SARDIS, capital of ancient Lydia, in Asia Minor, at the foot of Mount Tmolus, celebrated for its wealth, its trade, and luxury, through the market-place of which the river Pactolus flowed with its sands of gold.

SARDOU, VICTORIEN, a popular French playwright, born at Paris; gave up medicine for literature, and his first successes were “Monsieur Garat” and “Les Pres Saint-Gervais,” both in 1800; from that date his popularity and wealth began to flow in upon him; his work has been taken up by Sarah Bernhardt, for whom he wrote “Fedora,” “Theodora,” and “La Tosca” (1887); a number of his plays have been translated into English, such as “A Scrap of Paper,” “Diplomacy,” &c.; was elected to the Academy in 1877; his plays are characterised by clever dialogue and stage effects, and an emotionalism rather French than English; b. 1831.

SARMATIANS or SARMATS, an ancient race, embracing several warlike nomadic tribes, who spoke the Scythian language, and inhabited the shores of the Black Sea and Eastern Europe as far as the Caucasus; fought with Mithridates against the Romans; were overwhelmed by the Goths in the 4th century A.D., and afterwards gradually absorbed by the Slavs.

SARPEDON, the “Nestor” and king of the Lycians, was son of Zeus and Europa.

SARPI, PAUL, an Italian historian of the monastic order, born at Venice; was a man of wide attainments and liberal views; was the champion of the Republic against the Pope; was summoned to Rome, and on his refusal to obey, excommunicated; his life being in peril he retired into his monastery, and wrote the “History of the Council of Trent,” with which his name has ever since been associated; he was held in high honour by the Venetians, and was honoured at his death by a public funeral (1565-1623).

SARTO, ANDREO DEL (i. e.  Andrew, the tailors son), a Florentine artist; painted in oil and fresco numerous works; died of the plague at Florence, his work displays accuracy of drawing and delicacy of feeling (1486-1531).

SARTOR RESARTUS (i. e. the tailor patched), a book written by Carlyle at CRAIGENPUTTOCK (q. v.) in 1831, published piecemeal in Frazer’s Magazine in 1833-34, and that first appeared in a book form in America, under Emerson’s auspices, in 1836, but not in England till 1838.  It professes to be on the PHILOSOPHY OF “CLOTHES” (q. v.), and is divided into three sections, the first in exposition of the philosophy, the second on the life of the philosopher, and the third on the practical bearings of his idea.  It is a book in many respects unparalleled in literature, and for spiritual significance and worth the most remarkable that has been written in the century.  It was written in the time and for the time by one who understood the time as not another of his contemporaries succeeded in doing, and who interprets it in a light in which every man must read it who would solve its problems to any purpose.  Its