=Sylvia=, daughter of Justice Balance, and an heiress. She is in love with Captain Plume, but promised her father not to “dispose of herself to any man without his consent.” As her father feared Plume was too much a libertine to make a steady husband, he sent Sylvia into the country to withdraw her from his society; but she dressed in her brother’s military suit, assumed the name of Jack Wilful, _alias_ Pinch, and enlisted. When the names were called over by the justices, and that of “Pinch” was brought forward, Justice Balance “gave his consent for the recruit to dispose of [_himself_] to Captain Plume,” and the permission was kept to the letter, though not in its intent. However, the matter had gone too far to be revoked, and the father made up his mind to bear with grace what without disgrace he could not prevent.--G. Farquhar, _The Recruiting Officer_ (1705). I am troubled neither with spleen, colic, nor vapors, I need no salts for my stomach, no harts-horn for my head, nor any wash for my complexion. I can gallop all the morning after the hunting-horn, and all the evening after a fiddle.--Act i. 2. =Sylvio de Rosalva= (_Don_), the hero and title of a novel by C. M. Wieland (1733-1813). Don Sylvio, a quixotic believer in fairyism, is gradually converted to common sense by the extravagant demands which are made on his belief, assisted by the charms of a mortal beauty. The object of this romance is a crusade against the sentimentalism and religious foolery of the period. =Symkyn= (_Symond_), nicknamed “Disdainful,” a miller, living at Trompington, near Cambridge. His face was round, his nose flat, and his skull “pilled as an ape’s.” He was a thief of corn and meal, but stole craftily. His wife was the village parson’s daughter, very proud and arrogant. He tried to outwit Aleyn and John, two Cambridge scholars, but was himself outwitted, and most roughly handled also.--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ “The Reeve’s Tale,” (1388). =Symmes’s Hole.= Captain John Cleve Symmes maintained that there was, at 82° N. lat., an enormous opening through the crust of the earth into the globe. The place to which it led he asserted to be well stocked with animals and plants, and to be lighted by two under-ground planets named Pluto and Proserpine. Captain Symmes asked Sir Humphrey Davy to accompany him in the exploration of this enormous “hole” (*-1829). Halley, the astronomer (1656-1742), and Holberg, of Norway (1684-1754), believed in the existence of this hole. =Symon´ides the Good=, king of Pentap´olis.--Shakespeare, _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_ (1608). =Symphony= (_The Father of_) Francis Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). =Synia=, the portress of Valhalla.--_Scandinavian Mythology._