SERAMPUR (36), a town of modern aspect in India, on the Hooghly, 13 m.  N. of Calcutta; originally Danish, was purchased by the British in 1845; manufactures paper and mats, and is associated with the successful missionary enterprise of the Baptists Carey, Marshman, and Ward.

SERAPHIC DOCTOR, appellation applied to ST. BONAVENTURA (q. v.); also by Carlyle to the doctors of the modern school of Enlightenment, or march-of-intellect school.  See AUFKLAeRUNG.

SERAPHIM, angels of the highest order and of etheriel temper, represented as guarding with veiled faces the Divine glory, and considered to have originally denoted the lightning darting out from the black thunder-cloud.

SERAPIS, an Egyptian divinity of partly Greek derivation and partly Egyptian, and identified with Apis.

SERASKIER, a Turkish general, in especial the commander-in-chief or minister of war.

SERBONIAN BOG, a quagmire in Egypt in which armies were fabled to be swallowed up and lost; applied to any situation in which one is entangled from which extrication is difficult.

SERFS, under the feudal system a class of labourers whose position differed only from that of slaves in being attached to the soil and so protected from being sold from hand to hand like a chattel, although they could be transferred along with the land; liberty could be won by purchase, military service, or by residing a year and a day in a borough; these and economic changes brought about their gradual emancipation in the 15th and 16th centuries; mining serfs, however, existed in Scotland as recently as the 18th century, and in Russia their emancipation only took place in 1861.

SERINGAPATAM (10), a decayed city of S. India, formerly capital of Mysore State, situated on an island in the Kaveri, 10 m.  NE. of Mysore city; in the later 18th century was the stronghold of Tippoo Sahib, who was successfully besieged and slain by the British in 1799; has interesting ruins.

SERJEANT-AT-ARMS, an officer attendant on the Speaker of the House of Commons, whose duty it is to preserve order and arrest any offender against the rules of the House.

SERPENT, THE, is used symbolically to represent veneration from the shedding of its skin, and sometimes eternity, and not unfrequently a guardian spirit; also prudence and cunning, especially as embodied in Satan; is an attribute of several saints as expressive of their power over the evil one.

SERPUKOFF (21), an ancient and still prosperous town of Russia, on the Nara, 57 m.  S. of Moscow; has a cathedral, and manufactures of cottons, woollens, &c.

SERRANO Y DOMINGUEZ, Duke de la Torre, Spanish statesman and marshal; won distinction in the wars against the Carlists, and turning politician, became in 1845 a senator and favourite of Queen Isabella; was prominent during the political unrest and changes of her reign; joined Prim in the revolution of 1868, defeated the queen’s troops; became president of the Ministry; commander-in-chief of the army, and in 1869 Regent of Spain, a position he held till Amadeus’s succession in 1871; won victories against the Carlists in 1872 and 1874; was again at the head of the executive during the last months of the republic, but retired on the accession of Alfonso XII.; continued in active politics till his death (1810-1885).