JAMES, archbishop of St. Andrews, was born of a good family in Banffshire in the year 1618. He devoted himself early to the church, and was educated for that purpose in the university of Aberdeen. When the solemn league and covenant was framed in 1638, the learned men in that seminary, and young Sharp in particular, declared themselves decidedly against it. To avoid the insults and indignities to which he was subjected in consequence of this conduct, he retired to England, where he contracted an acquaintance with some of the most celebrated divines in that country.

At the commencement of the civil wars he returned to Scotland. During his journey thither, he accidentally met with Lord Oxenford, who was so charmed with his conversation that he invited him to his house. While he resided with that nobleman, he became known to the Earl of Rothes, who procured him a professorship at St. Andrews. By the interest of the Earl of Crawford, he was soon afterwards appointed minister of Crail, where he conducted himself, it is said, in an exemplary manner.

Sharp had always inclined to the cause of royalty, and had for some time kept up a correspondence with his exiled prince. After this he began to declare himself more openly, and seems to have enjoyed a great share of the confidence of Monk, who was at that time planning the restoration of Charles II. When that general marched to London, the presbyterians sent Sharp to attend him, in order to support their interests. At the request of General Monk and the chief presbyterians in Scotland, Mr Sharp was sent over to the king at Breda, to procure from him, if possible, the establishment of presbyterianity. On his return, he assured his friends that "he had found the king very affectionate to Scotland, and resolved not to wrong the settled government of the church; but he apprehended they were mistaken who went about to establish the presbyterian government."

Charles was soon afterwards restored without any terms. All the laws passed in Scotland since the year 1638 were repealed; the king and his ministers resolved at all hazards to restore prelacy. Mr Sharp, who had been commissioned by the Scotch presbyterians to manage their interests with the king, was prevailed upon to abandon the party; and as a reward for his compliance, he was made archbishop of St Andrews. This conduct rendered him very odious in Scotland. He was accused of treachery and perfidy, and reproached by his old friends as a traitor and renegade. The absurd and wanton cruelties which were afterwards committed, and which were imputed in a great measure to the archbishop, rendered him still more detested. Nor is it probable that these accusations were without foundation. The very circumstance of his having formerly been of the presbyterian party would induce him, after forsaking them, to treat them with severity. Besides, it is certain, that when, after the rout at Pentland Hills, he received an order from the king to stop the executions, he kept it for some time before he produced it to the council.

There was one Mitchell, a preacher, and a desperate fanatic, who had formed the design of taking vengeance for these cruelties by assassinating the archbishop. He fired a pistol at him as he was sitting in his coach; but the bishop of Orkney, lifting up his hand at the moment, intercepted the ball. Though this happened in the midst of Edinburgh, the primate was so much detested, that nobody stopped the assassin, who, having walked leisurely home, and thrown off his disguise, returned, and mixed unsuspiciously with the crowd. Some years afterwards, the archbishop observing a man eyeing him with keenness, suspected that he was the assassin, and ordered him to be brought before him. It was Mitchell. Two loaded pistols were found in his pocket. The primate offered him a pardon if he would confess the crime. The man complied; but Sharp, regardless of his promise, conducted him to the council. The council also gave him a solemn promise of pardon if he would confess his guilt, and discover his accomplices. They were much disappointed to hear that only one man was privy to his purpose, who was since dead. Mitchell was then brought before a court of justice, and ordered to make a third confession, which he refused. He was imprisoned for several years, and then tried. His own confession was urged against him. It was in vain for him to plead the illegality of that evidence, and to appeal to the promise of pardon previously given. The council took an oath that they had given no such promise, and Mitchell was condemned. Lauderdale, who at that time governed Scotland, would have pardoned him, but the primate insisted on his execution, observing, that if assassins were permitted to go unpunished, his life must be continually in danger. Mitchell was accordingly executed.

Sharp had a servant, one Carmichael, who by his cruelty had rendered himself particularly odious to the zealots. Nine men formed the resolution of waylaying him in Magnus Moor, about three miles from St Andrews. While they were waiting for this man, the primate himself appeared, with very few attendants. This they looked upon as a declaration of heaven in their favour; and calling out, "the Lord has delivered him into our hands," they ran up to the carriage. They fired at him without effect; a circumstance which was afterwards imputed to magic. They then despatched him with their swords, regardless of the tears and entreaties of his daughter, who accompanied him.

Thus fell Archbishop Sharp, whose memory is even at present detested by the common people of Scotland. His abilities were certainly good, and in the early part of his life he appears with honour and dignity. But his conduct afterwards was too cruel and insincere to merit approbation. His treatment of Mitchell was mean and vindictive. How far he contributed to the measures adopted against the presbyterians is not certain. They were equally cruel and impolitic; nor did their effects cease with the measures them- Sharp, Abraham, an eminent English mathematician and astronomer, was born at Little Horton, near Bradford, in the year 1651. He was put as apprentice to a merchant at Manchester; but so strongly was he inclined to the study of mathematics, that he soon found his situation both irksome and disagreeable. By the mutual consent, therefore, of his master and himself, he quitted the business of a merchant. He then removed to Liverpool, where he devoted himself wholly to mathematical studies, and where, for a subsistence, he taught writing and accounts.

Soon after this, a merchant from London, in whose house the celebrated Flamsteed then lodged, engaged Sharp to be his book-keeper. With this eminent astronomer he soon contracted an intimate friendship, and by his recommendation he obtained a more profitable employment in the dock-yard of Chatham, where he continued till his friend and patron called him to his assistance. Mr Sharp was chiefly employed in the construction of the mural arch, which he finished in the course of fourteen months, so entirely to the satisfaction of Flamsteed, that he spoke of him in terms of the highest praise. In the opinion of Smeaton, this was the first good instrument of the kind, and Sharp the first artist who cut delicate divisions on astronomical instruments. When this instrument was constructed, Sharp was but twenty-five and Flamsteed thirty years of age. Mr Sharp assisted his friend in making a catalogue of nearly three thousand fixed stars, with their longitudes and magnitudes, their right ascensions and polar distances, with the variations of the same while they change their longitude by one degree.

But, from the fatigue of constantly observing the stars by night in a cold thin air, added to a weakly constitution, his health was much impaired. For the recovery of it he requested leave to retire to his house at Horton, where, as soon as he felt himself recovering, he began to fit up an observatory of his own; and the telescopes he made use of were all of his own construction, and the lenses ground and adjusted with his own hands.

It was about this time that he assisted Flamsteed in calculating most of the tables in the second volume of his Historia Cælestis, as appears by their letters, to be seen in the hands of Sharp's friends at Horton. The mathematician, says Dr Hutton, meets with something extraordinary in Sharp's elaborate treatise of Geometry Improved; by a large and accurate table of segments of circles, its construction and various uses in the solution of several difficult problems, with compendious tables for finding a true proportional part; and their use in these or any other tables exemplified in making logarithms, or their natural numbers, to sixty places of figures, there being a table of them for all primes to 1100, true to sixty-one figures. His concise treatise of Polyedra, or solid bodies of many bases, both of the regular ones and others, to which are added twelve new ones, with various methods of forming them, and their exact dimensions in surds and in numbers; illustrated with a variety of copperplates, neatly engraved by his own hands. Indeed few of the mathematical instrument makers could exceed him in exactly graduating or neatly engraving mathematical or astronomical instruments. He possessed a remarkably clear head for contriving, and an extraordinary hand for executing anything, not only in mechanics, but likewise in drawing, writing, and making the most beautiful figures, in all his calculations and constructions.

The quadrature of the circle was undertaken by him for his own amusement, in the year 1699, deduced from two different series, by which the truth of it was proved to seventy-two places of figures, as may be seen in Sherwin's Tables of Logarithms. In the same book may likewise be seen his ingenious improvements on the making of logarithms, and the constructing of the natural sines, tangents, and secants.

Mr Sharp kept up a correspondence with most of the eminent mathematicians and astronomers of his time, as Flamsteed, Newton, Halley, Wallis, Hodson, the answers to whose letters are all written on the backs or empty spaces of the letters he received, in a short hand of his own invention. Being one of the most accurate and indefatigable computers who ever existed, he was many years the common resource for Flamsteed, Sir Jonas Moor, Halley, and others, in all sorts of troublesome and delicate calculations.

Sharp was never married, and spent his time as a hermit. He was of a middle stature, very thin, of a weakly constitution, and remarkably feeble during the last three or four years before his death, which happened on the 18th of July 1742, in the ninety-first year of his age.

He was very irregular as to his meals, and uncommonly sparing in his diet. A little square hole, resembling a window, formed a communication between the room where he usually studied, and another where a servant could enter; and before this hole he had contrived a sliding board. It often happened, that the breakfast, dinner, and supper, have remained untouched, when the servant had gone to remove what was left, so deeply was he engaged in calculations.

Music. See Music.

Shaster or Shastrah, the name of a sacred book, in high estimation among the idolaters of Hindustan, containing all the dogmas of the religion of the Brahmans, and all the ceremonies of their worship, and serving as a commentary on the Vedam.

The term Shaster denotes science or system; and is applied to other works of astronomy and philosophy, which have no relation to the religion of the Indians. None but the Brahmans and rajahs of India are allowed to read the Vedam; the priests of the Banians, called Shuderis, may read the Shaster; and the people in general are allowed to read only the Param or Pouran, which is a commentary on the Shaster.

The Shaster is divided into three parts, the first containing the moral law of the Indians; the second, the rites and ceremonies of their religion; and the third, the distribution of the people into tribes or classes, with the duties pertaining to each class.

The principal precepts of morality, contained in the first part of the Shaster, are the following: That no animal be killed, because the Indians attribute souls to brute animals as well as to mankind; that they neither hear nor speak evil, nor drink wine, nor eat flesh, nor touch any thing that is unclean; that they observe the feasts, prayers, and washings which their law prescribes; that they tell no lies, nor be guilty of deceit in trade; that they neither oppress nor offer violence to one another; that they celebrate the solemn feasts and fasts, and appropriate certain hours of ordinary sleep to cultivate a disposition for prayer; and that they do not steal or defraud one another.

The ceremonies, contained in the second part of the Shaster, are these. That they wash often in the rivers, thereby obtaining the pardon of their sins; that they mark their forehead with red, in token of their relation to the Deity; that they present offerings and prayers under certain trees, set apart for this purpose; that they pray in the temples, make oblations to their pagodas or idols, sing hymns, and make processions; that they make pilgrimages to distant rivers, and especially to the Ganges, there to wash themselves and make offerings; that they make vows to particular saints, according to their respective departments; that they render homage to the Deity at the first sight of the sun; that they pay their respect to the sun and moon, which are the two eyes of the Deity; and that they treat with particular veneration those animals that are deemed more pure than others, because the souls of men have transmigrated into these animals.

The third part of the Shaster records the distribution of the people into four classes; the first being that of the Brahmans or priests, appointed to instruct the people; the second, that of the kutteris or nobles, who are the magistrates; the third, that of the shudderis or merchants; and the fourth, that of the mechanics. Each person is required to remain in the class in which he was born, and to pursue the occupation assigned to him by the Shaster. According to the Brahmans, the Shaster was imparted by God himself to Brahma, and by him to the Brahmans, who communicated the contents of it to the people.

Modern writers have given us very different accounts of the antiquity and importance of the Shaster. Mr Holwell, who had made considerable progress in the translation of this book, apprehends that the mythology as well as the cosmogony of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, was borrowed from the doctrines of the Brahmans contained in it, even to the copying of the exteriors of worship, and the distribution of their idols, though grossly mutilated and adulterated. With respect to the Vedam and Shaster, or scriptures, of the Gentooos, this writer informs us, that Vedam, in the Malabar language, signifies the same as Shaster in the Sanscrit; and that the first book is followed by the Gentooos of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, and also of the island of Ceylon. The Shaster is followed by the Gentooos of the provinces of Bengal, and by all the Gentooos of the rest of India, commonly called India Proper, along the course of the rivers Ganges and Jumna, to the Indus. Both these books, he says, contain the institutes of their respective religion and worship, as well as the history of their ancient rajahs and princes, often couched under allegory and fable. Their antiquity is contended for by the partisans of each; but he thinks that the similitude of their names, idols, and great part of their worship, leaves little room to doubt, nay plainly evinces, that both these scriptures were originally one. He adds, if we compare the great purity and chaste manners of the Shaster with the great absurdities and impurities of the Vedam, we need not hesitate to pronounce the latter a corruption of the former.

With regard to the high original of these scriptures, the Shaster account of the Brahmans is as follows. Brahma, or the Mighty Spirit, about 4866 years ago, assumed the form of man, and the government of Hindustan. He translated the divine law, designed for the restoration of mankind, who had offended in a pre-existent state, and who are now in their last scene of probation, to the dignity from which they were degraded, out of the language of angels, into the well-known Sanscrit language, and called his translation the Six Scriptures of Divine Words of the Mighty Spirit. He appointed the Brahmans, deriving their name from him, to preach the word of God; and the doctrines of the Shaster were accordingly preached in their original purity a thousand years. About this time there was published a paraphrase on the Chartah Bhade, or Six Scriptures; and about five hundred years afterwards a second exposition appeared, called the Eighteen Books of Divine Words, written in a character compounded of the common Hindustan and the Sanscrit. This innovation produced a schism among the Gentooos; on which occasion, it is said, those of Coromandel and Malabar formed a scripture of their own, which they pretended to be founded on the Chartah Bhade of Brahma, and called it the Vedam of Birmah, or Divine Words of the Mighty Spirit. The original Chartah Bhade was thrown aside, and at length wholly unknown, except to a few families, who can still read and expound it in the Sanscrit character. With the establishment of the Aughtorrah Bhade and Vedam, which, according to the Gentoo account, is 3366 years ago, their polytheism commenced; and the principles of religion became so obscure, and their ceremonies so numerous, that every head of a family was obliged to keep a Brahmin as a guide both in faith and practice. Mr Holwell is of opinion that the Chartah Bhade, or original scriptures, are not copied from any other system of theology promulgated to or obtruded upon mankind. The Gentooos do not attribute them to Zoroaster; and Mr Holwell supposes that both Zoroaster and Pythagoras visited Hindustan, not to instruct, but to be instructed.

From the account of Mr Dow, we learn that the books which contain the religion and philosophy of the Hindus are distinguished by the name of Vedas; that they are four in number, and, like the sacred writings of other nations, are said to have been penned by the Divinity. Veda, he says, in the Sanscrit language, literally signifies science; and these books treat not only of religion and moral duties, but of every branch of philosophical knowledge. The Brahmans maintain that the Vedas are the divine laws which Brahma, at the creation of the world, delivered for the instruction of mankind; but they affirm that their meaning was perverted in the first age by the ignorance and wickedness of some princes, whom they represent as evil spirits, who then haunted the earth.

The first credible account we have of the Vedas is, that about the commencement of the Cal Jug, of which era the year 1768 was the 4866th year, they were written, or rather collected, by a great philosopher and reputed prophet, called Beiss Muni, or Beiss the Inspired.

The Hindus, says Mr Dow, are divided into two great religious sects; the followers of the doctrine of Bedang, which is the original Shaster or commentary upon the Vedas; and those who adhere to the principles of the Neadirsen. The original Shaster is called Vedang, and is a commentary upon the Vedas. This book, he says, is erroneously called in Europe the Vedam. It is ascribed to Beiss Muni, and is said to have been revised some years after by one Serrider Swami, since which time it has been reckoned sacred, and not subject to any farther alterations.

Almost all the Hindus of the Deccan, and those of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, are of this sect. The followers of the Vedang Shaster do not allow that any physical evil exists. They maintain that God created all things perfectly good; but that man, being a free agent, may be guilty of moral evil, which may be injurious to himself; but can be of no detriment to the general system of nature. God, they say, being perfectly benevolent, never punished the wicked otherwise than by the pain and affliction which are the natural consequences of evil actions; and hell, therefore, is no other than a consciousness of evil.

The Neadirsen Shaster is said to have been written by a philosopher called Gautama nearly four thousand years ago. The Brahmins, from Mr Dow's account of their sacred books, appear to believe invariably in the unity, eternity, omniscience, and omnipotence of God; and the polytheism of which they have been accused is no more than a symbolical worship of the divine attributes, which they divide into three classes. Under the name of Brahma, they worship the wisdom and creative power of God; under the appellation of Vishen, his providential and preserving quality; and under that of Shevah, that attribute which tends to destroy.