STABAT MATER, A Latin hymn on the dolours of the Virgin, beginning with these words, and composed in the 13th century by Jacopone da Todi, a Franciscan monk, and set to music by several composers, the most popular being Rossini’s.

STADIUM, the course on which were celebrated the great games (foot-racing, wrestling, &c.) of ancient Greece, held at Olympia, Athens, and other places; the most famous was that laid out at Olympia; length 600 Greek feet, which was adopted as the Greek standard of measure, and equalled 6061/2 English feet.

STADTHOLDER, an anglicised form of the Dutch “stadhouder” (i. e. stead-holder), a title conferred on the governors of provinces in the Low Countries, but chiefly associated with the rulers of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht; in 1544 the title was held by William the Silent, and continued to be the designation of the head of the new republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands until 1802, when William V. was compelled to resign his stadtholdership to France, the country afterwards assuming a monarchical government.

STAEL, MADAME DE, distinguished French lady, born in Paris, daughter of Necker, and only child; a woman of eminent ability, and an admirer of Rousseau; wrote “Letters” on his character and works; married a man ten years older than herself, the Baron de Stael-Holstein, the Swedish ambassador in Paris, where she lived all through the events of the Revolution in sympathy with the royal family; wrote an appeal in defence of the queen, and quitted the city during the Reign of Terror; on her return in 1795 her salon became the centre of the literary and political activity of the time; the ambition of Napoleon excited her distrust, and forced her into opposition so expressed that in 1801 she was ordered to leave Paris within 24 hours, and not to come within 40 leagues of it; in 1802 she was left a widow, and soon after she went first to Weimar, where she met Goethe and Schiller, and then to Berlin; by-and-by she returned to France, but on the publication of her “Corinne,” was ordered out of the country; after this appeared her great epoch-making work on Germany, “L’Allemagne,” which was seized by the French censors; after this she quitted for good the soil of France, to which she had returned; settled in Switzerland, at Coppet, where she died (1766-1817).

STAFFA ("pillar Island"), an uninhabited islet of basaltic formation off the W. coast of Scotland, 54 m.  W. of Oban; 11/2 m. in circumference, and girt with precipitous cliffs, except on the sheltered NE., where there is a shelving shore; is remarkable for its caves, of which Fingal’s Cave is the most famous, having an entrance 42 ft. wide and 66 ft. high, and penetrating 227 ft.

STAFFORD (20), county town of Staffordshire, on the Sow, 29 m.  NNW. of Birmingham; has two fine old churches, St. Mary’s and St. Chad’s, interesting architecturally, King Edward’s grammar school, and Stafford Castle finely situated on the outskirts; is an important railway centre, and noted for its boot and shoe manufactures.