medicine with great success. There are several medical works

still extant under this name, which, however, were not all written by the same person. Of these the most important is a Greek treatise "On Female Diseases," which was first published in 1838, Regim. Pruss., 8vo, edited by Dietz and Lobeck. It is an interesting work, and attracted immediate attention, on its appearance, from Ermerins, Haeser, and Pinoff, who published explanatory dissertations and critical emendations of the text. There is also a short Greek life of Hippocrates, which may perhaps be the work of the same writer, and which is to be found in several editions of the works of Hippocrates, as well as elsewhere. Further information respecting Soranus and his works may be found in the different histories of medicine, in the Penny Cyclopædia, and in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, with the works there referred to.—W. A. G. SORBIERE, Samuel, historiographer of France, was born in 1615 at St. Ambroix in Dauphiny. He was educated by his maternal uncle, a Calvinist minister at Nismes, for the church; but on proceeding to Paris in 1639 he took a disgust to the study of theology, and directed his attention to that of medicine. During a visit to Holland in 1642, he assisted in the translation of Camden's Britannia and More's Utopia. After his marriage with a daughter of one of his townsmen, he proceeded to Leyden with a view to establish himself there in his profession. In 1650 he returned to France, and was made principal of the college of Orange. Three years after this event he conformed to the Roman catholic faith, and by this act gained favour at court. The latter years of his life were occupied in literary pursuits, in which he received encouragement from Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV., and the Popes Alexander VII. and Clement IX. On his return from a visit to England he published an account of what he had seen there, which gave so much offence at court that he was arrested and exiled for a time by a lettre de cachet. He died in 1670. During his lifetime he was acquainted with Hobbes and Gassendi. Voltaire, however, speaks disparagingly of him, observing that Sorbière "rubbed against many scientific personages." In 1648 he published a free French translation of a treatise of Gassendi under the title of "Discours Sceptique sur le Passage du Chyle et le Mouvement du Cœur," without, however, acknowledging the obligation he was under to the original author. He also wrote a work headed "Lettres et Discours sur divers matières curieuses."—W. J. P. SORBONNE, Robert de, founder of the famous college of that name at Paris, was born on the 9th October, 1201, in the village of Sorbonne in the diocese of Rheims. His parents were in humble circumstances, and he had to struggle severely with poverty in the early part of his career. He studied at the university of Paris, where he took a doctor's degree, and soon after distinguished himself as a preacher. Louis IX. on hearing of his reputation appointed him to preach before the court, and formed so high an opinion of his talents and character that he made him his chaplain and confessor. He was now on the high road to honour and wealth, and on being made canon of Cambray about 1251, he resolved to devote a large portion of his revenues to the object of assisting young men in humble rank in the study of theology. For this purpose he conceived the idea of founding a college, where a certain number of secular ecclesiastics should live together in common, and being supported out of its revenues should devote themselves entirely to the study and gratuitous teaching of theology. The king favoured his design, and presented him with a site for the college buildings. The pope granted his confirmation, and Robert de Sorbonne going into residence with his fellows and poor students, became himself the head and director of the establishment. It was not till he had governed it with success for eighteen years that he drew up a body of statutes suggested by the experience which he had thus acquired; and so wisely were these statutes constructed that they were never afterwards altered in any material degree. In 1271 he established an affiliated college for the study of philosophy and the arts, in a contiguous locality, which was called the college of Calvi, or the Little Sorbonne. Both these establishments produced a long series of eminent men, and rose to high celebrity. The theological college, in particular, became one of the most renowned and influential societies of Europe. It was distinguished for two chief tendencies—to combine and reconcile theology and philosophy, and to preserve to theology its most strictly orthodox form, and its ascendancy over all the other sciences. Hence the frequent conflicts which the doctors of the Sorbonne continued to wage with all reformers and innovators both in philosophy and theology; and the sinister fame in particular which they acquired at the periods of the Renaissance and the Reformation as the chief patrons of obscurantism and the arch-enemies of truth and liberty. Robert de Sorbonne survived till 1274, and left the whole of his property to his divinity college, which continued to flourish down to the period of the French revolution, when its revenues were seized for the use of the state, its magnificent library was dispersed, and its numerous apartments were handed over to the Parisian artists.—P. L. SOREL, Agnes, the daughter of the Seigneur de St. Gérard, a gentleman attached to the count of Clermont. She was born at Fromenteau in Touraine about the year 1409. Ere she had arrived at womanhood, she was noted for her extreme beauty and her intellectual accomplishments. She was appointed maid of honour to Isabella of Lorraine, duchess of Anjou. On visiting the French court the king, Charles VI I., became deeply enamoured of her. He appointed her maid of honour to his queen, Mary of Anjou. For some time Agnes resisted the king's passion, but at length yielded to his suit; and the monarch entirely abandoned the cares of government, and gave himself up to her society. Finding that she possessed so strong an influence over the king, she used it for the purpose of arousing him to attack the English forces, which had overrun and devastated France since the victories of Poictiers and Agincourt. The success of the king in the battles which followed added to the favours bestowed upon Agnes. However, on account of a disagreement between her and the dauphin, subsequently Louis XI., she retired shortly afterwards to Loches, to a residence which the king had given her. Among other gifts, he bestowed upon her the estate of Penthièvre in Brittany, and the seigneuries of Roquesière, d'Issoudun, Vernon sur Seine, and lastly the chateau de Beauté, on the banks of the Marne. She died at the abbey of Jeumiège while travelling to meet the king, on the 9th of February, 1450. It is supposed that she was poisoned.—W. J. P. SOSIGENES, an Alexandrian Greek, was distinguished as an astronomer, and superintended the correction of the calendar undertaken, 46 b.c., by Julius Cæsar. Beyond the fact of his belonging to the Peripatetic school, little is known of him. His correction of the calendar is mentioned in two obscure passages of the Natural History of Pliny, ii. 8, and xviii. 25.—G. SOTER, elected bishop of Rome in 168, is said to have written against the Montanists. He died in 176.—D. W. R. SOTO, Domingo, a learned Spanish ecclesiastic, born 1494; died 1560. He taught philosophy, first at Alcala, and then at Salamanca, and in 1524 entered the dominican order. He was the first theologian who represented Charles V. at the council of Trent, and was one of the members charged to draw up the decrees of the assembly. He wrote commentaries on Aristotle, and treatises "De Naturâ et Gratiâ," "De Justitiâ, et Jure," with some others.—F. M. W. SOTHEBY, William, English poet, was born in London on the 9th of November, 1757. Losing his father, a colonel in the guards, while yet a boy, he was placed under the guardianship of the Hon. C. Yorke and Mr. Hans Sloane, by whom he was sent to Harrow school. At the age of seventeen he entered the army, and held a commission in the 10th dragoons, when that regiment was engaged in protecting part of the Scottish coast from the incursions of Paul Jones. His duties were not, however, so arduous as to interfere with his devotion to elegant literature. Upon his marriage in 1780 he retired from the army, and settled down as a country gentleman at Mount Bevis, a seat near Southampton, once occupied by Lord Peterborough, and frequented by Pope. In 1788 he made a pedestrian tour through Wales with his brother Admiral Sotheby, the literary result of which was "A Tour," written in verse, and published the following year. In 1791 he removed to London, was elected a member of several learned societies, and by the continual exercise of his courteous and amiable qualities, he made his house a centre of attraction to the most distinguished and eminent portion of the society of the metropolis. When Walter Scott was introduced to him in 1805, the author of Marmion said that he had seen Mr. Sotheby before; for he remembered when a boy in the high school at Edinburgh being punished for leaving his class to see the 10th dragoons, with Mr. Sotheby at their head, marching up the street to quell a mutinous highland regiment which held the castle in possession. "Had the Highlanders fired down the street," continued Scott in his lively manner, "we poets might have been swept away."