SHEL'TON, THOMAS Id. 1612). The first translator of Don Quixote into English. He is thought to have been the Thomas Sheldon who was entered at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1581. Shelton e as later connected in someway with Lo•d HOWil rd of Walden. in 1607 he translated the first part of ('ervantes's famous romance from the Spanish edition issued in that year at Brussels. In 1019 the translation appeared and met with instant success. The anonymous translation of the sec ond part (1020) is also Shelton's beyond reason able doubt. Shelton was thus the first to intro duce to Englishmen a romance which has really become a part of English literature, through imi tation and absorption. But Shelton was not so accurate in his scholarship as some recent translators have been. Consult the reprint of his translation edited by Kelly (in "Tudor Transla tions," London, 1890). This translation is valu able especially because its quaint Elizabethan English gives the same flavor as the now archaic Spanish of Cervantes.
SHEM (Ileb., name, or possibly an abbrevia tion of Rhernuel, name of God). According to
the Book of Genesis, the eldest of the three sons of Noah, from whom the whole wo•ld was re populated after the flood. The genealogies in the Table of Nations (Gen. x.) and in the line of Abraham (ell. xi.) are compiled from strata of most different ages, and it is impossible to ob tain a harmonious view of them, or to accommo date them to our ethnical and political points of view, although arelnrology is fast contributing to their elucidation. According to ix. 26 et seq. Sheen stands in the line of the religion of Jehovah, and x. 21 makes him particularly the ancestor of the Hebrews; hence it is argued that Sheen originally represented Israel and the other two sons races in or about Palestine, and that a later tradition has amplified these terms into a world-wideiconnotation. Consult the commenta ries on Genesis, especially Dittman (Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1897) and Gunkel (GiAtingen, 1902) ; Budde, (irgesehichic (Giessen. 1883). See SEMITES; SEMITIC LANGUAGES.