he laboured. His next publications were A Treatise on the Nature and Laws of Chance (1740); Essays on Several Curious and Useful Subjects in Speculative and Mixed Mathematicks (1740); The Doctrine of Annuities and Reversions deduced from General and Evident Principles (1742); and Mathematical Dissertations on a Variety of Physical and Analytical Subjects (1743). Soon after the publication of his Essays he was chosen a member of the Royal Academy at Stockholm; in 1743 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich; and in 1745 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1745 he published A Treatise of Algebra, with an appendix containing the construction of geometrical problems, and in 1747 the Elements of Plane Geometry. The latter book, unlike many others with the same title, is not an edition of Euclid's Elements, but an independent treatise, and the solutions of problems contained in it (and in the appendix to the Algebra as well) are in general exceedingly ingenious. In his Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical, with the Construction and Application of Logarithms, which appeared in 1748, there is a tolerably uniform use of contractions for the words sine, tangent, &c., prefixed to the symbol of the angle. The Doctrine and Application of Fluxions (1750) was more comprehensive than his earlier work on the same subject and was so different that he wished it to be considered as a new book and not as a second edition of the former. In 1752 appeared Select Exercises for Young Proficients in the Mathematicks, and in 1757 his Miscellaneous Tracts on Some Curious and Very Interesting Subjects in Mechanics, Physical Astronomy and Speculative Mathematics, the last and perhaps the greatest of all his works. From the year 1735 he had been a frequent contributor to the Ladies' Diary, an annual publication partly devoted to the solution of mathematical problems, and from 1754 till 1760 inclusive he was the editor of it. He died at Market Bosworth on the 14th of May 1761.
See Charles Hutton, Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary (1815).
SIMROCK, KARL JOSEPH (1802-1876), German poet and man of letters, was born on the 28th of August 1802 at Bonn, where his father was a music publisher. He studied law at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, and in 1823 entered the Prussian civil service, from which he was expelled in 1830 for writing a poem in praise of the French July revolution. Afterwards he was admitted as lecturer at the university of Bonn, where in 1850 he was made a professor of Old German literature; and in which city he died on the 18th of July 1876. Simrock established his reputation by his excellent modern rendering of the Nibelungenlied (1827), and of the poems of Walther von der Vogelweide (1833).
Among other works translated by him into modern German were the Arme Heinrich of Hartmann von Aue (1830), the Parzival and Titurel of Wolfram von Eschenbach (1842), the Tristan of Gottfried of Strassburg (1855), and the Heldenbuch (1843-1849), which he supplemented with independent poems. Before the publication of this work he had shown an original poetical faculty in Wieland der Schmied (1835); and in 1844 he issued a volume of Gedichte in which there are many good lyrics, romances and ballads. In 1850 appeared Lauda Sion, and in 1857 the Deutsche Sionsharfe, collections of Old German sacred poetry. Of his republications the most popular and the most valuable were the Deutschen Volksbücher, of which fifty-five were printed between 1839 and 1867. His best contribution to scholarship was his Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie (1853-1855). At an early stage of his career Simrock took a high place among students of Shakespeare by his Quellen des Shakespeare in Novellen, Märchen und Sagen (1831); and afterwards he translated Shakespeare's poems and a considerable number of his dramas. The large number of editions through which Simrock's translations from the Middle High German have passed (the Nibelungenlied more than forty) bear witness to their popularity. An edition of his Ausgewählte Werke in 12 vols. has been published by G. Klee (1907).
See N. Hocker, Karl Simrock, sein Leben und seine Werke (1877); H. Düntzer, “Erinnerungen an Karl Simrock,” in Monatsschrift für Westdeutschland (1877), and E. Schröder's article in Allg. deutsche Biographie.
SIMS, GEORGE ROBERT (1847–), English journalist and dramatic author, was born on the 2nd of September 1847. He was educated at Hanwell College and at Bonn, and commenced journalism in 1874 as successor to Tom Hood on Fun. His first play, Crutch and Toothpick, was produced at the Royalty Theatre in April 1879, and was followed by a number of plays of which he was author or part-author. After long runs at west end houses, many of these became stock pieces in suburban and provincial theatres. His most famous melodramas were: The Lights of London (Princess's theatre, September 1881), which ran for nearly a year; In the Ranks (Adelphi, Oct. 1883), written with H. Pettit, which ran for 457 nights; Harbour Lights (1885), which ran for 513 nights; Two Little Vagabonds (Princess's Theatre, 1896–1897). He was part-author with Cecil Raleigh of the burlesque opera, Little Christopher Columbus (1893), and among his musical plays were Blue-eyed Susan (Prince of Wales's, 1892) and The Dandy Fifth (Birmingham, 1898). His early volumes of light verse were very popular, notably The Dagonet Ballads (1882), reprinted from the Referee. How the Poor Live (1883) and his articles on the housing of the poor in the Daily News helped to arouse public opinion on the subject, which was dealt with in the act of 1885.
SIMSBURY, a township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., traversed by the Farmington river and about 10 m. N.W. of Hartford. Pop. (1910) 2537. Area about 38 sq. m. The township is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford and by the Central New England railways, which meet at Simsbury village. Among the manufactures are fuses, cigars and paper. A tract along the Tunxus (now Farmington) river, called Massacoe or Saco by the Indians, was ceded to whites in 1648, and there were settlers here from Windsor as early as 1664. In 1670 the township was incorporated as Simsbury. In 1675, during King Philip's War, Simsbury was abandoned; and in 1676 it was burnt and pillaged by the Indians; but it was resettled in the following year. Steel seems to have been made here from native iron in 1727, and in 1739 the General Court of Connecticut granted to three citizens of Simsbury a fifteen years' monopoly of making steel in the colony. Owing to the pine forests pitch and tar were important manufactures in early times. From the N. of Simsbury the township of Granby (pop. 1910, 1383) was set off in 1786. In this part of the township a copper mine was worked between 1705 and 1745, and smelting and refining works were built in 1721. In 1773 the mine was leased by the General Court and was fitted up as a public gaol and workhouse (called Newgate Prison), the prisoners being employed in mining. Some Tories were imprisoned here after 1780; many of them escaped in May 1781. The prison was rebuilt in 1790 and was used until 1827. The W. of Simsbury was set off in 1806 as Canton (pop. in 1900, 2678).
See N. A. Phelps, History of Simsbury, Granby and Canton from 1642 to 1845 (Hartford, 1845).
SIMSON, MARTIN EDUARD VON (1810-1899), German jurist and politician, was born at Königsberg, in Prussia, on the 10th of November 1810, of Jewish parentage. After the usual course at the gymnasium of his native town, he entered its university in 1826 as a student of jurisprudence, and specially of Roman law. He continued his studies at Berlin and Bonn, and, having graduated doctor juris, attended lectures at the École de Droit in Paris. Returning to Königsberg in 1831 he established himself as a Privatdozent in Roman law, becoming two years later extraordinary, and in 1836 ordinary, professor in that faculty at the university. Like many other distinguished German jurists, pari passu with his professorial activity, Simson followed the judicial branch of the legal profession, and, passing rapidly through the subordinate stages of auscultator and assessor, became adviser (Rath) to the Landgericht in 1846. In this year he stood for the representation of Königsberg in the National Assembly at Frankfort-on-Main, and on his election was immediately appointed secretary, and in the course of the same year became successively its vice-president and president. In his capacity of president he appeared, on 3rd April 1849, in Berlin at the head of a deputation of the Frankfort parliament to announce to King Frederick William IV. his election as German Emperor by the representatives of the people. The king, either apprehensive of a rupture with Austria, or fearing detriment to the prerogatives of the Prussian crown should he
