Charles William, was born on the 19th of December 1742, at Stralsund, where his father had kept a shop. At a very early age he showed a strong desire to follow the profession of an apothecary, and he was accordingly apprenticed to one Bauch at Gottenburg. Among the various books which he read that treated of chemical subjects, Kunckell's Laboratory seems to have been his favourite. He used to repeat many of the experiments contained in that work privately in the night, when the rest of the family had retired to rest. After Scheele's departure from Gottenburg in the year 1766, he served successively at Malmo, at Stockholm, and at Upsal. At the latter place he happily commenced the friendship which subsisted between him and Bergman. During his residence at this place, Prince Henry of Prussia, accompanied by the Duke of Sudermania, visited Upsal, and chose this opportunity to see the academical laboratory. Scheele was accordingly appointed by the university to exhibit to them some chemical experiments. This office he undertook, and showed some of the most curious processes in chemistry. The two princes asked him many questions, and expressed their approbation of the answers which he returned to them. The duke asked him of what country he was, and seemed to be much pleased when Scheele informed him that he was born at Stralsund. On their departure they told the professor, who was present, that they should esteem it a favour if he would permit the young man to have free access to the laboratory as often as he chose to make experiments. In the year 1777 Scheele was appointed by the medical college to be apothecary at Koping. It was at that place that he soon showed the world how great a man he was, and that no Scheele, place or situation could confine his abilities. When he was at Stockholm he showed his acuteness as a chemist, as he discovered there the new and wonderful acid contained in the fluor spar. It has been confidently asserted that Scheele was the first who discovered the nature of the acril acid, and that whilst he was at Upsal he made many experiments to prove its properties. This circumstance might probably have furnished Bergman with the means of treating this subject more fully. At the same place he began the series of excellent experiments on that remarkable mineral substance manganese; from which investigation he was led to make the very valuable and interesting discovery of oxymuriatic acid. At the same time he examined the properties of ponderous earth. At Koping he finished his Dissertation on Air and Fire; a work which the celebrated Bergman most warmly recommended in the friendly preface which he wrote for it. The theory which Scheele endeavours to prove in this treatise is, that fire consists of pure air and phlogiston. The author's merit in this work, exclusive of the encomiums of Bergman, was sufficient to obtain the approbation of the public; as the ingenuity displayed in treating so delicate a subject, and the many new and valuable observations which are dispersed through the treatise, justly entitled the author to that fame which his book procured him. The English translation was executed by Kirwan.

Scheele now diligently employed himself in contributing to the Transactions of the Academy at Stockholm. He first pointed out a new way to prepare the salt of benzoic. In the same year he discovered that arsenic, freed in a particular manner from phlogiston, partakes of all the properties of an acid, and has its peculiar affinities to other substances. In a Dissertation on Flint, Clay, and Alum, he clearly overturned Beaumé's opinion of the identity of the siliceous and argillaceous earths. He likewise published an Analysis of the Human Calculus. He showed also a mode of preparing mercurius dulcis in the humaid way, and improved the process of making the powder of argaliot. Having analysed the mineral substance called molybdena, or flexible black-lead, he discovered a beautiful green pigment, and showed us how to decompose the air of the atmosphere. He discovered that some neutral salts are decomposed by lime and iron, and he decomposed plumbago, or the common black-lead. After observing, with peculiar ingenuity, an acid in milk, which decomposes acetated alkali; he, in his experiments on the sugar of milk, discovered another acid, different in some respects from the above-mentioned acids and the common acid of sugar. He accomplished the decomposition of tungsten, the component parts of which were before unknown, and found in it a peculiar metallic acid united to lime. Having published an excellent dissertation on the different sorts of ether, he found out an easy way to preserve vinegar for many years. His investigation of the colouring matter in Prussian blue, the means he employed to separate it, and his discovery that alkali, sal ammoniac, and charcoal, mixed together, will produce it, are strong marks of his penetration and genius. He found out a peculiar sweet matter in expressed oils after they have been boiled with litharge and water, and showed how the acid of lemons may be obtained in crystals. He found the white powder in rhubarb, which Model thought to be selenite, and which amounts to one-seventh of the weight of the root, to be calcareous earth united to the acid of sorrel. This suggested to him the examination of the acid of sorrel. He precipitated acetate of lead with it, and decomposed the precipitate thus obtained by the vitriolic acid, and by this process he obtained the common acid of sugar; and by slowly dropping a solution of fixed alkali into a solution of the acid of sugar, he regenerated the acid of sorrel. From his examination of the acids contained in fruits and berries, he found not one species of acid alone, viz., the acid of lemon, but also another, which he denominated the malaceous or malic acid, from its being found in the greatest quantity in apples.

By the decomposition of Bergman's new metal, siderite, he showed the truth of Meyer's and Klaproth's conjecture concerning it. He boiled the calx of siderite with alkali of tartar, and precipitated nitrate of mercury by the middle salt which he obtained by this operation. The calx of mercury which was precipitated was found to be united to the acid of phosphorus, so that he demonstrates that this calx was phosphoretted iron. He found also that the native Prussian blue contained the same acid. He discovered, by the same means, that the perlate acid, as it was called, was not an acid sui generis, but the phosphoric united to a small quantity of the mineral alkalis. He suggested an improvement in the process for obtaining magnesia from Epsom salts; and he advises the adding of an equal weight of common salt to the Epsom salt, so that an equal weight of Glauber's salt may be obtained; but this will not succeed unless during the cold of winter. These are the valuable discoveries of this great philosopher, which are to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society, at Stockholm. Most of his essays have been published in French by Madame Picardet and M. Morveau, of Dijon. Dr Beddoes also has made a very valuable present to his countrymen of an English translation of a great part of Scheele's dissertations, to which he has added some useful and ingenious notes.

Viewing Scheele as a philosopher, we must judge of him from his many and important discoveries. What concerns him as a man we are informed of by his friends, who affirm that his moral character was irreproachable. It was matter of remark, that his chemical apparatus was neither neat nor convenient; his laboratory was small and confined; nor was he particular in regard to the vessels which he employed in his experiments, so that we may justly wonder how such discoveries and such experiments could have been made. He understood none of the modern languages except the German and Swedish; and he had not the advantage of being benefited by the early intelligence of discoveries made by foreigners, but was forced to wait till the intelligence was conveyed to him in the slow and uncertain channel of translation.

It was often wished that he would quit his retirement at Kopings, and move in a larger sphere. It was suggested to him that a place might be procured in England, which might afford him a good income and more leisure; and indeed latterly an offer was made to him of an annuity of L300 if he would settle in this country. But death put an end to this project. For half a year before this melancholy event his health had been declining, and he himself was sensible that he would not recover. On the 19th of May 1786 he was confined to his bed; on the 21st he bequeathed all of which he was possessed to his wife, who was the widow of his predecessor at Kopings, and whom he had lately married; and on the same day he departed this life. Thus, in less than two years, the world lost Bergman and Scheele, of whom Sweden may justly boast, as philosophers who were beloved and lamented by all their contemporaries, and whose memory posterity will never cease to revere.

Scheemaker, Scheemakers, Schumaker, or Schumacher, Peter, a Flemish sculptor, who obtained considerable celebrity in England during the Ryckbrack and Roubaillac period of sculpture, was born at Antwerp in 1691. He received his early instructions from his father and from a sculptor named Delvaux. In his youth he visited Denmark, and made a pilgrimage to Rome, which he performed on foot. He afterwards resolved to go to England, and performed a great part of that journey likewise on foot. He paid a second visit to Rome, and again settled in England in 1735. He lived first in Old Palace Yard, and subsequently in Vine Street, Piccadilly, where he was employed on numerous important works, particularly the monuments of Westminster Abbey. The time of his death is not known, but it must have been subsequent to 1770, the year of his return to Antwerp.

As a sculptor Scheemaker did not stand exceedingly high, although he was capable of rivalling Ryckbrack and Roubaillac. He was an excellent designer, and managed well his elaborate costumes; but he rarely or never rose to any of the higher qualities of his art. In Westminster Abbey there are monuments by him to Shakspeare; Dryden; George, Duke of Albemarle; John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, &c. He likewise executed numerous busts and other pieces of sculpture.

Scheffer, Ary, an eminent French historical painter, was born at Dordrecht, in Holland, of French parents, in 1794 or 1795. He studied art under Baron Guerin at Paris, and practised historical and genre painting in that city with very great success. His progress has been, with few exceptions, steadily upwards from 1812, when he exhibited his "Abel and Tirza singing the praises of the Lord" down to his latest work in 1858. Among his most famous pictures are his Goethe's "Faust" and "Margaret," (1831-34); "Francesca da Rimini and her Lover meeting Dante and Virgil in Hell" (1835); "Christ the Comforter" (1836); Goethe's "Mignon," and a "Dead Christ" (1837-1845); "Dante and Beatrice" (1849), &c. He has likewise executed some excellent portraits, among which may be mentioned his La Fayette, Talleyrand, Beranger, Lamartine, Queen Amelie, and Charles Dickens.

Scheffer combines in his pictures many of the excellencies both of the German and French schools, and a few of the defects of both. In turn of thought and manner, for example, he is decidedly German, while in style and colour he is more obviously French, being often rich and beautiful, but wanting in softness and truth. Scheffer is, beyond doubt, a great painter, and many of his works leave but little to desire. He is looked up to, and with reason, by his countrymen as a master in devotional art; and he has fairly succeeded in breaking down that rigid classical conventionalism which so long had hedged in the French school of art. He is at times hurried and careless, though in his more elaborate pictures, he has put forth all the labour which time and genius could expend on them. He was made an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1825, and he was tutor to the family of Louis Philippe. He died on the 15th of June 1858.

Arnold Scheffer, who earned some distinction as a French political writer, and who died in 1853, was the younger brother of the painter; and Henri Scheffer, a younger brother still, and a painter of less note, still survives.

Scheffer, Jean, a learned antiquary, was born at Strasburg in 1621, of an ancient family, descended in a direct line, according to some, from Peter Scheffer, one of the inventors of the art of printing. (See Printing.) He made great progress in languages and in history; and at an early age he published, in 1643, a work of very great learning, De Varietate Navium apud Veteres. Meanwhile his native district of Alsace was frequently exposed to the license attendant on war, and Scheffer, anxious for a learned retirement, betook himself to Sweden, where Queen Christina took him by the hand, and obtained for him, in 1648, the chair of eloquence and of public law in the University of Upsala. Here he worked with surprising diligence till his death on the 26th of March 1679, at the age of fifty-eight.

Besides editing Ælian's Variae Historiae, Plaetorius, Arrian's Tactica, a newly discovered fragment of Petronius, Aphilonius, Hyginus, Justin, Julius Obsequens, and others, he likewise wrote numerous theses, harangues, elegies, and opuscules, besides seventeen distinct treatises which will be found in the 39th vol. of Niceron and in the Biographie Universelle. His Laponnia, or History of Lapland, Franckfurt, 1673, has been translated into German, French, and English, Oxford, 1674. A Memoir of Scheffer, by Eric Michael Fant, professor of history at Stockholm, was honoured with the prize, in 1781, of the Society of Education of Upsala.

Scheid, Everard, perhaps better known by his Latin name Scheidius, was a philologist of distinguished merits, who betrayed early a profound knowledge of the oriental languages, was born at Arnhem, in Holland, in 1742. He was, in 1768, appointed professor at Harderwyck, and on the death of J. Albert Schultens, he obtained the chair of oriental literature at Leyden, which he filled with distinguished ability. He died in 1795. Besides the Minerva of Francisco Sanchez, Scheid left other works, both original and edited, which still perpetuate his name. His most popular book was Glossarium Arabico-Latinum Manuale, being an abridgment of the Arabic Lexicon of James Golius, Leyden, 1769. He published besides, eight other works, which are to be found in the Biographie Universelle. There was projected by Scheid a new Dutch translation of the Bible, but he was prevented by death from carrying out his design.

Scheiner, Christoph, a German mathematician and astronomer, eminent for being one of the first who discovered spots on the sun, was born at Schwaben, in the territory of Mundelheim, 1575. He first discovered spots on the sun's disk in 1611, a few months later than Galileo, and made observations on these phenomena at Rome, until at length reducing them to order, he published them in one volume folio in 1630. He wrote also some smaller pieces relating to mathematics and philosophy, invented the pantograph, and died in 1660.