Stellio, in Grecian mythology, was a youth whom Ceres changed into a lizard (Ovid, M'etam. v, 461).
Stellionatus (from stellio, a tarantiild). a name apjilied in tlie time of the early Church to all imposture and fraud which has no special title in law — such as mortgaging propertj' already engaged ; changing wares which have been sold, or corrupting them ; substituting baser metal for gold. The chief of these crimes were forgery, calumny, flattery, deceitfulness in trust, and de- ceit fulness in traffic. See Bingham, Christ. Antiq. bk. xvi, ch. xii, § 14.
Stem (2'T5, yeza, the stump of a tree as cut down, ".stock," Job xiv. 8; hence the trunk of a tree, whether old [Isa. xi, 1] or just planted, "stock" [xl, 24]).
Stennett, Joseph, Sen., an English Baptist minis- ter, was born at Abingdon in the year 1G63. He show- ed remarkable intellectual ability in his youth, and made himself t>rolicieiit in French, Italian, and Hebrew and other Oriental languages by the time he was not far from twenty-one years of age. He was ordained ^March 4, 1690, and became pastor of a small church in London, with which he was connected till his death. Such was the position he occii|)ie(i in his denomination that the Bajitists selected him to draw up the address which they presented to king William on his deliverance from a plot to assassinate him. He was also one of the com- mittee of the Dissenters who drafted an address to the queen in 1706. It is a proof of the esteem in which he was held by the religious public that an eminent prel- ate said of him, if Mr. Stennett could be reconciled to the Church, he believed that few preferments in it would be thought above his merit. Mr. Stennett <iied in July, 171.3. His i)ublislied works consist of a volume of poe- try, three volumes of sermons, and sotne coiitroversijil writings, which were somewhat widely circulated in their day. (J. C. S.)
Stennett, Joseph, ./?/»., D.D., a Baptist minister in Kiigl.'iiid, son of the jireceding, was born in London Nov. G, 1G92. For some time he was minister of a Bap- tist Cliurch in Abergaveiniy, Wales'. In 1719 he be- came pastor of a Church in Exeter, where he remained
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eighteen years. He then went to London, and was pas- tor of the Church in Wild Street, Lincoln's Iini Fields, from 1737 to the close of his life. Dr. Stennctt seems to have won the regard not only of his own Church, but of some of the cabinet ministers of (ieorge II, par- ticularly of Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons. He died at Watford in 1758. He published individual Sermons (Lond. 1738-53). See Jones, Christ, Biog, s. V. ; Darling, Ci/clop. Bibliog. s. v.
Stennett, Samuel, D.D., an English Baptist min- ister, son of the preceding, was born at Exeter in 17"27. Like his grandfather and fattier, he early exhibited rare intellectual abilities, making great proficiency in the classic and Oriental languages. Having entered the Christian ministry, he assisted his father for ten years, and at his death was chosen his successor, and was pastor of the Wild Street Church in London thirty- seven years. Dr. Guild, in his Manning and Brown University, says, " Dr. Stennett was regarded as one of the most eminent ministers of his own denomination. His connections, too, with Protestant Dissenters gener- ally, and with members of the Establisheil Church, were large and respectable. One of his constant hearers was John Howard, wiiom Burke has so highly eulogized. George III, it is said, was on terms of intimacy with liim, frequentlj' calling at his house on Muswell Hill." As a scholar and an author Dr. Stennett has no small repute. His works, edited by Rev. William Jones, were published in 1824 in three octavo volumes. (J. C. S.)
Stentor, a Grecian warrior in the armj' against Troy, whose voice was louder than the combined voices of fifty other men. His name has accordingly furnish- ed an adjective which, in common use, describes a voice of unusual volume. It is said that Juno assumed the form of Stentor in order to encourage the disheartened Greeks (^Iliad, v, 785 sq. ; Juven. Sat. xiii, 1 12).
Step or Stair. It may be convenient in this place to give the nomenclature of the different parts of a stair. The vertical surface is called the 7iser (or raiser), the horizontal surface the tread. If the edge have a moidd- ing, it is called the nosing : this never appears in medi- aeval steps. When the tread is wider at one end than the other it is called a whukr, but if of equal breadth a Jlyer. When the tread is so broad as to require more than one step of the passenger, it is called a landing or landing-place, sometimes a resting-place or foot-place. A number of successive steps uninterrupted by landings is a flight, or simply stairs; the part of the building which contains them is the staircase. A flight of winders of which the narrow ends of the steps terminate in one solid column was called a rgse, screw stairs, sometimes a turngrese, now often termed corkscrew stairs ; the central column is the newel. Sometimes the newel is omitted, and in its place we have a well-hole. Stairs that have the lowermost step supported by the floor, and every succeeiiing step supported jointly by the step below it and the wall of the staircase at one end only, are termed geometrical stairs. Stairs constructed in the form nearly of an inclined plane, of which the treads are inclined and broad and the risers small, so that horses may ascend and descend them, are called marches ram- pante-s, or girons rampantes (as at the mausoleum of Ha- drian in Home, St. Mark's in Venice, and in Italy com- monly). Large external stairs are caXlaiX pennons. — Par- ker, Gloss, of Architect, s. v.