rly by a small
Government pension granted by Louis Philippe; is best known as the author
of "Obermann," a work of which Matthew Arnold wrote, "The stir of all the
main forces by which modern life is and has been impelled, lives in the
letters of Obermann.... To me, indeed, it will always seem that the
impressiveness of this production can hardly be rated too high"
(1770-1846).

SENATE (i. e. "an assembly of elders"), a name first bestowed by
the Romans on their supreme legislative and administrative assembly; its
formation is traditionally ascribed to Romulus; its powers, at their
greatest during the Republic, gradually diminished under the Emperors; in
modern times is used to designate the "Upper House" in the legislature of
various countries, e. g. France and the United States of America; is
also the title of the governing body in many universities.

SENECA, ANNAEUS, rhetorician, born at Cordova; taught rhetoric at
Rome, whither he went at the time of Augustus, and where he died A.D.
32.

SENECA, L. ANNAEUS, philosopher, son of the preceding, born at
Cordova, and brought to Rome when a child; practised as a pleader at the
bar, studied philosophy, and became the tutor of Nero; acquired great
riches; was charged with conspiracy by Nero as a pretext, it is believed,
to procure his wealth, and ordered to kill himself, which he did by
opening his veins till he bled to death, a slow process and an agonising,
owing to his age; he was of the Stoic school in philosophy, and wrote a
number of treatises bearing chiefly on morals; _d_. A.D. 65.

SENEGAL, an important river of West Africa, formed by the junction,
at Bafulabe, of two head-streams rising in the highlands of Western
Soudan; flows NW., W., and SW., a course of 706 m., and discharges into
the Atlantic 10 m. below St. Louis; navigation is somewhat impeded by a
sand-bar at its mouth, and by cataracts and rapids in the upper reaches.

SENEGAL (136), a French colony of West Africa, lying along the banks
of the Senegal River. See SENEGAMBIA.

SENEGAMBIA, a tract of territory lying chiefly within the basins of
the rivers Senegal and Gambia, West Africa, stretching from the Atlantic,
between Cape Blanco and the mouth of the Gambia, inland to the Niger;
embraces the French colony of Senegal, and various ill-defined native
States under the suzerainty of France; the interior part is also called
the French Soudan; the vast expanse of the contiguous Sahara in the