SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON, English man of letters, born at Bristol; educated at Harrow and Oxford; author of “The Renaissance in Italy,” a work which shows an extensive knowledge of the subject, and is written in a finished but rather flowery style, and a number of other works of a kindred nature showing equal ability and literary skill; his translation of Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography is particularly noteworthy; was consumptive, and spent his later years at Davos, in the Engadine (1840-1893).

SYMPHLAGADES, two fabulous floating rocks at the entrance of the Euxine, which, when driven by the winds, crushed every vessel that attempted to pass between them; the ship ARGO (q. v.) managed to pass between them, but with the loss of part of her stern, after which they became fixed.

SYMPHONY, an elaborate orchestral composition consisting usually of four contrasted and related movements; began to take distinctive shape in the 17th century, and was for long merely a form of overture to operas, &c., but as its possibilities were perceived was elevated into an independent concert-piece, and as such exercised the genius of Mozart and Haydn, reaching its perfection of form in the symphonies of Beethoven.

SYNAGOGUE, a Jewish institution for worship and religious instruction which dates from the period of the Babylonian Captivity, specially to keep alive in the minds of the people a knowledge of the law.  The decree ordaining it required the families of a district to meet twice every Sabbath for this purpose, and so religiously did the Jewish people observe it that it continues a characteristic ordinance of Judaism to this day.  The study of the law became henceforth their one vocation, and the synagogue was instituted both to instruct them in it and to remind them of the purpose of their separate existence among the nations of the earth.  High as the Temple and its service still stood in the esteem of every Jew, from the period of the Captivity it began to be felt of secondary importance to the synagogue and its service.  With the erection and extension of the latter the people were being slowly trained into a truer sense of the nature of religious worship, and gradually made to feel that to know the will of God and do it was a more genuine act of homage to Him than the offering of sacrifices upon an altar or the observance of any religious rite.  Under such training the issue between the Jew and the Samaritan became of less and less consequence, and he and not the Samaritan was on the pathway which led direct to the final worship of God in spirit and in truth (John iv. 22).