great in the two cases to require a gradation in the weight of the charge. Others again lay down as a rule for the charge of powder, a measure of the same diameter as the barrel and double that diameter in depth: and, for the shot, a measure of the like diameter, but one-third less in depth than that for the powder; this also agrees tolerably well with the proportions we have mentioned, at least for the powder, but the

measure of shot seems to be too small. In shooting with a rifle-piece, some persons proportion the quantity of powder to three times the quantity which the mould of the ball adapted to the piece will contain.

Although proverbs are generally true, or at least possess some portion of truth, yet nothing is so glaringly absurd, or less founded in rational principles, than that old adage, Sparing of powder, and liberal of shot:' a saying which is not only in the acquaintance, but in the constant practice of most sportsmen. As a consequence of overloading with shot, the powder has not sufficient strength to throw it to its proper distance; for, if the object be distant, one-half of the pellets composing the charge, by their too great quantity and weight, will strike against each other, and fall by the way; and those which reach the mark will have small force, and will produce but little or no effect. Thus to overload is the strange fancy of poachers, who imagine they cannot kill unless they put two ounces, or more, of large shot into their pieces. It is true, that they destroy a great quantity of game, but then it is not fairly shot. Such men are in some measure punished by the severe strokes they receive on the shoulders and cheeks, in consequence of the

excessive recoil.

SHOOTER'S-HILL, on the road to Dartford, in Kent, eight miles and a half from London, is supposed to have derived its name from the exercise of archery, in the neighbouring woods, in former times. On the summit of this hill are some pleasant houses, particularly the Bull Inn, which commands a most extensive prospect of Kent and the adjoining counties. This neighbourhood was formerly noted for robberies, till the road was widened, and much of the coppice-wood cut down. Within the last few years the road on the summit has been lowered many feet, leaving the Bull Inn thirty feet above the level. On the right of the road stands a triangular tower, 482 feet above the level of the sea, which was erected by the lady of Sir E. W. James, in commemoration of his conduct in the East Indies at the taking of Severndroog, from which it is named; near it stands the Admiralty telegraph.

SHOP, n. s. Sax. rceop, a magazine; SHOP BOARD, Fr. eschoppe; low Lat. shopa. SHOP BOOK, Ainsworth. A place where SHOP'KEEPER, any thing is sold, and hence SHOP MAN. where certain things are manufactured the derivatives corresponding.

Our windows are broke down,

And we for fear compelled to shut our shops.

Garth, generous as his muse, prescribes and gives The shopman sells, and by destruction lives.

Dryden,

They that have wholly neglected the exercise of their understandings, will be as unfit for it, as one unpractised in figures to cast up a shopbook. Locke. It dwells not in shops or workhouses; nor till the late age was it ever known that any one served seven years to a smith or a taylor, that he should commence doctor or divine from the shopboard or the anvil; or from whistling to a team come to preach to a congregation. South's Sermons.

Nothing is more common than to hear a shopkeeper desiring his neighbour to have the goodness to tell him what is a clock.

Addison.

the poor business of a shop, should keep us so senseWhat a strange thing is it, that a little health, or less of these great things that are coming so fast upon

us!

Law.

SHOP-LIFTERS (from shop and lifter), those that steal goods privately out of shops; which, being to the value of 5s., though no person be in the shop, is felony without the benefit of clergy, by the 10 and 11 W. III. c. 23.

SHORE, n. s. & v. a. Į Sax. rcone; Goth. SHORE LESS, adj.

skier. The coast of the sea: hence both a drain, and a prop or support: to support; hold up; and, in an obsolete sense, to set on shore: the adjective corresponding.

Beside the fruitful shore of muddy Nile, Upon a sunny bank outstretched lay, In monstrous length, a mighty crocodile. Spenser. They undermined the wall, and, as they wrought, Knolles. shored it up with timber.

I will bring these two blind ones aboard him; if he think it fit to shore them again, let him call me Shakspeare. rogue.

There was also made a shoring or under-propping act for the benevolence; to make the sums which any person had agreed to pay leviable by course of law. Bacon's Henry VII.

He did not much strengthen his own subsistence in court, but stood there on his own feet, for the most of his allies rather leaned upon him than shored Wotton. him up.

Sea covered sea;

SHORE IS otherwise defined a place washed by the sea, or by some large river. Count Marsigli divides the sea shore into three portions; the first of which is that tract of land which the sea

just reaches in storms and high tides, but which it never covers; the second is that which is covered in high tides and storms, but is dry at other times; and the third is the descent from this, which is always covered with water. first part is only a continuation of the continent, and suffers no alteration from the neighbourhood of the sea, except that it is rendered fit for the growth of some plants, and wholly unfit for that

The

of others, by the saline streams and impregnations; and it is scarcely to be conceived by any but those who have observed it, how far on land the effects of the sea reach, so as to make the earth proper for plants which will not grow without this influence, there being several plants frequently found on high hills and dry places at three, four, and more miles from the sea, which yet would not grow unless in the neighbourhood of it, nor will ever be found elsewhere. The second portion of the shore is much more affected by the sea than the former, being frequently washed and beaten by it. Its productions are rendered salt by the water, and it is covered with sand, or with the fragments of shells in form of sand, and in some places with a tartarous matter deposited from the water; the color of this whole extent of ground is usually dusky and dull, especially where there are rocks and stones, and these covered with a slimy matter. The third part of the shore is more affected by the sea than either of the others; and is covered with a uniform crust of the true nature of the bottom of the sea, except that plants and animals have their residence in it, and the decayed parts of

these alter it a little.

SHORE (Jane), the celebrated concubine of king Edward IV., was the wife of Matthew Shore, a goldsmith in Lombard-street, London. Kings are seldom unsuccessful in their amorous pursuits; therefore there was nothing wonderful in Mrs. Shore's removing from Lombard-street to shine at court as the royal favorite. Historians represent her as extremely beautiful, remarkably cheerful, and of most uncommon generosity. The king, it is said, was no less captivated with her temper than with her person; she never made use of her influence over him to the prejudice of any person; and, if ever she importuned him, it was in favor of the unfortunate. After the death of Edward, she attached herself to lord Hastings: and, when Richard III. cut off that nobleman as an obstacle to his ambitious schemes, Jane Shore was arrested as an accomplice, on the ridiculous accusation of witchcraft. This, however, terminated only in a public penance; excepting that Richard rifled her of her little property: but, whatever severity might have been exercised towards her, it appears that she was alive, though sufficiently wretched, in the reign of Henry VIII. when Sir Thomas More saw her poor, old, and shrivelled, without the least trace of her former beauty. Mr. Rowe, in his tragedy of Jane Shore, has adopted the

popular story related in the old historical ballad, of her perishing by hunger in a ditch where Shoreditch now stands. But Stow assures us that street was so named before her time.

SHOREHAM, a parish in Codsheath hundred and lathe of Sutton-at-Hone, Kent, four miles north from Seven Oaks, and twenty from London, near the river Darent. Here is an antique house still called Shoreham Castle.

It has a

charity-school, and a fair on the 1st of May. It is a rectory, value £34 9s. 9d., united with Otford. Patrons, the dean and chapter of West

minster.

SHOREHAM, NEW, a sea-port, borough, and market-town, in Fishergate hundred, rape of

Bramber, Sussex, six miles west from Brighton, and fifty-six south by west from London, on the river Adar. The town lies about a mile within the haven, is singularly built, in the centre of which is the market-house, standing on Doric pillars. It has a considerable traffic, and has a custom-house with a collector, comptroller, and inferior officers. Along the neighbouring coast, during peace, much smuggling is carried on. The church is an extensive building, and was formerly collegiate; of late it has been repaired and greatly beautified. Although it is only a tide haven, yet, as it is the best upon the coast, vessels of considerable burden come into it, it having eighteen feet water at spring tides, but does not rise higher than twelve in common, and has only three feet at the ebb, High-water, full and change, a quarter before ten o'clock. Seven leagues west from Beachy Head. Beyond the town, across the river, is a timber bridge, leading to Arundel and Chichester. The town is a borough by prescription, and has sent members to parliament ever since 1298. It was disfranchised for corruption in 1771; but soon after restored, which circumstance produced an extension of the elective franchise to all the freeholders of 40s. within the rape of Bramber, being in number about 1300. Shoreham has a considerable trade in ship-building, and is noted for the excellence of its oysters. Ella is supposed to have landed here with his three sons, in the year 477, when he defeated the Britons, and founded the kingdom of the South Saxons. Market on Saturday. Fair, July 25th. It is a vicarage, value 6/ 188., in the patronage of Magdalen College, Oxford. The church is in lat. 50° 49′ 59′′ N., long. 0° 16' 19" W.

SHORLING AND MORLING, are words to distinguish fells of sheep; shorling being the fells after the fleeces are shorn off the sheep's back; and morling the fells flead off after they die or are killed. In some parts of England they understand by a shorling, a sheep whose face is shorn off; and by a morling a sheep that dies.

SHORN. The participle passive of SHEAR: which see: with of.

So rose the Danite strong,
Shorn of his strength.

Milton.

Vile shrubs are shorn for browze: the towering height

Of unctuous trees are torches for the night.

Dryden.

pass,

Which more it moved the more it sweeter was.

Sidney. Immoderate praises the foolish lover thinks short of his mistress, though they reach far beyond the heavens. Id.

The Irish dwell together by their septs, so as they may conspire what they will; whereas, if there were English placed among them, they should not be able to stir but that it should be known, and they shortSpenser. ened according to their demerits.

Because they see it is not fit or possible that churches should frame thanksgivings answerable to each petition, they shorten somewhat the reins of their censure.

Hooker.

The necessity of shortness causeth men to cut off impertinent discourses, and to comprise much matter in few words.

Id.

Would you have been so brief with him, he would Have been so brief with you to shorten you, For taking so the head, the whole head's length. Shakspeare.

Id. Id.

The short and long is, our play is preferred. Id. To be known, shortens my laid intent; My boon I make it, that you know me not. I must leave thee, love, and shortly too. Thou art no friend to God, or to the king; Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.

Id. Henry VI. Sir, pardon me in what I have to say, Your plainness and your shortness please me well. Shakspeare.

And breathe shortwinded accents of new broils To be commenced in strands afar. Id. Henry IV. It is better to sound a person afar off than to fall upon the point at first; except you mean to surprise him by some short question. Bacon.

They move strongest in a right line, which is caused by the shortness of the distance.

Id. Natural History. Whatsoever is above these proceedeth of shortness of memory, or of want of a stayed attention.

Bacon.

The English were inferior in number, and grew short in their provisions. Hayward.

We shortened days to moments by love's art, Whilst our two souls

Suckling.

Perceived no passing time, as if a part Our love had been of still eternity. Repentance is, in short, nothing but a turning from sin to God; the casting off all our former evils, and, instead thereof, constantly practising all those christian duties which God requireth of us. Duty of Man. With this the Mede shortwinded old men eases, And cures the lung's unsavory diseases.

May's Virgil. The foolish and shortsighted die with fear That they go nowhere, or they know not where. Denham. In shorthand skilled, where little marks comprise Whole words, a sentence in a letter lies. Creech. The arinies came shortly in view of each other. Clarendon.

And sprightly hope, and short-enduring joy. Dishonest with lopt arms the youth appears, Spoiled of his nose, and shortened of his ears.

Id.

Id.

Id.

Your follies and debauches change
With such a whirl, the poets of your age
Are tired, and cannot score them on the stage;
Unless each vice in shorthand they indite,
Even as nocht 'prentices whole sermons write. Id.
Unhappy parent of a shortlived son!
Why loads he this embittered life with shame? Ia.
He celebrates the anniversary of his father's funerai,
and shortly after arrives at Cumæ.

Shortwinged, unfit himself to fly,
His fear foretold foul weather.
Ducklegged, shortwaisted, such a dwarf she is,
That she must rise on tip-toes for a kiss.

12.

Id.

Id. Juvenal.

So soon as ever they were gotten out of the hearing of the cock, the lion turned short upon him and tor hin to pieces. L'Estrange.

If speculative maxims have not an actual universal assent from all mankind, practical principles come short of an universal reception. Locke.

Boys have but little use of shorthand, and should by no means practise it till they can write perfectly well.

Id. Where reason came short, revelation discovered on which side the truth lay. Id.

To shorten its way to knowledge, and make each perception more comprehensive, it binds them into bundles. Id. Marl from Derbyshire was very fat, though it had so great a quantity of sand that it was so short, that, when wet, you could not work it into a ball, or make it hold together. Mortimer. My breath grew short, my beating heart sprung upward,

And leaped and bounded in my heaving bosom.

One strange draught prescribed by Hippocrates, for a short-breathed man, is half a gallon of hydromel, with a little vinegar.

Id.

A gentleman was wounded in a duel: the rapier entered into his right side, slanting by his shortribs under the muscles. Wiseman's Surgery. The signification of words will be allowed to fall much short of the knowledge of things. Baker. Weak though I am of limb, and short of sight. Far from a lynx, and not a giant quite, I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise, To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.

Pope.

Id.

Though short my stature, yet my name extends To heaven itself, and earth's remotest ends. Virgil exceeds Theocritus in regularity and brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety of style.

Id.

Id.

Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son Shall finish what his shortlived sire begun. Even he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays. Id.

tion; in short, to be encompassed with the greatest To see whole bodies of men breaking a constitudangers from without, to be torn by many virulent factions within, then to be secure and senseless, are death. the most likely symptoms in a state of sickness unto Swift.

That great wit has fallen short in his account."

SHORT (James), A. M. and F. R. S., an eminent optician, born in Edinburgh on the 10th of June, O. S,. 1710. At ten years of age, having lost his father and mother, and being left in a state of indigence, he was received into Heriot's Hospital, where he soon displayed his mechanical genius in constructing for himself little chests, book-cases, and other conveniences, with such tools as fell in his way. At the age of twelve he was removed from the hospital to the High School, where he showed a considerable taste for classical literature, and generally kept at the head of his class. In 1726 he was entered into the university, where he passed through the usual course of education, and took his master's degree with great applause. By his friends he was intended for the church; but, after attending a course of theological lectures, he thought that profession little suited to his talents; and devoted his whole time to mathematical and mechanical pursuits. Having the celebrated M'Laurin for his preceptor, he soon discovered the bent of his genius, made a proper estimate of the extent of his capacity,and encouraged him to prosecute those studies in which nature had qualified him to make the greatest figure. Under the eye of that eminent master, he began, in 1732, to construct Gregorian telescopes; and, as the professor observed in a letter to Dr. Jurin, by taking care of the figure of his specula, he was enabled to give them larger apertures, and to carry them to greater perfection, than had ever been done beShort was called to London, at the desire of fore him.' See OPTICS, Index. In 1736 Mr. Queen Caroline, to give instructions in mathematics to William duke of Cumberland: and, immediately on his appointment to that very honorable office, he was elected F. R. S. and